Great price for a SM025

Congrats! You will have a lot of fun. Please remember what a friend told me KISS. It(smoking on a cs) is really easy if you don't over think it. Keep good notes and remember its done when its done.

I used to have a Brinkman about 7 years ago. I think it was a brinkman (home depot offset) I loved it but did not always enjoy the 1/2 hourly fire feeding process especially with the long cooking brisket. My only brisket took bout 12 hours over night and I was beat the next day. I swore off brisket and all my beef cooks were only Tri tip. I used remote 2 probes in my old smoker one for the meat and one for the fire so I got pretty good at it. Due to my divorce my ex now has it and does not even have access to it. I was hoping when the divorce settles I would get it but she knows I loved it so it sits at her place as she has never used it.

Anyway last month I made some boneless chicken breasts on my regular webber kettle with a small fire and hickory chunks wrapped in foil. It brought back the memories. So I started looking for a new one at Home depot. After a bit of looking I decided to do more research online and discovered Cook Shack. I enjoy the fire part and would love to get a fast eddy. But for now with my budget and available free time this will be perfect. After my first few test smokes I am hoping my kids will always want to come over any time I am smoking some dinner.

Update,

Its been a week now (order was placed on Tuesday 1-5) and I still don't have any idea when it will arrive. I got the standard thank you for your order email on 1-5 and my statement shows credit card was charged. I expected some kind of tracking/shipping info in the email but there was none.
There is a order tracking button on their web site so I enter my order number and push the button and get the status as "in progress" and shipping information is UPS ground but no tracking number. I have been checking this button about 3-4 times a day since then hoping for info and a tracking number.

Since the info has never changed I am thinking the web info is broken or maybe I am about to lose my money. I emailed them on Friday 1-8 with a request for a tracking number. Vickie sent me an email response saying that my Q is scheduled to ship from Cookshack that afternoon and they cannot get a tracking number till Monday. Monday came and went but no info on the site and no email with tracking info. I am not sure why their service is so poor. I am used to better service when I spend $600 plus dollars. I am also surprised to find out they don't really stock these Q's they just take the order and pass it on to Cookshack.
FYI
I guess their good price is made by slower/poor service.

I am waiting to see how this goes

A lot of places don't stock items they sell and ship direct from the manufacturer. You're saving money cause the retailer has cut their profit to give you a good deal. Keep the faith. They may not provide good feedback, but I'm sure you'll get your smoker and be a happy camper.

Update 2

After pushing the tracking button on their web site for 10 days now, I sent Vicki another email today (1-13) again requesting a tracking number. She did respond with the tracking number and I am expecting it this Friday. Yeah!
It was very disappointing having to beg for information.

After seeing how disorganized this vendor is with their business .. I am relieved to find out that the shipping and delivery part will be handled by Cookshack. Knowing my Q is coming direct from the factory makes me feel a lot better.

Yep,sometimes it is nice to call sales,and have them walk thru the door and tell you the exact info.

They have been there for a half century,so it is nice to have your relationship with them.

Regardless,Cookshack family supports the CS products.

I'm with TOM on this one.Sometimes in a fast paced world after learning hard lessons in life one tends to like to save a few dollars. I have no problem with that, but when someone starts to help...help and asks nothing in return, but to make you happy. It is so hard to believe it makes you start to REGRET the very small amount of money(figured over time).But to each his own.

Oh yea, I always go to Dallas in the spring. I have never seen Ponca City on the way, but you bet I will see it this spring.

Update 3. Smoker arrived on Friday and in anticipation I picked up a small PB that was on sale after work at the store. I unpacked and put the controller in place. After I placed the recommended break in wood into the hopper I powered it up and set it to the recommended temp. I put my remote probe into the unit so I see how the display calibration was. I watched it for a bit and it seemed to be warming up. A bit later I saw smoke as expected coming from the top vent the display temp seemed too low and was not the same as my remote probe. I got busy with other things and when I looked again the display indicated temp had actually gone down and was now in the low 60s but smoke was still pouring out of the top and my remote probe showed almost 400 deg. So it appeared that the temp sensor or controller was defective as the unit never stopped heating.

I pulled the plug and sent an email to CS customer service as they are closed on the weekends. (PB had to go into the freezer)

Monday early am I received a very prompt return email from Bill Vice at CS with advice to check on the temp connection at the controller. He suggested it was connected with reverse polarity. So after work that day I removed the controller and sure enough the red wire on the temp wiring was connected to the + connection which was just the opposite of the wiring diagram. (funny red is usually + in most wiring) Anyway I switched the leads and tested it out and compared the oven and probe temp with my remote probe. Yes !! its is working fine now. Thanks for the prompt response Bill.
Tuesday I smoked a couple of chicken breasts and they came out fine. I will rub up the PB tomorrow and smoke it this Saturday.
Thanks again CS
Looking forward to many smokes

Where have I heard that?Oh anyway,SWEET!!!!!!

