My love affair with barbecue grew slowly. I’m from England, where barbecue means grilling burgers and steaks in the garden on a gas grill. So when I moved to South Carolina over a decade ago, I had no idea what pulled pork was or even brisket. I learned quickly. Smoking meat is something of a religion in these parts, and I suspect many pitmasters would consider the latest gadget I tested as something akin to heresy.
Today, barbecue is one of my favorite foods – the brisket at Lewis Barbecue in Charleston is what I would ask for for a last meal. However, although I consider myself an accomplished home chef, I’ve never had much luck smoking my own meats. So I was intrigued to test out the $999.95 GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker.
A smart indoor smoker, GE Profile’s gadget promises an easier, faster way to get that smoky flavor; Plus, it’s literally the only option if you don’t have the space or a conducive climate to use an outdoor smoker. I have an outdoor smoker, but it is rarely used. It’s huge, requires a lot of prep, and I feel like I have to smoke a lot of meat to justify using it. Also, as mentioned, I haven’t really had much success cooking my own barbecue.
The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker is a great gadget for smoking meats, vegetables, and more from the comfort of your kitchen. While it didn’t handle the more classic barbecue cuts as well as I hoped, if you like that smoky flavor and don’t have room for an outdoor machine, it’s a great option , although expensive.
Its main tricks are being small enough to fit on your counter (even though it’s not small) and smoking food without smoking out your kitchen. A technology called active smoke filtration technology and an air circulation system combined with tight seals and seals keeps the smoke in the device. It worked very well. No smoke escapes from the oven while cooking, but I still get lovely aromas. The only thing that stood out from the gadget was the heat. My kitchen became very hot during use.
The Smart Indoor Smoker promises an easier, faster way to get that smoky flavor.
This is because it is essentially an oven that adds smoky flavor. Unlike a real outdoor wood pellet smoker, the Smart Indoor Smoker does not cook your food with smoke. It uses a separate heating element that does most of the work while the smoke adds flavor. This significantly reduces cooking time and means you use a lot less wood pellets. But I discovered that meats don’t always achieve the tenderness you get from smoking alone.
If you want to smoke meat indoors, this is a great way to do it. Purists might scoff at it, but it’s more efficient than an outdoor smoker. And while I’ve had trouble integrating it into my daily cooking routine (it still can’t cook anything in less than an hour), in the two months I’ve tested it, I’ve used it at least twice a week, much more often than my outdoor smoker. It’s super simple to use and easy to clean, and its keep warm feature meant I could put a piece of meat or some sweet potatoes in the smoker in the morning, and it would be ready for dinner time.
Two downsides are the price – $1,000 is a lot for a single-use gadget – and the size. Only consider this if you have plenty of counter space or can store it when not in use. It’s short enough to fit under my cabinets, but not with the four-inch clearance the manual recommends. My husband didn’t want it near anything that could catch fire (he’s a firefighter and was deeply suspicious of this device, but it never caused problems).
1/5
1/5 It needs to be large to accommodate popular barbecue meats. GE Appliances says its three removable racks provide enough space to cook three racks of ribs, a brisket, a whole chicken, up to 40 wings or a 14-pound pork butt. I have not tested these capacity limits: the amount of meat a family can eat is limited. But it had no trouble handling everything I put in it, from a whole chicken to two racks of ribs to a large brisket (cut in half). The rest of the device is just as well designed. It has a nice, large, easy-to-read digital display, with a large dial that you turn and press to select the temperature and smoke level, as well as digital buttons for basic functions. There are six presets for brisket, pork ribs, pork butt, chicken wings, chicken breast and salmon that can be activated from the device or the GE Appliance Smart HQ app . Then there is a customization option to define your own smoke. The app isn’t required, but it offers a few tips and tricks and can alert you when the door is left open, when the smoker is preheated, or when the food is almost cooked, which is handy. To start a smoke, I selected one of the presets, chose to use the built-in temperature probe or a set cook time (annoyingly, you can’t use both), added the pellets, filled the bucket of water – where the pellets will be extinguished – and press Start on the machine. Once the set temperature was reached, I had to press start again (which I couldn’t do remotely) and the smoking began. 1/6 1/6 The smoker did a great job of infusing everything I cooked with delicious smoky flavor, ranging from mild for shorter cooking times to very rich for meats slow-cooked for eight to ten hours. I liked being able to monitor and control the device from the app and use voice commands with Alexa to adjust the temperature. The smoker did a great job of infusing whatever I cooked with a delicious smoky flavor. But his intelligence is limited. As is often the case with smart kitchen appliances, I was unable to start the device remotely. I was also disappointed that the smoker couldn’t automatically adjust cooking temperatures for me. The Traeger Smart Smoker I own will adjust temperatures over a long smoke, which takes a lot of guesswork out of grilling. The GE Profile Smart Smoker required frequent manual intervention for larger meats like brisket, including rotating the meat because the compartment does not heat evenly. Unfortunately, my manual intervention was unsuccessful. While all of the meats I cooked had excellent smoky flavor, my two attempts at pork butt and my three attempts at brisket all turned out moist. The chicken, salmon, and sweet potatoes were all good, but I had trouble getting these more complicated meats right. To be honest, I struggle with the Traeger ones as well, but the GE Profile Smart Smoker hasn’t made me a better pitmaster. It’s still a skill I guess a machine can’t learn. In retrospect (and based on a similar experience this professional griller had with the Smart Smoker), it’s likely that using the Keep Warm setting overcooked my meats. It takes a while for the internal temperature to come down, so I probably had to adjust the cooking time to account for that. What would be awesome is if this smart smoker was smart enough to do this for me. Or smart enough to automatically adjust the cooking temperature during smoking so the meat comes out tender every time. Although this innovative gadget brings something new to the kitchen, its smart features are currently quite basic. Smart kitchen gadgets that help you cook are great, but what I want most from a smart kitchen are smart appliances that help you be a better cook. Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge