Emson Smoker- The Only Indoor Pressure Smoker

I made my purchase two weeks ago via the 'deal of the day'. So far, worth every penny. Heck, even at the usual price I would have been pleased. On the first day I smoked 8 pounds of food. First, I tried turkey thighs: I 'hot smoked' for 40 minutes, using 3 chips of pecan wood: the thighs came out perfectly, with the meat fully smoked and falling off the bone. I was sad that I could only fit two turkey thighs inside, but I was able to quickly refresh the cooker and smoke two more. Same wonderful results. Next, pork spare ribs. I cut the ribs up (as recommended), and my wife seasoned them. I managed to get close to four pounds into the pot using the racks, including 'doubling up' on the top rack. I used mesquite chips (3), and set the timer for 50 minutes. Again, the meat was falling off the bone (and 'doubling up' on the top rack did not make a difference). Since they were not 'browned' (since it is a pressure cooker), we put the ribs on a cookie sheet and then under the oven broiler for 10 minutes. My wife (who is the rib eater in the family) was extremely happy, and declared that I no longer would have to fool with the full-sized propane smoker (where we would smoke/cook the ribs, on low heat, for some 9 hours). A saving of 8 hours. Cheese: one uses the 'cold smoke' setting. I did my first batch for 10 minutes, which slightly melted the cheddar cheese I was using. For my other batches I cold-smoked for 8 minutes, which seems to be perfect. My favorite smoked cheese thus far is gouda cheese using three 'Jack Daniels' wood chips (made from the barrells that Jack uses for making whiskey). I will no longer be a slave to purchasing the over-priced smoked cheese one finds at stores. I have all sorts of plans for future smoking. For instance, I will soon be 'cold smoking' hamburger patties using the Jack Daniels chips, then grilling. One oddity: it is a pressure cooker. On my very first batch some steam hissed out of the small weight (or release valve, whatever it is called). Then, silence. On subsequent batches it no longer hissed. Yet, it obviously was pressure-cooking the meat. Second: in the instructions you are told that, when inserting the outer pan into the base unit, to 'line up' the red arrows and then press down, so that the electrical contacts meet. I spent a few fruitless minutes trying to get the outer pan to fit into the lower, using the red arrows. I then noted that the 'red arrow' on the outer pan was crudely 'painted on', while the arrow on the unit itself was not (i.e., it had been incorporated into the lower unit). Hence, I concluded that the worker painting on the red arrow did not do his or her job well that day. I now know that, on my particular unit, the outer red arrow should be slightly to the left of the unit's arrow. I have had no problem since. Cleaning is easy. I find it easier to clean than my regular pressure cookers. I will update if the unit fails, as some other reviews have indicated is a possibility. I will finally note that I am so pleased with this Emson smoker that I looked up the larger capacity, seven-quart smoker. I found that the larger unit seems to get more unfavorable reviews than this smaller one. Nevertheless, I plan on, someday, getting the larger smoker. Edited to add: I 'cold smoked' four hamburger patties for 10 minutes, using the Jack Daniels chips (3). Then I grilled them up. Result was very, very good. Really made a difference to my hamburger. I also just smoked some chicken breasts (two large ones, for 30 minutes, 3 applewood chips) and some of the best chicken I've made, by any method.

Was waiting to write a review after some trial and error and after my third 'smoked' dish in only two weeks I will say this is a must have for those who want true smoked flavor and amazing BBQ. First dish was something I had never tried....Smoked Steak...I am not a steak lover so thought if this won me over to actually liking steak more It was a win. I thought it turned out good and, per others feedback, I only used like 3 chips which gave it enough smoky flavor and a smoke ring. My son made the statement that this style of steak was far better than he has had on the grill and he loves a good steak....WIN Next I used just the 'pressure' cooker (No Smoke) to create 'Chik-Fil-A' chicken breast and they turned out suprizingly close to the real deal...I think my buns could have been better. Tonight....for the WIN!!....We had a 4 pound slab of ribs and followed the instructions to the T....I used my own rub and around 4 applewood chips to create some amazing flavored pieces of meat. While parts were falling off the bone there was still some meat left on the bone so we could enjoy the true rib experience with some incredibly tender meay....I also added some Sweet Babay Rays BBQ sauce to sweeten them some and it was off the charts god. The only concern I hve about this great little machine is replacement parts. Unlike other reviewers I dont think it is 'cheaply made' but I am one who likes to replace parts to get as much use out of a product for a higher return on investment. I was lucky enough to get this on the 'Daily Deal' for a good bit less hat it is right now but I still dont want to have to replace the entire machine down the road if I dont have to. As long as I can find ay of the removeable parts that can go bad I will be good. After the first 'smoking' night...we did decide to use it on the back deck because it does still smell the house up like a camp fire...and stays for a day or so. GREAT purchase for my home.

