EAST OAK PES23001 Smoker, Black

First this device is China made but delivered from US, being with an US plug and 110V. Had to buy an transformer. After the first use I cleaned the water tank and the fat collector pan, with soap and water, and parts of the galvanization already came off. The rolls at the bottom that are meant to let you move it around, are fixed with pins that ate too long and scratch all over the floor. The temperature display is Fahrenheit only. The remote control works up to 3 meters, which makes it pretty useless. Definitely not worth the money.

This is a fantastic smoker. I had a different brand that I tried on Amazon last year but it was a major hassle and did not smoke well at all. I was constantly having to adjust the temperature and the smoke would just stop. However, this East Oak smoker is excellent. First, the thing actually smokes! It makes our meat taste like the wonderful meats we had in Kansas City - which is famous for their BBQ. The meat comes out tender, moist and extremely flavorful. The glass door is a plus as you can see inside without having to open it. It comes with a thermometer which works fine and the "set it and forget it" feature of the electronic thermometer is perfect. I do routinely check my meats because I tend to be a perfectionist about the smoked quality but the smoker makes the entire process super easy. I love this smoker!!! I never thought it could be this much fun to smoke our own meats. Thank you East Oak!!! The price is very reasonable as well. We did buy the stand for the East Oak smoker as well as we did not have a place to put the smoker otherwise.

I have to give this four stars for one reason: poorly thought out internal sizing. The cooking industry uses full, half, and quarter-sized sheet pans as a standard for sizing. The internal racks of this unit are 15"x12". A half sheet pan is 18"x13" and a quarter-sheet pan is 13"x9". That means you can't fit one half sheet pan on a rack and you can't fit two quarter sheet pans on a rack, only one quarter sheet pan with leftover space. The same thing goes for almost all the disposable aluminum pans you buy as those are typically sized the same way. That means you have to cook directly on wire racks to optimized available space and that means a lot more mess and cleanup. I have a pretty ridiculous cooking setup at home and none of my dozens of pans fit optimally in this smoker. As far as functionality goes this product does a great job. It's simple to assemble, easy to use, and does a great job of smoking with minimal effort and great results. It does scratch easily on the outside though, so beware of that. It's light enough to pick up and carry inside and outside, which I have to do because I live in an isolated mountain area of WNC and can't leave it outside due to bears. Item arrived dented in one corner but still fully functional so it didn't bother me enough to go through the return process since you have to cut the shipping box apart to get it out. There's no taping that back together for return shipping! I did not take the star off for the damage, I took it off for the poor decision in internal sizing. If they want a five start product then it needs to be designed for industry-standard pan sizes internally just like every oven, in my opinion.

Bought this for my son for his birthday because he grills and cooks outside all the time, and he was really excited to try smoking meats. Overall, we have been very happy with it. The smoker was easy to put together, looks nice, and holds temperature pretty well once you get used to it. There is definitely a learning curve if you’ve never used an electric smoker before, especially figuring out the wood chips, timing, and temperature settings. After a couple tries though, the food turned out great. It was ready to set up an start using. One downside is the glass gets dirty really fast, especially after longer smokes, so be prepared to clean it often if you want to keep that nice look. Other than that, it has worked really well and was a great birthday gift for someone who loves grilling and BBQ.

I owned a masterbuilt for 2 years and being on carnivore I use smokers a lot more than an average person, almost every other weekend and sometimes every weekend so it got a lot of use! That being said I’ll compare the two. The built by far is superior and holds temperature much better as well as being very clearly heavy duty on this unit, the smoke tray is better in some ways with some small flaws, it holds more wood so depending on what your smoking can last the entire smoke no refills needed, however the release trigger on the smoke tray to unlock it from the smoker to pull it out conducts heat so you can potentially get burned pulling the tray out, as well as the cover on top is metal so also a burn hazard, not a huge deal just be aware and have good heat resistant gloves and you will be fine. The display on the unit feels much more modern, and it comes with a thermometer that plugs into the units display that is a huge win! It also has a light for late night smokes that gives decent light in the smoker, the light is not in the smoker itself but outside pointing it. Other wins - the interior layout is nice and mostly perfect the grease and oil tray is at the very bottom of the unit and locks so nothing outside that is nice, the water tray is smaller and taller which I like. And lastly the door doesn’t want to swing shut like my previous smoker that’s awesome!Now for the downside over masterbuilt - the trays on masterbuilt could be pulled halfway out to load items into the smoker with ease, you cannot do that with this one you hardly pull them out and they will fall out on the ground that’s a major letdown, the smoke release hole is adjustable cannot totally be shut which for storage is a major flaw in my book for bugs and potential rodents, and lastly the smoker can only be set for 12 hours which I’d you’re doing a large meat(s) the 24 hours on master built was better. For these reasons and the heat issues on the wood tray I have 4/5 stars considered 3 stars as some of this are huge let downs but I’m so blown away with how solid the smoker is otherwise it’s a 4/5 and gained a star alone for its clear durability. For smoke quality I noticed no difference at all between the two units each smokes just as good as well as outputs the same humidity from the water tray. The unit runs slightly hotter than what I set it at but displays correctly the temp, which to me isn’t a big deal just turn it down a few degrees and you’re at what’s needed, it’s far better than what my near dead masterbuilt was doing I’d have to set it to 275 to get 240 it was struggling, get a feeling this one will last a lot longer, we will see