Smokin Tex VS Smokin-It
The smoked meat is one of the most desirable sorts, no matter you decide to go with white meat, red meat, fish or vegetables smoking. The essence of best smoking lies in the fact that how good is your smoker. There are plenty of varieties available in the market and the best one is not hard to find if you plan well and evaluate solely on the basis of its features. Smokin Tex and Smokin-It are the top most brands available in the market.
The products are reliable, versatile and offer great productivity in a good range of recipes that you wish to smoke.
Both the brands offer different types of smokers such as propane, horizontal offset, vertical water, box, and electric smokers, etc.
However, most in-demand smokers are the electric smokers and those will be discussed here from each brand. We will help you with a comprehensive comparison between the top electric smokers from each of the mentioned brand.
Electric smokers were chosen from Smokin Tex and Smokin-It for Comparison
The following two products are carefully evaluated and chosen primarily because of their distinctive features, suitable specifications and most important the customer feedbacks.
1. Smokin Tex 1100 Pro Series Electric Smoker
2. Smokin-It Model #2 Electric Smoker
Smokin Tex 1100 Pro Series Electric Smoker
![Smokin Tex VS Smokin-It 5 Smokintex 1100 Pro Series Electric Smoker](https://bbqforge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Smokintex-1100-Pro-Series-Electric-Smoker.jpg)
The Smoking Tex 1100 Pro Series has the following
Pros:
- Portable – The unit is fairly heavy, but easily portable due to the excellent quality 4 x caster wheels.
- Contains Smoke Very Well – The vent controls the smoke inside pretty well and only very little smoke is able to escape, so your neighbors wouldn’t be bothered at all.
- Best for beef Brisket – Although every smoke-able item is pretty well cooked, it looks like the smoker is tailor-made for beef brisket recipe. Smoke this recipe with apple wood and hickory to get the best final smoked taste.
- No Constant Monitoring – The smoker is tried and tested for maintaining excellent and consistent temperature throughout the cooking. Therefore, no need to constantly monitor the food, while it is being smoked
- Easy to Use – The product comes with an easily understandable instructions manual for novice and has a handful of recipes to try as soon as you have it out of the box. The control panel is simple and fairly easy to operate, especially in setting up the required temperature.
The following cons apply and needless to say how important they can be in making your final decision about the product:
- Size Concerns – Size is reasonably good, but not good enough for doing a full turkey, whole chicken or maybe a large rack full of ribs.
- Short Stature – The smoker itself is short in vertical size and in order to have it easy access, a stainless steel cart is desired so that you could place the smoker over the cart.
Smokin-It Model #2 Electric Smoker
Our Rating: [star rating="4.3" numeric="yes"]
Pros:
- Flavoring – The unit truly justifies and complements the wood chips you use for smoking. As a practical experience, adding around 7 ounces of wood chips would burn for nearly 2.5 hours and this is exactly what you need to hit and penetrate the food item being smoked. The flavor would definitely get deep inside and stays longer.
- Smart Operations – Once the box gets fully heated up, the temperature there and then levels off and maintains itself at the point where you programmed it at. This is doubly confirmed using an external thermometer, where the temperature inside the unit was maintained for as much as 3 hours.
- Digital Controls – The electric smoker has a control panel with digital controls so that you can stay precise with the setting up of temperature and calculating the cooking time with accuracy.
- User-Friendly – The electric smoker from Smokin-It is fairly easy to use. All you need is insert wood chunks/ chips, place food in the rack, close the door and switch on the smoker. Consistent and smoking with the desired temperature setting requires less monitoring with no fear of getting the food burnt or undercooked.
- Maneuverability – The smoker itself is quite heavy due to its sturdiness and strong built. However, the 4 caster wheels make maneuverability quite easy. Furthermore, 2 out of the 4 wheels have locking mechanisms so that the unit doesn’t freely move, if not desirable.
Apart from the pros, there are a few cons given below, which should not be ignored:
- Limited Size – Size of this electric smoker is the main concern. It has 4 racks with very limited capacity. Practically, you will struggle to smoke a 1-pound brisket inside this smoker.
