By ShowMeStepByStepPublished
Based on a video by Mad Backyard.
An electric smoker takes most of the guesswork out of low-and-slow cooking. You set the temperature, load some wood chips, and let it run. No fire to babysit, no charcoal to fuss with.
In this walkthrough, Mad Backyard shows you how to get a Masterbuilt electric smoker up and running from a cold start. You will set up the cooking chamber, fill the water pan, program the digital panel, load the wood chip tray, and get your food on the racks.
The example here is smoked pork chops, but the same routine works for chicken, ribs, or a pork butt. Learn the steps once and every cook after that is easy.
Start with the cooking chamber. Slide a foil water pan onto the bottom rack and pour in a couple cups of water. That water keeps the air inside humid, so your meat stays juicy instead of drying out over a long cook. It also catches drips and makes cleanup a lot easier. Get this in before you turn anything on.
Tip
A disposable aluminum pan works great here and saves you a scrubbing job later.
Power on the Masterbuilt and set your cooking temperature on the digital panel. Press the temp button, then use the up and down arrows to dial in your number. For pork chops, 225F is a solid target. Low and slow is the whole point of smoking, so resist the urge to crank it higher to save time.
Now set the cook time on the same panel. Press the time button and use the arrows to enter how long you want to smoke. The nice thing about an electric smoker is that it runs on its own and shuts off when the timer hits zero. You are not stuck standing over it the whole afternoon.
Tip
Set the timer a little long. You can always pull the food early once it hits temp.
Let the smoker preheat before any food goes in. If yours is brand new, run an empty burn-off first to cook off the factory oils and coatings. Just fire it up with nothing inside and let it run about an hour. The red light means the heating element is on. Give it 30 to 45 minutes to reach your set temperature.
The smoke comes from wood chips. Pull out the loader tube on the side, drop in a handful of chips, and push it back in so they fall onto the hot element. Cherry, apple, and hickory all work well with pork. One tip from Mad Backyard: do not soak your chips first. Dry chips start smoking faster and give you cleaner smoke.
Tip
Check the chips every hour or so and add more. They burn down over a long cook.
Once the smoker is up to temp, get your food in. Coat the pork chops with a BBQ dry rub first, then open the door and lay them out on the racks with a little space between each one. That gap lets the smoke wrap around every piece. Shut the door quick to hold the heat.
Tip
Every time you open the door you lose heat and add cook time. Peek less, trust the smoker more.
Close it up and let it cook. Top off the wood chips every hour and otherwise leave it alone. The only number that matters at the end is the internal temp, so check it with a meat thermometer rather than watching the clock. Pull the pork chops when they hit your target, then let them rest a few minutes before you serve.
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