The Emson Electric 5Qt Smoker is a unique and impressive concept. Read on to see how that concept translates to actual use.WHAT DOES IT DO?
The seller claims it is the only combination pressure cooker and indoor smoker. Beyond those two functions it is claimed to both hot and cold smoke, steam and brown.
HOW IS IT BUILT?
First impressions are that all of the materials used in construction are rather light duty. It does not look like a product that will last for years. At the 250 USD retail price it just doesn't seem to be worth the money. The outer shell has a brushed stainless steel appearance, the cover feels like aluminum, the stacking tray is very thin lightweight chrome wire and the internal cooking pot is non-stick metal. The controls are a membrane panel with status lights for each function.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The design leans toward the product being used primarily as a pressure cooker with or without smoke. As that it is easy to use and does the job (at a cost far above what a standard pressure cooker would cost). The smoke comes from a few small wood chips of your choice inserted into a small cup which is mounted on the heating electrode. The chips burn and fill the device with smoke which is pressure cooked into the food. As pressure cooking is a sealed process, very little of the smoke smell escapes into the room, until you release the pressure, that is. For those who do not want to fill their house with smoke smells it may be wise to have your kitchen exhaust fan turned on high to help vent the smell. The instructions make a big point that the electrode should not get wet when cleaning, so it appears that the internal pot is not intended to be filled with food, leaving the available 3 metal racks the only place to actually put foods. The maximum capacity is about 4 pounds.
HOW WELL DOES IT COOK?
My first experience was cooking a couple of small game hens. I chose mesquite chips and the hens came out very smoky, too much for my taste. It takes practice to know how many small wood chips to use and I clearly used too many. The birds were done in 40 minutes and the meat was moist and falling off the bone. Note that pressure cooking does not brown meat like when it is roasted. When cooking poultry a few minutes under the broiler makes a much better looking final product. My second experience was pressure cooking (no smoke) a very cheap piece of beef to be used in stew. After 50 minutes the beef was so tender it almost melted in my mouth. The third meal was a 4 pound turkey breast, which I hot smoked using hickory chips. The hickory flavor was much more subtle than the mesquite and I learned to only use 4 small chips. After browning the bird under the broiler for a few minutes I judged it as the best turkey breast ever, and it only took 45 minutes to cook.
WHO STANDS BEHIND IT?
As others have pointed out, this seems to be one of those Chinese made products that several distributors private label and sell "as is" through late-night commercials, and places like Amazon. I also saw it in one of those expensive high-end gadget catalogs. I don't believe there really is any product support, these companies just import the box and ship it to their customers. In a few months it will probably be gone as well as any hope of getting it repaired if it breaks.
WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVES?
1. We all know there are dangers concerning cooking with a pressure cooker. With no real engineering, quality control or product support I have some fear each time I use it that something will go wrong. I would never leave the cooker unattended while in use. That's not a major concern since it cooks so quickly and I am likely to be in the kitchen anyway preparing the rest of the meal.
2. The cooking racks are ridiculously thin and lightweight. If something like a chicken or turkey is placed on the bottom rack it comes in direct contact with the heating electrode/smoker cup which will singe the meat and probably give an unpleasant taste. The racks have unfinished sharp tips that have already scratched the "non stick" finish of the inner bowl. Additionally, the smoker cup has a thin metal support leg that has already gouged away the non-stick finish. Things like this indicate there was very little actual design/engineering thought put into this product.
3. Be prepared for an unpleasant clean up task. The metal racks are poorly soldered and difficult to clean the food residue off. After the first use the smoker cup will be crusted with impossible to remove smoke residue (the instruction manual points this out as normal). The internal pot must be hand swabbed by a moist sponge because the electrode can't get wet. This is not an easy task.
4. After the first use as a smoker the entire interior will have a strong smoke odor to it. I have resigned myself to only using it as a hot smoker from now on.
5. The lack of recipes was disappointing for the unit I received. Some of the ones in the instruction manual were laughable. It would have really helped to have a cooking time chart for various types of meats, fish, etc. To their credit, Emson completely revamped their website a few months after I wrote the original review and they now offer many more recipies, and even a full cookbook that you can purchase online.