- No dual probe thermometer included – The smoker doesn’t come with any dual probe thermometer. The dual probe thermometer is highly desirable where one probe gets inserted into the meat to check the meat temperature. The other is just clipped inside the electric smoker to monitor the overall internal temperature. This is essential and needs to be purchased separately.
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Comparative Features of the Selected Smokin Tex and Smokin-It Products
- Internal Capacity – The Smokin-It product comes with 4 racks made from stainless steel material. On the other hand, the Smokin Tex unit comes with 6 racks, which makes the latter more spacious than the former. You can easily cook 20 pounds of meat in 6 racks with ease in Smokin Tex, as compared to 15 pounds of meat in the other one having 4 racks.
- Wood Chips/ Chunks - Both the electric smokers are supportive of any wood chunks that you prefer. Moreover, for economical operations, wood chips of the varying kind could also be used instead of wood chunks.
- Temperature Range – Both the 1100 series from Smokin Tex and Model #2 from Smokin-It are incomparable in terms of their temperature range. Both can smoke within the temperature range of 100F – 250F. This maximum temperature on offer is good enough for smoking meat, poultry, fish and vegetable items. Both the products come with a thermostat in order to set it at the desired temperature or as per the demand of the food being smoked inside.
- Construction – The Smokin Tex product is more elegant looking with its solid plastic material than its counterpart. However, the interior of both the products is made from durable stainless steel material, which actually is inevitable for any smoking product. The Smokin-It also has its exterior made from stainless steel, while the other one comes with a dapper-looking while coloring exterior. On top of that, both the products are fully insulated from the inside so that the heat generated inside the unit is not leaked out of it. This feature also significantly contributes to the quality of smoking and ensures the desirable juiciness in the smoked food.
- Ease of Cleaning – Cleaning or maintenance is the key part of any electric smoker in order to enhance its longevity and also in getting the best-smoked food quality, session after session. The Smokin Tex 1100 series product is fairly easy to clean. The main challenge in any electric smoker is the cleaning of the wood box. This product just requires you to slide out the box and then you can conveniently empty out the ashes from it and can take it for a wash. The Smokin IT product on the flip side is even more convenient in cleaning. You can slide out all the shelf brackets, shelves itself and also the wood box for emptying and washing it for next use.
- Usage – The Smokin-It unit is NSF certified and this alternately means that the smoker is eligible to be used in restaurants or commercial areas, apart from domestic use. On the other hand, the Smokin Tex is only for domestic use as it doesn’t come with an NSF certification.
- Portability – Both the electric smokers weigh a lot, but still pushing/ pulling them in a confined area is no big deal. This is all thanks to the high-quality caster wheels that come with the electric smoker.
- Voltage – Both the units require 110V of electricity for its operation.
Comparison Chart of Smokin Tex and Smokin-It Selected Products
Feature | Smokin Tex 1100 | Smokin-It Model #2 |
Type | Electric | Electric |
Temperature Range | 100F – 250F degrees | 100F – 250F degrees |
Voltage | 110V | 110V |
Stainless Steel Construction? | Double-walled stainless steel interior only | Full stainless steel construction |
Fully Insulated? | Yes | Yes |
Heating Element Wattage? | 350 Watts | 800 Watts |
NSF Certified? | No | Yes |
Commercial Use? | No | Yes |
Caster Wheels Included? | Yes | Yes |
No. of racks | 6 | 4 |
Conclusion:
Both the smokers are outstanding and have their fair share of customer-base. Both are similar in terms of the temperature range.
The Smokin Tex is more spacious with 6 racks as compared to 4 of Smokin-It. However, the Smokin-It is NSF certified and could also be used in restaurants, apart from domestic use.
Both the units are well built with solid stainless steel interior along with full insulation ensured inside. Finally, the heaviness and weight of both smokers are well managed by the caster wheels they come with.
So if you are looking for one of them, better be with your priority regarding cooking space, wattage, level of usage and other such capacity options otherwise both have more or less the same level of meat smoking features.