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Emerilware 5-in-1 Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Smoker
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Average customer review:
Product Description
BAM - your stovetop is now a wood smoker! Emeril's Cast Iron Smoker brings wood-smoked wonderfulness to your stovetop. This revolutionary smoker is made of cast iron, body and lid, that won't warp or distort under the intense heat required for successful smoking. No need to worry about clearing the air - the only thing you'll create with Emeril's smoker is moist, intensely smoke flavored, ultra healthy meals. And the smoker's reversible lid can be used as a grill pan, ideal for char-grilling vegetables and meat. You can even use the smoker as a deep fryer. Comes complete with a stainless steel drip tray and rack, and 19 Chef Emeril recipe cards. Now you can Smoke, Roast, Fry, Grill and Broil with this versitle peice from Emerilware.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #179873 in Kitchen & Housewares
- Color: Black
- Brand: Emerilware
- Model: EC8629
- Released on: 2007-09-07
- Dimensions: 6.20" h x 11.30" w x 21.70" l,
Features
- 5-in-1 heavy, pre-seasoned cast-iron cooker smokes, roasts, deep-fries, grills, and broils
- Cast-iron lid reverses to become grill; rack and drip pan made of stainless steel
- Suitable for stovetop, oven, campfire, or barbecue grill
- Includes laminated recipe cards and 4 wood chip flavors: cherry, alder, hickory, mesquite
- Internally measures 13-1/2 by 9 by 3 inches; wash by hand; lifetime warranty
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Now you can get the flavor and fragrance of wood-smoked fish and meats in your kitchen without filling your room with smoke. Chef Emeril's 5-in-1 cast-iron cooker turns out succulent, flavorful food in any of five methods: smoking, roasting, deep-frying, grilling, and broiling. The heavy, pre-seasoned base and lid are so durable they are suitable for the stovetop, oven, campfire, or barbecue grill. Flip the lid over and it becomes a grill itself. A stainless-steel rack and drip pan are included, as are 16 laminated recipe cards and four containers of flavored wood chips: alder, cherry, hickory, and mesquite.
The cast-iron smoker has internal measurements of 13-1/2 by 9 by 3 inches, enough to hold a large salmon filet or multiple pieces of chicken, lamb or pork chops, tenderloin, you-name-it. Veggie lovers can make kabobs on the lid grill. After use, wash and dry by hand. Tips are included for some extra cast-iron cookware seasoning. Emerilware cast iron is covered by a lifetime warranty. --Ann Bieri
Customer Reviews
Fun toy
I have used this smoker a lot and it works very well. It makes excellent chicken and sublime smoked salmon. I have used this in my apartment and while it does make the entryway of the whole apartment building smell liked delicious smoked food, it doesn't smoke up the apartment. I have never gotten any complaints from any neighbors.
The only problem I've had is that the giant mutant chickens they sell in the grocery store these days can be too large for the smoker. You certainly won't fit a whole turkey in here, and I even had to cut some turkey breasts in half to get them to fit. I was able to fit two large salmon fillets, but if you are trying to feed more than 5-6 people from this, you'll have trouble fitting enough in.
If you keep the temperature very low, you can draw the cooking time for a chicken out to 6-8 hours and get excellent chicken falling off the bones. It makes it even better if you brine the chicken. Soak it overnight in 1/3 c salt (yes, 1/3 c), spices as desired (like some fresh rosemary and an onion) and water to cover the chicken. Then smoke slowly, keeping the internal temperature in the smoker around 200 deg. F.
I have also used the grill to compensate for the fact that I live in an apartment on the second floor and can't grill things. It isn't as good as a charcoal grill or even a gas grill but it is a distinct improvement over what I could otherwise do in an apartment.
It does take very fine wood chips and you will have to buy them separately - it would be hard to make such fine wood chips with household equipment. And it is important to care for the cast iron properly - but it isn't that much work to do it.
Clarifications and suggestions
This review is intended to clear up a couple areas of confusion for the 4-in-1 smoker and the 5-in-1 smokers. First off, they are the same thing. I've laid them out new, side-by-side, in the store, and there is no visible difference. I bought the former because they were putting it on clearance in favor of the latter.
The "fifth" feature on the new version is deep fryer. It doesn't include any new equipment in support of that feature. I didn't flip through the new recipe cards, but I suspect they've added a new recipe or two from Emeril that uses frying. Even without his help, I dare say you could fry in either one (though I probably wouldn't, dumping oil out of a shallow 30 pound iron pan ain't easy).
Some seem to believe the new one is bigger. It isn't. Amazon lists the box size as the "Product Dimensions." The ovens themselves are both 13-1/2 by 9 by 3 inches inside (it's actually about 5 inches tall, an extra inch of usable space coming from the lid, an inch of space used up by the pan and rack). I can see why you might want it bigger, especially if you want to smoke a big bird. But the thing already weighs a ton, for most purposes this is on the high end of the size-weight trade-off. If you really must smoke that turkey whole, you could leave the lid off and tent the thing with tin foil if you were very meticulous about folding your sheets together. Alternatively, for those special occasions, I recommend using a nice giant oval enameled cast iron roaster and placing the tray and rack from this unit (or similar) inside it (though an oven that size will cost you 2-4 times what this thing does).
Some have suggested the new version is pre-seasoned but not the old. I can't say for certain that the new version doesn't have a better treatment. But it wasn't visible, and my appraisal is that the old one was seasoned as well (it had a deep black sheen out of the box, not the dull grayish color unseasoned iron usually has). That said, I always season unenameled iron before a first use just to be safe, so while pre-seasoning is nice it's not worth paying too much for. If you are going to own this piece, you'll have to learn to do it eventually for occasional maintenance. Google will show you the way. My only tip you might not see in some guides is to place the pieces face down on the oven rack so that any excess oil drips out rather than pooling and hardening inside.
As for how the product actually works, I'd say rather well. It is well constructed and has superior performance to the steel smokers on the market (which are also generally smaller, though they do have the advantage of being easier to store). But because it is cast iron, the lid is also a useful broiling/grilling pan and it makes a nice large-shallow Dutch oven for certain purposes. I'm imagining simultaneously browning and braising 3 large pork loins at once (the marketing guys reading this are doubtless already drawing up plans to for a "new" 6-in-1 or 7-in-1 smoker).
Finally, though you may have seen this used on Iron Chef, don't expect the real smoked rib experience in 60 minutes. While the enclosed container allows more efficient retention of smoke than an open chimney smoker, the smoke penetrates some meats more quickly than others; most seafood great, thick chicken breasts less so. And for some dishes, part of the virtue of smoking is that it tenderizes with long, low-temp cooking. But if you were willing to monitor it and add occasional new chips (and give them a bit of extra heat to get them going), you could probably get an amazing result with this by smoking spareribs for 6-10 hours in an oven at 200 degrees or so. I haven't had the time or inclination to do that yet, but football season is coming, and that might be a good use of commercial breaks.
Good Smoker
My oldest son loves cooking with cast iron cookware. He was totally thrilled with the results of this cooker/smoker. It produced a quality finished meal and he has used it in both their home oven and on their gas grill ... If you KNOW how to cook with cast iron, this is well worth the investment
