A-MAZE-N Smoke Tube Reviews: Our Cold-Smoking Verdict

The short version

If you want the verdict before the detail, here is where the smoke tube lands after reading a few hundred owner comments. It is a cheap, near-indestructible way to add smoke or cold-smoke, with one honest quirk you should go in knowing about.

What's good:

• Turns any grill, kettle, or closed box into a cold smoker, so you can smoke cheese, fish, and bacon without a dedicated smokehouse.
• Makes hours of smoke with almost no heat, the exact thing cold-smoking cheese and cured salmon needs.
• Cheap, simple, and nearly indestructible; it is a length of stainless with nothing to break or wear out.
• Burns whatever pellets you already have for four to eleven hours, enough for a long cheese or salmon session.

What's not:

• Can be a real fight to keep lit; many owners need a torch or heat gun plus a spot with good airflow.
• Oversmoke and it turns food acrid or leaves creosote on your lid and your dinner.
• A minority get little extra flavor from it, especially on short cooks.
• Cold smoke alone does not make food safe; curing and refrigerated storage still apply.

Who it's for

This is a tool, not an appliance, and it fits a specific job. Sort yourself before you buy.

Buy it for:

• Cold-smoking cheese, salmon, bacon, and nuts, or adding real smoke to jerky, without owning a dedicated cold smoker.
• Pellet-grill owners whose food comes out light on smoke and who want a cheap, removable boost.
• Preservers who already have a grill or closed box and just need a slow, low-heat smoke source.

Skip it if:

• You want the closest in-stock swap when the A-MAZE-N is sold out; the LIZZQ Premium tube lights and runs the same way for less.
• You only cold-smoke a few times a year and want the cheapest option; a plain 12-inch stainless tube does the same job.
• You care more about flavor than brand; the pellets you burn matter more, so pair any tube with a mild competition blend.

The specs that matter

There is not much of a spec sheet on a metal tube, but the few things that vary are the things that decide your results.

Perforated stainless steel body: the holes are the whole design. They feed just enough air for pellets to smolder instead of flame, and the stainless shrugs off heat and ash and wipes clean. It is the part that makes this thing last essentially forever.

Four to eleven hours of burn per fill: a single loaded tube covers a full cheese session or a long salmon cold-smoke without a refill, and packing it a little looser with good airflow is what gets you the long end of that range instead of the short.

Runs any pellets, and chips mixed in: the tube adds smoke, but the wood decides the flavor. A mild blend keeps delicate cheese and fish from going bitter, while owners who want more punch mix wood chips into the pellets.

How well it preserves

Adding smoke for preservation is the reason to own one, and this is where owners are most united. The tube's real trick is making hours of smoke with barely any heat, which is what lets you smoke cheese without melting it and cold-smoke fish and bacon without cooking them. More than one owner points out it is, on a normal grill, about the only practical way to cold-smoke at all:

Smoke tubes are a good tool if used correctly, but your airflow needs to be controlled so you’re not making bad smoke or creating unnecessary hotspots if your cooking chamber is small. They can be used to good to good effect, and truth be told they are about the only way for most to cold smoke with any standard set up. Having said that this is a smoking sub, not a bbq sub, or even a competition sub, so cold smoking is a viable way to interact here and smoke tubes are often an essential part of that process. I’ve made some awesome cheese that way, and I’ll be doing more with the process when the weather gets cold

The cheese reports are everywhere, and they are consistent: fill the tube, light it, and let it smoke while the grill stays cold. Two owners describe exactly that low-heat, high-smoke result:

I’ve never had any problems with them. I like to use it to cold smoke cheese. Makes the smoke, but not much heat!

I use a tube to smoke my cheese. Never light the grill, just let the tube smoke away for 4 - 6 hours.

