How to Use a Masterbuilt Electric Smoker

Milton Greenaway

The Masterbuilt Electric Smoker is among the top selling smokers in the market today. This smoker is designed to make your work easy and generally allow you to make your smoked meals all year round. It is also a great improvement from the traditional charcoal smokers. With an electric smoker, you get to control the smoke and temperature and ensure that you meal comes out perfect and full of flavor. Below we explain how to use a Masterbuilt Electric Smoker to ensure that you end up with nothing but yummy and soft meals bursting with flavor.

First step for a new smoker

Season the smoker

This is an important step that you should not skip. Once you bring your new Masterbuilt smoker home, ensure that you season it first. Seasoning generally involves running the smoker for three hours straight on a temperature of 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Ensure that the water pan is empty during the seasoning process. Add some wood chips or chunks about 40 minutes before the end of the three hours. After this, your smoker will be ready for use.

If you want to use your smoker immediately, allow it to cool off completely after seasoning. You can then put it on once again after this. Seasoning the smoker ensures that any dust, residue, and solvents are burnt off before using the smoker. Seasoning also guarantees optimal performance and great flavor.

Steps for every smoking session

1. Pre-heat the smoker

You should always preheat your smoker before loading your food in to it. To pre-heat the smoker, load the wood chips in the chips tray, set it to the desired temperature and let it heat for 30 minutes all so or until the smoker starts producing a steady blue smoke. The white smoke initially produced by the smoker is not only bad for your health but it also results to a pungent smoke flavor on your food. This smoker’s inbuilt thermometer will also make it easy for you to tell when the smoker gets to the desired temperature.

The Masterbuilt Electric Smoker control panel is user-friendly. To start the smoker, push the on button just once. To set the temperature, push the Set Temp button. Your smoker will most likely come pre-set to the highest temperature. To adjust the temperature, use the minus button to reduce the temperature or the plus button to increase the temperature.

It is important to note that you do not need to soak your wood chips in water before using then. Soaking the chips in water means that it will take much longer to pre-heat your smoker and get to the desired temperature.

2. Add your food to the smoker

Once the smoker starts producing the good blue smoke, you can now place your food for cooking. You can either place the food on the food tray or on the rack. Just ensure that you do not overstuff the rack or tray if you want your food to cook evenly.

When placing foods directly on the rack, resist the temptation to put some aluminum foil over the rack. Your food will cook better and the flavors will be much richer without it.

Your smoking time will to a large extent depend on the foods you put in the smokers. Some foods such as fish smoke faster when compared to other foods such as beef. You can check the foods a few times if you put in foods with different smoking times in the smoker. As a rule of thumb, thicker meats take longer to smoke and it may take up to 5 hours to get the right flavors.

Just like with normal cooking, proper food preparation will guarantee good results. Rub spices on your food and allow enough time for the flavors to get infused. You can prepare your food and let them marinate overnight or simply rub your spices before you put them in the smoker if you do not have much time.

 

Care after use

Clean your smoker

Once you are done smoking your food, ensure that you clean your smoker. Cleaning the Masterbuilt Electric smoker is easy since the smoker comes with a tray designed to catch any grease and prevent it from splashing all over the smoker. Use hot water and apple cider vinegar to clean your smoker. You can put one part water and one part apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle and use a soft sponge to clean any dirt and grease.

Clean before smoking

If you stay for long before using your best smoker, wipe it before use to get rid of any dirt that might have settled on it. You can simply use a damp clean cloth to clean your smoker before using it.