I bought this product to gain time for barbecuing. The product arrived with peeled top (the non stick surface of the inner pot was scratched and spelled after the first use). I contacted the vendor, who gave me a tel no of emson service. You can try exhaustively that you will not anyone there to talk to and if you get someone, they will promise to resolve the issue, but thy don't Long story short, I don't advise you to buy this product.mtoo expensive for the performance and quality. Also the description you get with it is a joke. I still don't have a resolution and after more than 15 tel calls and more than 10 emails I gave up!

For the most part I like it and it does what it claims to do, it works great, you just have to be careful not to put too many wood chips in there or it gets too smokey. I have to refer to the manual everytime I need to lock the lid in place, its not super straight forward and takes some of my brain cells each time I use it until I'm like, "Oh yea, that's how it works, you line that thing up to that part and then when it locks this other part aligns, ha..." Letting the meat rest inside of it after the recommended cooking time and after releasing the pressure is a good idea too, particularly with chicken as the dark meat was right on the edge of done with a few of the recipes from the book; but that is fixable once you know it. The only thing I don't really care for is the cleaning of the main chamber; with the plug on the outside and unable to get wet, it makes cleaning the inside of that removable part a little cumbersome as it's moderate in weight and size and cannot be set down in the sink or the plug would get wet. I would still buy it none-the-less as it's nice to be able to smoke some BBQ ribs in the middle of winter andf have them come out yummy everytime!

My wife saw this smoker in one of those high-priced catalogs we get right after Thanksgiving and wanted it as a Christmas present.......... Of course, I went directly to Amazon, found it for $50 less (still expensive), and ordered it. Imagine her disappointment a few days after Christmas when she tried to use it and found the charring (smoking) cup was missing the hole to accommodate the charring element - a manufacturing oversight that left the unit completely useless as a smoker. As others have noted - the brochure was sparse.... there was absolutely no mention of a warranty.... and the web address listed was not valid. I did a little online searching and finally tracked down a website (emsoninc.com) that listed multiple companies - including Emson - but started to get worried when I noticed they also represented Sharper Image products (with which I have had poor luck in the past) and I sank when I saw an image of Vince Shlomi (the "Sham Wow" guy) hawking another of their products. The correspondence that followed my email had a definite non-professional edge and were initially sent from some guy's iPad. To make a long story short - it took an exchange of over 12 emails and nearly 2 months before I finally received the correct charring cup. It eventually took the threat of a bad Amazon review to get the ball rolling. Now for the cooker....... I totally agree with many others who have reviewed this product - the quality and construction (in my opinion) seem to be lacking for a $200 appliance. In addition to what other have described, there were obvious swirl marks on the lid of my cooker indicating a less-than-careful final polishing. But............. when we were finally able to use it........... it worked GREAT. The chicken was smoked to perfection - juicy, tender and tasty - in under an hour. The pork loin that followed was WONDERFUL... We have used it about a half dozen times - and, so far, it has performed without fail. Cleanup can be a little messy and tedious. So, in conclusion, I was sorely disappointed with this product initially. The manufacturing flaw in mine suggests poor quality control and the customer service - in my case - was atrocious. That said, it has delivered several delicious main courses since then......... my only fear is that it won't hold up to other than very occasional use (you can buy a whole lot of roasted chickens on special at the supermarket for $200).They do seem to have a "new & improved" website since my difficulties (emsonsmoker.com) and have hopefully improved on the quality control and customer service...