Yep,the guys at the plant build them,cook on them,go to the local civic organizations and represent them.

Donate to the community,and when you have a problem,you talk to the owner,the executives,the inventor,and multiple generations of the families.

Plus,Smokin'Okie is in and out of the plant,workin' on projects,and stayin' on top of things.

Hard to beat them Okies,and they know a cooker from a plumbing fixture, on some webpage from India ,or china.

Just my $0.02

From reading the forums it is of the majority that Cookshack has excellent customer service. My response is why were the wires switched? We all pay top dollar for these electric smokers but yet people tend to have these "little" problems. Why do we have to bend the heating element to obtain superb results? In my opinion, the shell of these units are built like tanks but what about all the fine details that go into the craftsmanship of these smokers? Why are things like this being overlooked? If I'm paying this much money for these, they should come in WORKING order!!!!! I'm sure I'm going to get backlash for posting this but call a duck a duck, it is what it is.

kcso. How did your Amerique run when you received it?

I bought a Blackberry mobile phone a few years back and the email system didn't work. I spent over 9 hrs on the phone talking to a manager in India after I requested him cause I couldn't understand my technician. Eventually resolved.

Just got an IPhone a few weeks ago, and the people at Best Buy duplicated and triplicated my contacts cause they had trouble transferring my data. I'm in commercial Real Estate so I wound up with over 7000 contacts. Apple nor AT&T could straighten it out, so I had to manually delete the unwanted information.

I bought a Samsung 55" LCD TV in August, and the stand had to be replaced last week cause the TV started sitting at an angle. Took one and a half weeks for a local technician to come out and fix it.

All three of these products are rated as the "best available" for their categories by independent agencies, but you know "shit happens". All quality products backed by the manufacturer at no financial cost to me (but at a high cost in my time, effort or inconvenience). From what I've seen Cookshack responds quickly and decisively when someone needs them in an effort to make things as good as possible as quickly as possible. Even quality products have problems as I've certainly experienced. Lexus and BMW make great products, but they've also had product recalls. It's how products perform and how the manufacturer responds to occasional problems that makes the difference.

My Elite needed to have the element bent up a tad. Took all of 1.5 seconds. So what. It's a great product, and my friends and family think I'm the Emeril Lagasse of the barbecue world.

I won't even go into the problems I've had with both of my highly rated GE refrigerators.

kcso,
NEVER feel that asking a question about a cs will cause any "backlash". That is not how this forum or cs does business,period.

Now for the element problems. I would guess that since they stick out a ways from the back that during shipping and transportaion that bumps and pot holes tend to make the element want to conform to gravity, hence the need for some people to adjust their elment just a tad bit. I know about the roads here in the Midwest just like you do.

I think about the wiring problem is that happens when you have to put the panel on the cooker after unboxing. The owner put the wire connector on backwards from what I have read.

If you ever have a problem cs is always a phone call away and they are dependable and quite knowledgeable.

This is only what I think are the problems that you asked about.Any other questions?

Great post Pags. Fact is folks don't typically make noise when a product works as expected. For me, my CS worked perfectly out of the box with no issues.

I too could go on about appliances like KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Bosch ... Got a new HP EliteBook in early summer that worked great out of the box as long as I was wireless but would not work on the ethernet connection. After what seemed like hours on the phone with India repeating everything a minimum of three times to someone who barely spoke or understood english, being passed from one phone tech to another, I ended up with a totally crashed system that would not even power up beyond the dreaded "blue screen." Ended up driving 50 miles for "local" warranty repair to find out that a screw had been rammed right through the wire bundle to the ethernet connection during assembly. The thing was fixed in a day and I have had no issue since.

Personally I think the heating element issue is a bit overblown. Think about it; if you bend the heating element in your kitchen oven to the extent that it touches the rack it will most likely create a hot spot and the unit will most likely prematurely fail.

CS has some of the best customer support in the industry. They are accessible and speak english!

db

Points well taken!

quote:

Originally posted by kcso53:
From reading the forums it is of the majority that Cookshack has excellent customer service. My response is why were the wires switched? We all pay top dollar for these electric smokers but yet people tend to have these "little" problems. Why do we have to bend the heating element to obtain superb results? In my opinion, the shell of these units are built like tanks but what about all the fine details that go into the craftsmanship of these smokers? Why are things like this being overlooked? If I'm paying this much money for these, they should come in WORKING order!!!!! I'm sure I'm going to get backlash for posting this but call a duck a duck, it is what it is.