It is not only cheese. Owners cold-smoke salmon, nuts, and more, and first-timers tend to be won over fast:

I mean, he isnt wrong. Charcoal is king. But i aint mad at op. Pellet tubes were what i used this year to do my first cold smoke. I smoked some cheese and that stuff came out amazing. So while i can agree with you about snobbish people, there is some truth there…..but what op did is NOT wrong

Brand of pellets does matter and I have loved lumberjack for my pellet smoker. I have cooked with and without the supplemental tube smoke. I agree once you get it going in the smoker it is the nice blue smoke. I have been using the tube less overall as I don't get much additional benefits on shorter cooks, but I do love using it to get a boost on longer cooks before wrapping at the stall. The tube is also good for cold smoking. My favorite is almonds, giving them 2-3 hours of cold smoke before turning up the temp for roasting.

On a hot cook, the tube's job is to push a pellet grill's thin smoke up toward what a real pit gives you, and for most that lands well without going overpowering:

Always gives me good results. Lots of smoke too. I only did 1 run for my turkey, but I've done 2 runs for a pork shoulder. Nice smokey taste that isn't overpowering.

The honest limit is that smoke tubes are a supplement, not a miracle, and a minority get little out of them on short cooks:

Even when they stay lit they don’t impart much flavor. Stick with charcoal and wood chunks.

One safety point belongs here, because the preservation angle makes it easy to get wrong. Cold smoke adds flavor; it does not make meat safe. Smoked cheese and cold-smoked nuts are fine, but cold-smoked bacon, salmon, and jerky still need proper curing and refrigerated or frozen storage. The tube handles the smoke. It does not replace the cure.

Built to last

Durability is the easy axis to score, because there is almost nothing here to fail. It is a perforated stainless tube with no motor, no electronics, and no moving parts, so it takes heat, ash, and years of hard use in stride, and it costs little to replace if you ever lose one to the ash bin. Owners run the same tube every cook and expect it to keep going:

I use mine every session. I pack it thick . I use a torch and just burn the open end until it's a solid flame coming from it when I stop with the torch. Then I just put it in the smoker. It burns to the last crumb each time.

The only real hardware complaint lives between brands, not within a good one. Some of the cheapest tubes are drilled with holes too small or spaced wrong, so they choke themselves out no matter what you do, which is a big reason people who buy a well-made tube rarely gripe about the metal itself. Buy a reputable one and the tube is the last thing you will worry about; the technique, below, is the part that takes practice.

Living with it

Here is the soft spot, and it is the reason the score below is not higher. The single most common thing owners say about smoke tubes is that they can be a pain to keep lit. It is the exact complaint that starts the biggest thread in this whole hobby:

I don’t think I’ve once had it stay lit. Any tips or tricks?

The fix is real but it is a routine, not a switch. A plain lighter almost never gets pellets hot enough; you want a propane torch or a heat gun, several minutes of open flame before you blow it out, and a little geometry so the embers do not separate from the fuel:

I had the same problem when I first started using my smoke tube. I now use a torch - like what plumbers use to solder - then let it burn for about 5 minutes. After that I blow out the flame and lay it down in my smoker. One trick I learned is to have the closed end higher than the open end. When I would lay it flat it would always go out. Now it stays lit for several hours.

Even done right, it is not foolproof, and honest owners say so. The number a lot of people land on is roughly four times out of five:

I use the same pellets too. The other guy is right. 5 mins standing. But when you lay it down. Gently blow into the tube and push the flames into it. Then blow out the flames. It should smolder and smoke the rest of the time. However, I will say….It is 100% guaranteed. 80% of the time it stays lit but sometimes I need to go back out and light it again. My wife had a chef torch she was no longer using and I took it. That’s how I light mine.

Owners of this exact tube describe the same trial-and-error before it clicks, and the working recipe is remarkably consistent: get it blazing, keep the lid open while it flames, then lay it in a spot with airflow:

I have this exact model and I feel your pain and took me a while to find something that finally worked:. Fill with pellets, lay on side. Add a paper towel or two drizzled with a little cooking oil. Light, and the let flame for 5-8 minutes with smoker lid OPEN. They have to get blazing hot and you dont want to good your meat in oil and paper spot. Blow out once you see hot embers and you should have no issues. Mine will smoke for a few hours! Alternative, I now use a grille torch but I have to light it AWAY from my smoker for like 2-3 minutes.. then carry it over as those torches can easily catch my drip pan on fire.

