Masterbuilt Electric Smoker Reviews: Our Editorial Take

The short version

The Masterbuilt is a likeable, easy smoker carrying two problems that never go away: a chip tray too small for the job, and electronics that die. Better to know both before you buy than after.

What's good:

• Truly set-and-forget: plug it in, dial a temperature and a timer, and walk away, which is why it is the common first smoker.
• Strong at the preservation jobs, smoked jerky, smoked fish, smoked sausage, and low-and-slow ribs, turkey, and pork.
• Insulated cabinet holds low temperatures steadily for the long hot-smokes that jerky and fish want.
• Cheap to buy and cheap to fix, since replacement elements, cords, and control boards are inexpensive and easy to swap.

What's not:

• Durability is the clear weak spot: digital displays, controllers, and heating elements fail, and the painted body can bubble and rust.
• The chip tray is tiny and needs refilling every 30 to 60 minutes, and it often struggles to throw much smoke.
• It is a hot smoker only; true cold smoking or curing needs a smoke generator or cold-smoke attachment, not the built-in tray.
• Real cooking temps top out around 250 to 275, and you will not get a classic smoke ring.

Who it's for

Two questions sort this out. What are you smoking, and how much fire-tending do you honestly want to do?

Buy it for:

• Smoked preservation projects in a hands-off box: jerky, smoked fish, snack sausage, and low-and-slow meats a few times a month.
• A first smoker where set-and-forget convenience matters more than chasing competition-grade bark and smoke ring.
• Apartments, decks, and spots where an electric cabinet is allowed and open flame is not.

Skip it if:

• You want the simplest thing that can fail, in which case the analog Masterbuilt drops the digital board that owners most often lose.
• You mainly want true cold smoking or curing, which this cabinet cannot do without a separate smoke generator.
• You want offset-level smoke flavor and a real smoke ring; a stick or charcoal cooker is a different, more involved animal.

The specs that matter

For someone preserving food rather than chasing competition barbecue, the spec sheet comes down to heat, smoke, and electronics:

Insulated cabinet with a rear heating element, real-world temps about 250 to 275: hot enough to carry beef and poultry jerky and smoked sausage through the range they need, and steady enough to hold a low temperature for hours. That ceiling is why owners call it a smoker rather than a searing cooker, and a couple note the door reads higher than the meat actually sits.

Side-loading wood chip tray: this is the part owners talk about most. It holds very little, so it needs topping up every 30 to 60 minutes on a long cook, and it can be stingy with smoke. Nearly everyone ends up adding a pellet smoke tube to keep smoke rolling without opening the door.

Digital panel with a timer, plus wifi or bluetooth on some versions: the timer is what makes it walk-away easy for an overnight batch of jerky. The flip side is that the same electronics are the most common failure point, and the wireless models are the flakiest, so treat the app as a bonus, not the reason to buy.

How well it preserves

For a preserver, the list of things it does well runs longer than the smoker's reputation suggests. Steady, repeatable jerky. Smoked fish, smoked sausage, low-and-slow meats. All of it without tending a fire. One owner names the preservation use cases plainly:

That smoker is good for hanging sausage and smoking fish! Get big offset for briskets

Owners across the community back that up. Salmon, turkey breast, tritip, ribs, pork. The insulated cabinet keeps a low temperature long enough for the slow work those foods want:

You shouldn’t have any issue using the smoke tube. It isn’t an active flame and totally enclosed in a solid metal box. I have the same setup and really enjoy using my smoker. Try sirloin tritip, boneless turkey breast, salmon, veggies or ribs to get going. Once you have mastered those, step up to pork butt or a brisket. It’s a great little smoker especially when you can’t push the requirements.

