Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Hi all, I am new to smoking-in fact, I have not yet done it. I use my Weber One-Touch Gold and my Weber Genesis EP-320 quite often but now I want to experience the joy of smoked ribs and brisket without having to go to a restaurant. So my question is this. Which way should I go? I want to be able to smoke whenever I feel like it without having to be chained to the smoker all day but I also want true tasting BBQ. Is the electric smoker cheating? Opinions please and any experience would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Waniff,
I had the same question a few months ago. I wanted to buy an electric smoker as you do. It's a good idea, and there are a lot of good electric smokers. If you want to use your smoker only in your backyard, you can buy cheap and compact smoker. You can take a closer look at Weber, Char-Broil, Masterbuilt. All of these brands are popular and good in use. I chose Weber Smokey Mountain, it is not electrical, it's a charcoal one. I got used to it very fast, and now I'm very happy with it! When I was choosing smoker I found a review, I'll attach it here. There are most popular smokers are described and compared, with all pros and cons stuff. Also, you can read reviews from real buyers on Amazon. Go to the official sites, maybe you'll find smth interesting there. I hope it was useful! Good luck. Share your smoker here, when you buy=)

Hi Waniff!

I'm not this guy who's considering electric smokers to be cheating. I got decent results on mine, so let me share my experience with you.
The electric smoker is very nice, convenient, easy to maintain, and produces good food.
The UDS (charcoal/lump) takes more work, but it does produce better tasting food. More smoke flavor.
And one thing the UDS did the electric didn't do was produce a bark. The electric never got a burnt/singe/bark on the food.
If I really wanted to impress, the charcoal is the way to go.
But to me the electric isn't far behind and the convenience is and extremely big pro.

Hope this helps. Happy shopping!

I guess that won't be off-topic and better not to create another thread for my question. My friend advised me Yoder for its quality, and I trust him, however, I can't find any models that could fit in my pickup. Any charcoal egg-type grills or something. Or all of Yoders are not supposed to be transported? I looked through this list of charcoal grills and they all are portable more or less. And for some reason, I can't find any Yoder in review articles. The smallest is Abilene 20", and I am not sure it will fit in my Tundra pickup truck. Can anyone tell me if he had a chance to take any of this brand charcoal grills on trip?

I don't think anything except a charcoal smoker will give you the original and reach taste and smell. So, if I were you, I'd chosen a charcoal one.

Hi Waniff!
I reccommend you to choose a charcoal smoker. The electric smoker is easier to use but he taste of the meat will be much better with a charcoal smoker. I use Weber Smokey Mountain for 2 years and I can't recommend it more. This is a good source: www.yodersmokers.com