This is a tale of a little device that's over worked, under loved and hums. It's about the Cookshack Smokette. It's over worked by it's owners. It's under loved by it's competitors and it just keeps hummin' right along. Like your old faithful huntin' hound it just keeps on keepin' on without ever a whimper. Just feed it some meat and it'll perform relentlessly day in and day out always providing outstanding results.
I came up in an offset world. That's all I'd ever cooked on and I doubted that I'd really like cooking on an electric unit. For five years I've been on this forum but never convinced myself to taking the plunge. As age crept up however, the work became too difficult for these old arthritic bones and I sold the offset last year in hopes of buying what is now known as the AmeriQUE. Unfortunately the timing was off. Shortly before the new smoker became available I was able to buy a used 08 at a fair price. I bought it with the idea of getting some experience with it then moving up to the AmeriQUE at a later date. Well, now that I have experienced that little jewel, you'd have to use a crow bar to pry it out of my cold dead fingers.
For my first smoke I did some baby loin back ribs. They were about the same as I'd done in my offset. For my second cook I did a pork butt and here's where we separate the Huntin' Hounds from the Chihuahuas. That was the best pork butt I'd ever done and believe me I've cooked a few. In fact, it was the best pulled pork I've ever had and that's no lie. The meat was more tender, more juicy and with a delightful smoke flavor than could never be accomplished in my offset. Was there a smoke ring? NO! Big whoop. To be honest, I've never been able to taste smoke ring.
So, you ask, how does this guy know the Smokette is so reliable when he's only used it twice? Easy. This cooker was built in November of 1999. I'm quite sure it wasn't used solely by an old maid aunt who used it only to barbecue on religious feast days. Yet, after all these years it performs flawlessly. During one of my boredom periods I dropped the second Maverick probe down the vent hole and monitored the smoker temperature. It varied +/- 20 degrees around the set point. My kitchen oven won't come close to doing that good.
So that's the tale of the Little Machine That Could. I do have one regret though. I wish I'd bought a Smokette years ago.
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