Smoke and heat are the limits. Real cooking temps sit around 250 to 275, and you will not get the smoke ring an offset gives you. Experienced owners name both up front rather than hide them:

Still using mine and it turns out great food. You won't get the typical smoke ring with it though. It also only goes up to 275 as well. Other than that it's a good starter

Smoke volume is the bigger recurring gripe. The small tray often does not throw enough on its own, so plenty of owners add a pellet tube or extra chips to get the flavor they want. A real limitation, and an easy one to solve:

Add one of these to pump up the smoke volume. I have a Masterbuilt and it just doesn't produce enough. Plus you can load it up with a couple hours worth of chips.

The line that matters most on a preservation site: this is a hot smoker, full stop. True cold smoking and cold-smoke curing, the kind you would use for cold-smoked salmon or hard sausage, are not what the built-in tray does. Owners who want that bolt on a separate smoke generator or a pellet tube and run it cold, which is a different setup from the out-of-the-box machine:

search amazon for pellet smoke tube. you fill it with pellets, light one end, let it burn for a few, blow it out, place it horizontally in your cooker. thankfully straightforward. I occasionally use them when I cold smoke sausage

Built to last

Owner reports are unusually consistent about where this smoker breaks, and durability is the number below that suffers for it. The good runs are good: plenty of owners are five, ten, even fifteen years deep and still turning out food.

Bought one about 15 years ago. Used till it died about a month ago. Looking to get a new one. I love them. Always made good food and tasty smoke

The failures are common enough to plan around, and they cluster on the electronics and the body. Digital displays and controllers are the number one complaint, and heat is what kills them over time:

I’m on my second masterbuilt and have gone through 3 or 4 displays. They’re good about sending replacements (at a cost). The trick I learned is that it’s the heat that does the damage to the unit. If you don’t mount the display directly to the smoker and instead put something between the smoker and the display for it to rest on and act as a buffer, it will last a lot longer.

Some owners make peace with it by keeping the machine running and replacing the control board when it acts up. One twelve-year owner describes exactly that mix of reliability and recurring bug:

Commented a few times about mine. I got one for a Xmas present and it was the one thing in my life I did not know I was missing. I have been using it pretty regularly for 12 years now. It is the height of ease and I get very good results. Mine has had an electrical bug where it will randomly turn off during the first hour or so. I have gotten used to checking on it about every 15 minutes to make sure it was still on. Once it stops turning off during the first part of the smoke, it has no problems - for some reason the problem just occurs early on. A few years ago I decided I was tired of this and contacted Master Built and they sent me a new control unit. I did not have to produce a receipt or anything and they were very quick to get it to me. It started off working perfectly and I thought my days of malfunctions were over, but it started doing the same thing after about 8 months. So I suppose it is just a flaw with that particular model. That said I still use it regularly and with great success.

The body is the other soft spot. Painted finish bubbles, seams rust over the seasons, and living outside in real weather speeds all of it up:

I had the same smoker. The paint peeling is a common issues. I sanded and repainted with high temp black spray paint. I got 5 seasons out of it, but it finally rusted out with MI winters.

Set expectations accordingly. Some owners get a good long run and treat it as a learning smoker they will replace, while others give up on the brand after a second unit:

I think it’s a very easy way to get started. They aren’t built to last - mine lasted 4 years or so - but that’ll be plenty of time to see how you like it. It won’t produce near the amount of smoke as an offset smoker, but it’ll be far better than pellet grills. I say go for it!

I've had 2 masterbuilts. I'll never own one again. Went pitt boss this time and so far I'm happy

None of this makes it junk. Replacement elements, cords, and control boards are cheap and easy to swap, and a handy owner can keep one alive for a decade. The spread between best case and worst case is just very wide, and the electronics are the weak link. Check the return terms before you order, then smoke on it hard for a few weeks so an early lemon shows itself while you can still send it back.

Living with it

Pick a temperature and a timer, and it holds the cabinet steady while you sleep or run errands. That is why it keeps getting recommended as a first smoker. The chip tray is the one thing standing between this and fully hands-off, since it needs regular refilling and is fussy about making smoke:

I got one on the cheap this summer and I really like it! You can def tell a difference between it and the Weber but the convenience can’t be beat. The Cold Smoker Attachment is a must-have, even for hot smokes otherwise you have to keep refilling the wood every 30 min and then it doesn’t even burn it unless you open the door to lower the temp and prompt the element to fire back on. That was a long sentence. I love my MES. Get the smoke attachment too.