BOTTOM LINE:
If you are okay with the cost, like the idea of not spending hours cooking foods that only take minutes with this cooker, and are comfortable with the reality that the day will come that you will have to throw it away because there is no major manufacturer that stands behind it ... then I would say the Emson Electric 5Qt Smoker delivers everything it promises. My 3 star review takes into account some great positives as well as a few negatives. Overall I have not been disappointed with this product.
You use three or four small wood chips in a specially designed container that you slide onto a heating element in the bottom. Then there is the main rack with three add-on racks to hold your food. Without the racks you can smoke a medium sized whole chicken. With the racks you can smoke chicken wings, pork, salmon, etc. I'll be smoking tomatoes soon to try a smoked tomato soup recipe that I have.
It's not inexpensive, however, I'm in Miami now where restaurants think BBQ is cooking food in an oven and putting some sauce on it. Having moved from Kansas City where there are dozens and dozens of great BBQ restaurants, this is giving me a touch of what I've missed in Florida. I will definitely get my money's worth from this pressure smoker. I love pressure cookers and have used them in cooking for about 40 years; I also formerly demonstrated several different brands in department and specialty cookware shops, so I was very eager to give the Emson pressure smoker a trial run. In the hot smoke function, which cooks and smokes food at the same time probably the most-used function simply put a few smoking chips into a cup, cover the cup, pour in 1/2 cup water, layer the seasoned food onto the stacking racks, seal the cooker, set the time, and press "Start." It really is that simple. So far, I've cooked pork tenderloin, chicken drumsticks, and, using the cold smoke function, a salmon fillet. To my knowledge, this is the only stovetop appliance that will cold smoke food. All the results were perfectly satisfactory. This could be fun, so my next projects will be smoked hardboiled eggs, and smoked cheese.
Details: I didn't have any chips, so I've used the finely chopped wood chips I purchased for a Cameron stovetop smoker. These worked fine, using about 1 tablespoon each time. I followed the suggested times in the instruction booklet, except for the salmon. I wanted smoked, lightly cooked salmon to place on a salad platter, and the instructed time would have produced a flakey fish suitable for mixing into pates.
Reality checks: While the pressure smoker does smoke food much faster than traditional outdoor smoking, the process is not nearly as fast as pressure cooking in a traditional pressure cooker. The Emson instructions say to cook chicken pieces for 30 minutes, which produced a slightly overcooked, but tasty dinner. A traditional pressure cooker takes ten minutes to cook chicken parts. It may be possible to match the faster results by a traditional cooking method in the Emson smoker, omitting the chips, but the residual smoke odor would discourage me from cooking any recipe other than smoked food.
More reality: The capacity of the cooker is limited to approximately the amount of food for three or four people even with the layering of the racks. But, the process is quick, so one could repeat the process for a bigger crowd. The smoke odor fills the room; it remained for over a day, even though I am able to leave a door open to outside and ran the kitchen exhaust fan directly above the cooker while I was using it. I washed the cooker and am storing it in the garage, but I still smell the smoke when I pass it, several days later. The safety instructions do not spell out clearly enough the risk of burning oneself. The user must pull off the pressure regulator to release the steam. This sends steam shooting out. I tried it first with a thick hot pad to protect my hand and quickly pulled back as the pad became saturated with steam. I used a silicone mitt to remove the regulator with good results. I still came away with my hair and clothes smelling like smoke.
All in all, it's a well-made product that delivers as promised. The Emson Electric 5Qt SmokerThe Only Indoor Pressure Smoker-Cook Your BBQ Brisket, Pressure Smoke Cold Cheese Or Fish is a rather unique appliance. It's a combination pressure cooker and smoker which can be used in a number of ways: to cook and hot smoke food, cook without smoke (like a regular pressure cooker), as a steamer, to cold smoke food like cheese or fish, or to sear or brown prior to steaming or pressure cooking.
It is easy to use, self contained (eliminates the mess & ash from charcoal and burned wood), keeps the smoke out of the air, and even collects condensation! and, perhaps most significantly, is relatively fool-proof! Just put the food to be cooked in the basket, add half a cup of water, add wood chips to the little box (if you will be smoking,) choose the cooking method (hot or cold smoke, pressure or steam, or brown, set the timer, push a button and walk away. It turns on, comes up to pressure for the specified amount of time and turns itself off. In many ways it is as easy and care-free as a slow cooker.... but is much much faster! *and* can add another dimension to your cooking (adding natural smoke flavor to things which are tricky to grill and at times of the year when you would not otherwise be able to bar-be-que). For many (I suspect most) it enables you to do things you would not otherwise have considered or had the means to do, like cold smoking cheeses and fish.