BEST. BUY. EVER. I use this machine at least 3-4 times per week. It's so simple to use and provides repeatable and exceptional results when it comes to smoking (cold and hot). While documentation on operating the device is scant - and the recipe book is pretty useless - you will master the machine quite quickly because it's so simple to use. Some tips on using the smoking features to create exceptional results: Hot Smoking: always cure/bring your meats before you cook it in this machine if you want extremely flavorful food (and not just smoky). I find curing the meat in a brine of 1 cup kosher salt to 13 cups of water to create the most flavorful product without the food getting too salty. Once you have this base together, you can add spices and seasonings to your liking. I also like to hit my BBQ meats with a dry rub before I fire up the machine. And to really top it off, once it comes out of the machine, I hit it with a blowtorch to create that maillard reaction that is so characteristic of BBQ on the grill. And don't bother with a small kitchen blowtorch; go with a Bernzomatic torch (either Propane or MAPP). Cold Smoking: it only takes 10mins to infuse intense smoke flavor into your cold smoked salmon or cheeses. For cold-smoked salmon, I cure the salmon fillets in a mixture of 1-to-1 kosher salt to brown cane sugar. Pack the salmon and mixture in a freezer bag and roll it up tight. Place the package in the fridge for 24-48hrs (depending on salmon thickness). Once cured, rinse the salmon with cold water, pat dry, then apply a thin layer of maple syrup to stop the curing process. Place the glazed, cured salmon in the machine and cold smoke it for ten minutes. After smoking, you can enjoy it then, but I find the best result comes after I vacuum seal the salmon and let it rest in the fridge for a few hours. Enjoy!!!

Pros - smoking multi-cooker, reaches 15psi(?) Cons - quality control & support problems I got very interested in this product after I saw all the informative reviews of it (especially photos & review by K Swede & review by E Swope). Not only is it a multi-cooker (like the much cheaper Nesco and Fagor), it also can hot or cold smoke! Since I have a storage problem, having one unit that can pressure cook, slow cook, steam, and smoke seemed like a great idea for those times I want automated cooking. Even though it seemed overpriced for what it did, I decided to treat myself and ordered one. Unfortunately, when mine arrived, while trying to start the test drive recommended in Miss Vicky's book, it became obvious that the cooking mode lights could not be seen, thus there was no way to know what cooking modes are selected. So I had to return it (thank you Amazon customer service !). But before doing so, I noticed a number of additional concerns: First, this mode light problem seems like this item was not even tested before shipping it from the factory, which makes me wonder what other problems could pop up with this model. This basic unit seems well made, with quality machining and heavy gauge materials of the cooker & insert (but a very spindly rack), so to have this quality-control gotcha was quite a disappointment. (Also the lifetime of nonstick is always a problem, stainless steel might be better.) Secondly, there are other concerns about who stands behind this product. The support website mentioned in the printed instructions (buygourmetgenie) is not working at this moment. Google finds a link to a pdf of the instructions, but that yields a 404 not found error (as of this writing), with no cached version available on google. And, the vendor who is selling it on Amazon seems to be a tv vendor who has mostly garden items on the emsco site (and they did not have any cooking equipment on their site at all). [ETA - an email address was given for assistance at "emsonusa" in a comment to this review, so check it out if you need this information. Looking into "emsonusa" led to "emsontv" which does have other items for sale, including some cooking items, but not this pressure-smoker, as of this writing - 11/10/2011] The printed instructions themselves are sort of sketchy. Nesco has much more complete instructions for their comparable non-smoking multi-cooker (pdf available online). [ETA - a link to a pdf of the instructions can be found on the most excellent hippressurecooking site - 4/14/13] Finally, I noticed other cooking problems when doing the test drive. There was no obvious way to tell at what point full pressure was reached, and it started counting down at "Start", instead of once full pressure was apparently reached. (On the very similar Nesco pressure cooker which I subsequently purchased, the timer starts counting down after pressure is reached -- this could make a significant difference in cooking results.) Also, because the charring element protrudes into the cooking pot, it might be annoying to try to stir something being cooked more conventionally - ymmv. (Maybe I should eschew automation and just pan smoke the way I used to, simply by elevating the food on a trivet and putting the chips at the very bottom of a dutch oven). It is hard to know how to rate something so promising yet with these problems. I'm going to go for three stars, decremented by one for having received a non-usable unit. Hence two stars overall. By the way, it looks like the factory that makes this item also makes the Nesco and Fagor multi-cookers. Numerous internal details are the same, like the way the lids interlock with the pot, and the identical condensation collectors, bottom heating plate with temperature sensor, regulator shield, etc. A comment regarding target cooking pressures: although 15psi is standard for pressure cooker recipes, many of the electronic models supposedly do not reach at 15psi (including the Cuisinart, which supposedly cooks at 9psi when on high). However, the CookingIssues blog found that 15psi made a big difference in taste tests. The Nesco and this Emson supposedly reach 15psi, but I am not sure how I would actually verify that.

