Dave

For your first smoker, the easiest and cheapest options are electric or propane. Those are smokers you don’t need to constantly babysit to get good results. You can get plenty of smoke flavor with electric, BTW. You won’t get a “smoke ring” with electric, but you’ll get flavor. I started with a Masterbuilt 40" propane smoker that I bought for about $150, and the main reason I got it over the electrics was capacity. Most of the electrics are not as wide or large. But both options are great for learning.

If you want something BGE-style but don’t want to pay those prices, pick up a Char-Griller Akorn. It’s every bit as good functionally as the more expensive ceramic kamado grills. Being metal, it has the chance that it might eventually have rust problems, and I’ve heard their build quality may not be at BGE levels. But for the price, you get a great Kamado. FYI I say that as someone with two Kamado Joe’s, one Big Joe and one Joe Jr. I have no disdain for the Akorn as a “cheap knockoff”; the Akorn is a solid grill at a great price point. The learning curve of a kamado is steeper than an electric or propane smoker, but they’re also more versatile. You can sear the hell out of a steak. You can use it as a pizza oven.

I like the idea of a pellet smoker if you already have another grill (for searing) and if you’re okay spending the money. They’re definitely “set and forget” and will produce good food. But again, typically the starting price point is a lot higher, especially if you want to be cooking larger quantities of food – you can fit more in a typical “box-style” electric or propane smoker than the smaller, less expensive pellet grills. And when you start getting into the bigger pellet grills, you get up into the $700-1000 range. And they still can’t sear. That said, a good pellet grill is a long-term purchase, whereas an electric or propane smoker might be a “learning tool” smoker; at least it was for me.

What you probably want to avoid are cheap smokers. The build quality usually leaves a LOT to be desired, they are hard to temp control and both get a hot enough fire to burn off volatile compounds while also not getting the cooking chamber well over the desired temp. And you’ll have to babysit them constantly. I know the allure of “cooking with a stickburner” is strong, but IMHO it’s not worth it at these price points.

If I was to do it over, I’d buy a pellet fed smoker. My local Walmart has them. Not sure on the brand. It’s all electric, you fill the hopper with pellets, set the temp (it’s digital), let it heat up and drop food on it. It’s a like an oven that smokes.

https://wisepick.org/best-smoker-grill-combo/ - also a nice source about smokers combos

Hi Cris,
I’ve been smoking and making jerky for around 50 years now. Never owned a store bought smoker before last year.
But I decided to get a Masterbuilt, and I chose a 30.
I was highly disappointed in the first time I used it. I smoke a lot of Salmon, but also smoke most anything else, make smoked trout, smoked almonds, halibut… on and on.
Much of my use is cold or warm smoking. My brand new MES 30 wouldn’t make smoke below 200° F. I want to smoke things, not bake them and add smoke. So right out of the gate, I modified the holy pazzolly out of it to make it work right. I wanted a smoker, what I got was an outdoor oven.
The problem is it would not heat the chips enough to make them smolder.
So I did my own version of a Mailbox Mod, stripped out the sheet metal chip feeder, and separated the heater for the box, and the smoke generation. AHHHH, got a good smoker after that.
I’ve since got and built an Inkbird PID controller to work the sub-100’s temperature control, put a bypass switch across the control relay so I can use two methods to do my smoking. Basically, ambient (cold smoking) up to MES self described 275°, which in my case is more like 310-320° F. Because my MES 30 runs hotter than most.
I found my MES 30 was marginal when I began smoking my own home cured bacon. I wanted more capacity. When I began making meat snack sticks, I found I wanted more height.
I got lucky when a guy gave me his non-working MES 40. I bypassed the temperature control and plugged it into my Inkbird PID, and wa-la, a resurrected MES 40.
It serves to smoke my cooler smoked items just fine. (Using my Mailbox Mod)

At your price point I can suggest two good alternatives to the others, A Smokin It #1, or a Smokin it #2.

I set out to get rid of my Bradley Puck feeder, because of their golden puck prices. Pellets are much cheaper, widely available and competitively priced around me, and now… I dissolve them, dry the dust out, and smoke with dust exclusively. I use an Amazen tray and get a full 6 hours from a load of dust, or 11 hours from a full tray of pellets.
But I like the TASTE I get with the dust best.
So my experience and needs are quite different from the box stock MES smokers.

While I ended up adding a separate pellet hopper assembly to this, I would say that I use the cold smoker + the electric burner combination 99% of the time. With the 2 burners, I can get this up to about 165 degrees. If you were to buy the Weston Vertical that Jonathon mentioned and added a cold smoke generator (then maybe an electric burner for the 100 - 120-degree range), then you should be able to do anything that you need. IMO

Have you considered getting a pellet combo grill? You wouldnt be able to hang but most of those will start at 150° and it will give you some versatility. Just a thought!

Dave