Mine arrived the day after I made braised ribs, which took *hours* and, ultimately, were not as tender as I would have liked. (I will have to give them another go now that I have this! I took this for a "test drive" with some tandori chicken (something I never would have considered making in a pressure cooker! In the past I have prepared it in the oven (both in a clay cooker and glass pan), on the stove top (searing and slow cooking) and on the bar-be-que. I would not have believed it, but it came out better in the smoker than any of the other methods! The chicken was moist and cooked evenly, evenly saturated with spice and smoke flavor. Some of the other methods worked pretty well (the clay cooker being the best of the lot), but cooking it on a bar-be-que meant the outside usually burned before the inside was cooked and the spice did not penetrate well. The other methods produced most, flavorful chicken, but not smoky. I was pretty impressed with its performance. It took only a couple of minutes to come up to temperature, and produced just a little bit of smoky steam. It took less tinkering than my stove-top pressure cooker, which I generally start at a high temperature to bring up to pressure and then turn down to maintain the boil (checking periodically to make sure that the liquid has not boiled off producing a potentially dangerous situation (you do not want to let a pressure cooker boil dry!). I also like that it has a condensation collector. No more drips on the stove top! I am now thinking of all the things which had been something of a challenge to cook properly before, and am looking forward to making things like shish kebob. (always a challenge to cook on the grill, as they are difficult to turn, and pieces frequently wind up among the coals.... and looking a the trimmings from a spice tree (nutmeg or clove?) we have in the yard, wondering what it would do in the smoker.
My only complaints about this unit are :
1. The wire rack (for smoking) is not as sturdy as it could be. It does the job and looks like it will hold up (is not exposed to elements like an outdoor grill, does not come in contact with the heating element) but can not hold a lot of weight (it is, however, 3 tiered, so you can distribute the weight some if you are making a rack of ribs, chicken parts...)
2. It is very large (as "small appliances" go) and presents something of a challenge to store. (A bit larger than a slow cooker, roughly the size of a bread machine). We all live with limited cabinet space (though, obviously what that means is different for different people) and so consider whether you will be using this enough to devote the better part of a cabinet to. I am going to have to seriously think about whether I need both my pressure cooker and the pressure smoker (as this unit can replace the other, and, because of the digital programming is somewhat easier, more predictable. Hmmm, I'd hate to say good-bye to an old friend (I've had that pressure cooker a good long time and heretofore considered it indispensable). It may be more a question of which gets the preferred, close-at-hand spot, and which gets shuffled to the rear. I guess time will tell whether I need them both. As of now, the only thing I know this can not do is make beans & legumes (that is specified in the manual). So, which one is the specialty appliance?
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Editing to note that after a month I am finding that use this more than Ii would have thought, generally opt for it over my old stove-top even when I am not using the smoker componant and the other would be adequate. This is just easier (and safer). I like being able to set the time & temperature, push a button and walk away.
I also want to mention something which I have discovered with use. 1: you almost always need less wood chip than you think you do. At this point we are using 3-4 chips (about 1" long, from a pre-packed bag of orange or hickory wood)
2: There is some residual smoke flavor in the cooker which will show up the next time you use it. We do clen it well (but can not really scrub without damaging the non-stick surface)
Thus far it has not been much of an issue. The flavor is mild, but there. It does lessen over the course of several uses (and is certainly not a dominant flavor if you are not using the smoking basket), but I thought it was worth mentioning.This smoker cost around two hundred dollars plus shipping. I uses it a couple of times and it worked OK if you like cigarette smoke flavored meat. When I used it in the brown or warm mode, the thing stopped working. I took it apart and the components are melted together. There is no insulation at all in or around the circut board. I hoped I could find a parts vendor to fix it myself,or send it in for repair, but I and unable to. Do not waste your money on this item. Two hundred plus will go a long way at Rib Crib, and you dont have to clean up the mess.
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