So, I've had this smoker/cooker for over a year now. I had contact the manufacturer within the first week as the smoker element wasn't working, but they very promptly replaced it. I did get it on a Deal of the Day price, but would still pay full price. It's that good to me. I use this cooker approximately 2-3 times over the course of 2 weeks. Here's just a few pros and cons... Pros: Very quick to cook 4 good sized chicken breasts. (I usually cook them 28 thawed/38 if frozen) Love the set the time and walk away. The rocker is not like old cookers...you have to work to pull it off, so don't worry about it coming off. A bit of the smoke escapes through the steam vent, so if you don't like the smell of hickory, etc. you may want to use it in the garage. I happen to really like the smell. The smoke does fuse through meat and whatever you cook is very moist and tender There's only two of us, so the smaller size is great. My daughter has two kids & husband...they got the larger one. However, it really doesn't take long to cook two batches of bbq. I cold smoked some hard cheese and wow! It was really good. I like that the inside pot comes out for washing in water. Oh, and the broth the meat and poulty makes is aso healthy! I put baby potatoes in and they are a quick cook. Cons: It is a bit of a pain cleaning the wire racks. I spray them with Pam before using and finally started using a brillo pad to get in the joints. The bottom of the legs are metal and could be easy to scratch, but if you just set it down in the pot straight, it won't. The cup for the smoke chips gets pretty charred hope it holds up. Other than that...can think of anything else. I would definitely buy this product again!

This is a fantastic product at an excellent price (currently $139 Canadian for the 5 Qt). For my first test I cooked a batch of two turkey thighs (about a pound each), followed by a batch containing a 2.2 pound pork roast and a potato. I cooked the turkey thighs for 25 minutes, which was perfect: they are extremely moist but still chewy and dense. I had been planning to pop them under the broiler but I didn't need to. I cooked the pork and potato for 40 minutes. Smoked potatoes are my new favorite food. The pork also turned out perfectly, although the cut I used was too lean to be spectacular. (It's the meat's fault.) The machine is easy to use and easy to clean. It comes with complete instructions and recipes. I think mesquite wood chips may be too heavy-handed for this method: it's too strong a flavor. It's still wonderful, but I'm going to try other, subtler woods like apple next. I put the Emson smoker on my stovetop under the exhaust fan. It produces a slight smell, but it is less than you'd get from cooking the meat in the oven by conventional methods. I love smoked foods and I live in an apartment with no balcony, so this is a godsend for me. I can't wait to smoke cheese.

Please read if you're considering buying this smoker. My smoker was on sale on Amazon - which I thought was great and was super excited to use it until it arrived.... defective. Firstly, the customer service line you call is an automated recording, which tells you to get a pen and paper, select the product you need support for, and it will read you that number. Oddly, the Emson smoker isn't on the list. How then would you redeem the 2-year warranty? I believe advertising this is a scam. Second, if you need replacement parts, you're just out of luck. The seal was defective on mine and there are no replacements on the site. You could trawl amazon for something that may work but it's not for sure. So, buyer beware with this product!

Nice unit, cooks and smokes very fast, very easy to use. Just one problem there: it has been designed for indoor use, but it produces a lot of smoke which one goes through the lid seal and smokes everything around.

Awesome appliance! Was thinking about buying this for quite a while, now I wish I had bought it sooner!

in does what it claims to do. but I am not very happy using it on foods. would not recommend unit