I’ve got a pretty nice outdoor/garage kitchen and do most of the cooking. I have had and still have some of these items and they all have their time and place just like there is no one boat that does it all but I will be selling or giving a few away. Propane weber q (for the boat), weber, blackstone, offset smoker, and 3 homemade plywood propane cabinet smokers for hanging large batches of sausage in.
Last spring I was laid up with a shattered ankle and couldn’t fish. I was bored so I bought a new toy- rectec 700. I wish I would have bought it a long time ago. I still use my small gas weber in the boat and camping. I still use the weber (although less and less) to sear a steak and kabobs (still prefer burgers on the flat top). I still use the large smokers only for when I do large batches of hanging venison snack sticks that I can’t all fit in the rectec.
But for flavor, convenience, quality, speed of start up and cool down, range of temperature, relatively low fuel use and cost (I get my pellets for $15 for #40 bag at sam’s) and many other reasons not mentioned- the fancy ‘easy bake oven’ gets 95% of my cooking these days. That goes for all the traditional off set items like brisket/butts (sleep in peace on overnight cooks), venison summer sausage that I lay instead of hang like I use to and everything else it’s really hard to beat and I can NOT say I miss the flavor on anything not done on the off set. The extra air circulation cooks things very evenly and I don’t have to rotate stuff all the time. I do add a simple smoke tube to brisket/butts that I already have for cold smoking cheese but thats the only additional smoke I’ve ever introduced.
I use to make fun of the trendy pellet smokers too- and almost bought a masterbuilt gravity feed thing but had two friends who bought them and had nothing but issues because the build quality and components just aren’t there and neither was the flavor in my opinion.
I would buy another one of these in a heartbeat and plan on buying my folks a smaller one this summer as a gift. Wife said her boneless/skinless chicken breasts were $6 a lb the other day so she didn’t buy any and bought a .99/lb whole turkey instead and asked if I could cook it up. I split it in half last night and spice rubbed it. Rolled the smoker outside the garage this morning and plugged it in. I will turn the temp on from my phone before I leave the office and get home, grab a beer, throw the turkey on all in the first 5 minutes home and will be done by dinner. Lazy, convenient, smart? Call it what you will I don’t care. I like baby sitting an off set on a nice summer day when it’s not too hot when I have nothing better to do to. But I don’t like doing it 4 nights in a row when I have #150 of summer sausage for friends to smoke and it’s winter time.
