Electric smoker as holding oven?

Grogu

Seeing a lot of YouTube videos singing the praises of a long hot hold, especially for things like brisket. Not sure the wife would be pleased with me using the kitchen oven for that purpose. I’m wondering if anyone uses a basic electric smoker as an outdoor holding oven? I think some have lower temp settings for cold smoking, and you could just not add wood chips, but I’m not sure if there’s anything I’m not thinking of that would be problematic.

td66snrf

Anytime I can add a bbq I'm all for it. How you justify it with your wife is up to you.

lkapigian

You certainly can, but check out Vevors warming ovens will hold several Full Size Pans or even a large Toaster Oven if only planning on 1 protein…the long rest is very beneficial, but the latitude in cook finish timex cannot be underestimated, I rely on Warming Ovens to make my life easy , the long rest is a side benefit 

WeberWho

Save your money on an electric smoker and use something that you might already have.....an electric roaster. They are popular over on the Brethren for holding single proteins. Most electric roasters will let you go down to 150 degrees and won't have big temperature swings like an oven. I'm going to give this a try for holding with my next brisket.

Grogu

As it turns out, I have neither a toaster oven or an electric roaster. Not totally true. I have a toaster oven but it’s converted for tempering knives I’m heat treating, so I don’t think I want to put food in it… Both would I guess be marginally less expensive, but don’t give me a cold smoker I can purchase under the pretense of not making a mess of the kitchen. @lkapigian more time flexibility is also one of the things I was thinking about when I saw the hot hold stuff. It can be tricky not having things hit temp too soon or too late with various other family demands on timing.

lkapigian

Keep an eye on Craigslist, I picked this up for $80.00..but the Vevor is pretty nice for under $400.00

Legume

The cheap, oval roasting ovens don't seem to be as cheap as they used to be, but I think probably an easy find at a thrift store.  We used to have one, wish we still did, this is a great idea and easy to use outside.  I have a friend that smokes a Turkey every year on his offset and finishes in one of these.

Grogu

I ended up ordering one of the Vevor units a few days ago. I just received an email it’s out of stock and my order has been cancelled even though it still shows as in stock on their site. Now I’m waiting the 7 days they say it will take to refund me to see if they actually do or if I’ll have to dispute the charge. Not necessarily a scam, but beware at a minimum not necessarily a well organized site/company. Kind of a bummer because the original shipping claim would have had it here in time to experiment with on the 4th of July long weekend. If I get my money back, not sure if I’ll play in stock roulette with these folks again or try to figure something else out.

lousubcap

@Grogu - thanks for the valuable feedback regarding your attempted purchase.  Hopefully it will get quickly resolved. 

lkapigian

I’ve had excellent luck with Vevor , I think it will be resolved fine , that being said all my Vevor purchases have been through amazon

Grogu

The refund did come through and today rather than 7 days like the email stated, so not a scam. Just not a well organized site as far validity of in stock status.

lkapigian

Grogu said:

The refund did come through and today rather than 7 days like the email stated, so not a scam. Just not a well organized site as far validity of in stock status.

Great to hear, check Amazon , price will be the same and you could probably get one before the fourth 

Grogu

A bit of a twist. I was at Ace to pickup some charcoal, and one of those electric roasters was sitting there for $100. I had a $20 of $100 coupon in my app, so I made an impulse buy and picked it up so I have something to try with this brisket I’m working on for tomorrow. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

WeberWho

@Grogu

I'm looking forward to seeing your results and hearing your thoughts on the hold. 

lousubcap

Window of opportunity right there...well played.

Grogu

I need to learn to attempt one experiment at a time. I also decided to try melting down the fat trimmings during this cook to add back during the wrap. I did so by putting them in a cast iron pan on the eggspander. I think I either blocked the dome thermometer so I wasn’t getting an accurate reading or the presence of the pan directly over the brisket was adding heat (maybe both). Either way it was an accidental hot and fast brisket that finished in the middle of the night instead of the morning as planned. Ah well.

As far as the roaster goes, I used the FireBoard to get a sense of where it was actually running for temp at what setting. Running it empty I needed to set it down below the lowest temp setting to get it to settle in at 150. When I dropped the brisket in during the middle of the night it was only hitting 120s at that setting. I fiddled around eventually setting it to 150 on the dial and it seemed to settle in at 150 reading on the FireBoard. I crashed and got up in the morning to find it had continued to creep up while I slept. Some more fiddling and I landed at setting the dial right at 125 to get a solid 150 reading. After that it held pretty good for the remainder of the day with temp swings much much smaller than I see in a full size oven. Despite the brisket cooking twice as fast as I planned and it being held for longer than I planned as a result, the Brisket actually turned out pretty good in the end when we sliced it up for supper. I’m going to call the roaster as a hot hold solution a success. I expect next time knowing a good starting place for the temp setting and hopefully not fiddling in the middle of the night half asleep, it should go even better.

lkapigian

Great write up , great results … I love the latitude it all gives me , I cook for tomorrow today