Love mine. I have two, one short and one long, depends how long I’m smoking. Lay it down, light it with a torch, let it burn for a few mins, then blow it out. Watch the smoke carefully at first. Occasionally it does go out but not often.

The other living-with-it risk is the opposite problem. Let it smolder too low or too long and the smoke turns dirty, which shows up as creosote on the lid and a harsh edge on the food:

Same here, or it burns so low that it soaks my food in creosote

One owner captures the whole tradeoff in a single line, creosote and all:

That tube has my lid dripping creosote but damn that cheese is DELICIOUS.

How it compares

The tube does not exist in a vacuum, and two alternatives plus one upgrade to your fuel come up most when people cross-shop it.

Versus the LIZZQ Premium Pellet Smoker Tube: this is the closest like-for-like. A 12-inch stainless tube that lights, smolders, and cold-smokes exactly the same way, usually for less money, and it tends to be the one in stock when the A-MAZE-N is not. If you just want a working tube today, it is the easy swap.

Versus a plain 12-inch stainless smoke tube: the budget floor. No brand markup, same basic hexagonal-or-round stainless design, a few hours of smoke per fill. If you only cold-smoke cheese and fish a handful of times a year, an unbranded tube does the job for less, as long as the holes are drilled sensibly.

Versus upgrading your pellets: the thing that changes flavor most is not which tube you buy, it is what you burn in it. A mild competition blend like Camp Chef's keeps cheese and salmon from turning bitter, so the pellets are often the better place to spend attention than the hardware.

Using it well

Get the most out of a smoke tube with a short routine. Fill it, but do not pack it to the very top, and stand it upright to light the open end. Use a propane torch or a heat gun rather than a lighter, hold the flame until the top pellets are a solid, self-sustaining fire, then let it flame in the open for five to ten minutes before you blow it out and it starts to smolder. Lay it in the smoker with the closed end propped slightly higher than the open end so embers stay against unburned pellets, pick a spot with real airflow, and keep it away from the temperature probe so its heat does not fool the grill. For delicate work, reach for a mild wood and go easy; smoke tubes reward restraint:

I love this thing in my Traeger. I use the wood from my mesquite tree and it adds great flavor, and it’s perfect for smoking cheese. Like others have said, use a torch and let it burn for about 5 minutes before blowing it out.

For pure cold-smoking, you often do not light the grill at all, just the tube. A little fire starter at the open end makes ignition far less fussy:

I use one to smoke cheese. I just fill it up, put a little fire starter at the end and never had any issues getting it going

If you are getting into cold-smoking for real, it is worth reading how time, temperature, and wood choice play out across foods before your first cheese or salmon run. Our guide to cold-smoking cheese and fish walks through the fuel, the airflow, and the food-safety line in more depth, with the smoke tube in context.

The bottom line

The A-MAZE-N smoke tube is an easy thing to recommend for what preservers actually want it for: turning a grill or a plain box into a cold smoker for cheese, salmon, bacon, and nuts, or adding real smoke to a pellet cook that comes out too clean. Performance at that job is strong, and the hardware is about as durable as a kitchen tool gets, a length of stainless that will outlast most of what you own. For a few dollars and any pellets you already have, that is a lot of preservation range.

The one thing keeping this from a straight rave is the keep-it-lit learning curve, and it is real, not a nitpick. Plan on a torch or heat gun, a few patient minutes of open flame, and a spot with airflow, and know that oversmoking trades good flavor for creosote. Get the routine down, which most owners do within a few tries, and it becomes a set-and-forget source of hours of clean cold smoke. Go in expecting a cheap, tough, genuinely useful tool with a short skill curve at the front, and the smoke tube earns its place.