Yeah, here's the backlash (well not really backlash, but maybe a need to put it into perspective)

I'm one of those who tends to say be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Forum won't become a place for rants and negatives, and that IS the direction of CS to me on how to run the forum, so I feel compelled to respond.

That's how they run their business and how they want their problems solve, positively and directly with the Customer.

Have you personally had these issues or are you just generating a thread based on other people's comments?

If you'd been here long enough you would also know the CS wants you to contact them direct.

But you bring up some issues, valid questions.

How DO you solve issues like this? You solve it by the customer contacting you directly and building a personal relationship with anyone who calls. When you call CS, you'll get names of people and if you don't get satisfaction, you can call Stuart the President of CS.

They do NOT monitor the forum, I do (and I don't work for CS) as they want to deal DIRECTLY with anyone having an issue.

As to your points.

Go and count for me how many times someone has posted that a wire was wrong. Please, what's the total. In the last five years, I can't think of maybe 2 or 3. That's probably a good success rate for any manufacturing company.

Bend the element. Remember it's impossible to build the tolerance on something that heats and contracts that it will maintain contact as they recommend. And in shipping it happens. You don't want to add another $100 to the cost of the unit to solve a problem that isn't a problem do you?

You haven't hit on the other common questions. Door leaks smoke (on purpose) and GFCI problems (happens when an element goes bad).

Things happen.

But CS stands behind EVERYTHING they sell, no exceptions.

Think about it. How good is a product when it's users jump all over defending its reputation and its builder?

Oh yeh,and the 30 day no question return policy,if it is broke,or we can't cook,or we should have ordered a different cooker.

The fact that the forum family doesn't attack the person with the problem,but works to help solve the situation and help the cook join and enjoy the CS family.

Most of us have heard the problems,and then seen how quickly the cook with the problem becomes an ardent supporter of the forum and the manufacturing process.

Great post Pags. Thanks Smokin and Tom for the great input.

I have been in a family oilfield pipe supply business and oil & gas exploration business that is 70 years young for 44 years now. Every day we have the best go bad. It is not supposed to happen, but it does.

CookShack by far is the least trouble of anything with moving parts I have ever encountered, and their customer service is by far the very best!

I too purchased my SM025 from Greatbarbecuesmokers.com and it did take a bit of time to arrive. It is a large box and the larger the heavier the more time it takes to ship something, at least in my experience. I am almost certain the reason for longer time as well is they do not stock any of these smokers, so they are dropped shipped.

As far as the electric problem, Hey even the space shuttle has it's problems and they have people checking and rechecking everything. My smoker arrived with some minor interior damage. (had to bend a few things back and a little ding) I let Donna Know about it, in case there was a future issue. They were also going to check on how they pack them. I am happy to say it I have had zero problems. I don't even think I could find the little ding now anyway.

I have a 2009 Honda and the front windshield just cracked. No rock or any damage from anything. Defective glass. Yup, "Shit Happen."

For the record the wires I had to switch were the factory connections between the circuit board and the connector. It was miss-wired when I received it.

I work with automatic control systems for water treatment and power plants and have seen hundreds of problems like this (wrong terminals or reversed) when we start up a new plant. There is always a human error rate that is why we test before use. CS's response time was like a breath of fresh air and the fix took about 5 min.

I am sure most of us have had problems with all sorts of new electronic devices over the years. These things do happen.

You could ask CS (or hire your own) to get a third party to QC the control system before you purchase but the cost might make you think twice.

I am loving how easy it is to Q even in this yucky weather we have been having.

Now I am heading to Raley market for Tri tip thats on sale!!

quote:

Originally posted by cal:
kcso,
NEVER feel that asking a question about a cs will cause any "backlash". That is not how this forum or cs does business,period.

Now for the element problems. I would guess that since they stick out a ways from the back that during shipping and transportaion that bumps and pot holes tend to make the element want to conform to gravity, hence the need for some people to adjust their elment just a tad bit. I know about the roads here in the Midwest just like you do.

I think about the wiring problem is that happens when you have to put the panel on the cooker after unboxing. The owner put the wire connector on backwards from what I have read.

If you ever have a problem cs is always a phone call away and they are dependable and quite knowledgeable.

This is only what I think are the problems that you asked about.Any other questions?