That refill cadence is the single most common note in the whole community. Expect to top up chips through the first hours of a cook, or add a pellet tube so you can leave the door shut:

It's convenient, but you have to refill the chips every 45 min to a hour. Can smoke almost anything. I did a 14lb turkey this past Thanksgiving and it was great.

Most owners settle into a couple of small habits that make it run clean and easy. Pulling the chip loader out for airflow and using a thin layer of chips comes up again and again as the fix for weak, dirty smoke:

I love my MES. I also use it with the dispenser thing completely out and the vents wide open for airflow. Doing that helped my ashtray become nothing but ash (as opposed to pieces of charcoal, which means creosote, which is bad flavor and cancer). I also only put a thin layer of wood chips in the tray, to allow better airflow and let them incinerate instead of smolder. Also your ribs look great.

The remaining gripes are minor. The tray really is small, which is why the pellet tube shows up in nearly every thread, and greasy long cooks leave creosote you will want to wipe down. One owner describes the tray without much affection:

It’s a little metal tray that snakes around that you just fill with pellets. When I had a masterbuilt I did the same thing because the chip tray on these things are TINY. Never had build up like that though. Wondering if the pellets were damp or something or he didn’t light them correctly.

How it compares

Every alternative to the Masterbuilt trades away some convenience to buy something back: fewer parts that can fail, more smoke, or better bark.

Versus the analog Masterbuilt electric: same insulated cabinet and chip tray, but a dial thermostat instead of the digital board. You lose the timer and the app, but you also lose the part that owners most often watch die, which is a fair trade if you value fewer things to fail over walk-away convenience.

Versus a pellet smoker: a pellet grill feeds fuel automatically and holds smoke for hours without babysitting the tray, which is exactly the chore owners complain about here. It costs more and is a different kind of machine, and plenty of owners in these threads say they eventually moved to one for that reason.

Versus an offset or charcoal cooker: an offset gives you the heavier smoke and the classic smoke ring this cabinet cannot, but it demands fire tending the whole cook. The Masterbuilt trades that flavor ceiling for the ability to set it and walk away, which for jerky, fish, and sausage is often the right trade.

Using it well

Owners learn these the hard way, so learn them the easy way. Pull the chip loader tube out and open the top vent all the way so air moves and the chips burn to clean ash instead of smoldering into acrid smoke. Add a pellet smoke tube if you want hours of smoke without opening the door, and use a thin layer of chips rather than packing the tray. Lay a cast iron plate or a foil shield over the bottom rack so the food nearest the element does not dry out, and check doneness with a separate probe rather than trusting the door gauge. For jerky and fish, run it low and long, and wipe grease and creosote down after each cook so it does not bake on.

If you are buying it mainly to preserve meat, it is worth reading how the format choices play out across smokers first. Our guide to the best electric smoker for jerky walks through smoke volume, temperature, and cleanup in more depth, with the Masterbuilt in context against the alternatives.

What we'd tell a friend

Buy it if what you want is a set-and-forget box that turns out good jerky, smoked fish, smoked sausage, and low-and-slow meats without tending a fire. Ease is its real strength and the price of entry is low. For a first smoker or an apartment deck, nothing near its price does the core preservation jobs this painlessly. Add a pellet tube for smoke and it covers a lot of ground.

The reservation is durability, and it is a pattern rather than a nitpick. Enough owners have lost displays, controllers, and elements, or watched the body rust, that we would treat the first few weeks as a trial and buy it only from a seller with a painless return desk. Expect a convenient hot smoker you may have to baby or repair. Remember that true cold smoking and curing need more than the built-in tray. On those terms it earns its space.