Scoring: Each category is worth 20 points for a total of 100

1. Temperature Controls: 10
2. Smoke Controls: 6
3. Durability: 15
4. Versatility: 11
5. Taste Test: 10

   Final Score: 52/100

The Char-Broil Electric Water Smoker is a "bullet" style smoker, named for the basic shape of the unit.

The smoker does not allow the smoke to pass over the meat and exit though the top of the smoker, creating a smoke pocket in the lid that slowly pours out the lids seal with the base, inevitably bittering your meat which is left sitting in a kind of bowl of smoke.

The Variac will allow you to have very precise control over your burner heat. With this addition you will be able to control the temperature of any electric smoker down to the degree – no joke.

The Char-Broil Electric Water Smoker is a "bullet" style smoker, named for the basic shape of the unit. Bullet smokers are great introductory smokers for a number of reasons, the most important being the price - at $69.99 it is about as inexpensive as you can get if you are buying a smoker new and even your cheapest homemade smoker isn't much less (and who really wants to cook in a trash can or a cardboard box anyway?).

The Char-Broil smoker comes largely disassembled but goes together in about 20 minutes with a screwdriver and a wrench. I have put two of these together and in both cases the smokers were missing one screw, which was irritating. luckily I have spare screws and nuts around so in both cases I could fix the problem, nonetheless for some users this is going to mean going to the hardware store for the part or even a return.

An experienced and patient pitmaster can tease come pretty decent food out of one of these guys in a pinch but it is a pretty basic unit and without committing to putting some customizations into the unit this smoker isn't going to please the serious barbecue fan for very long. If you have some ingenuity you can massively improve the unit, and later on in I will go into some recommendations on how to improve its performance.

The temperature control on this smoker is pretty rudimentary; the heating element is basic, and very similar to an electric charcoal starter, and the temperature meter on the lid is useless. The temperature control is a knob, but really only has three settings, off, not hot enough and barely hot enough.

Another problem the smoker has is with smoke control. The smoker's instructions suggest that you put your wood chips into the “water” pan for smoking. This just doesn't work well. The wood chips start out not wanting to burn for lack of heat and as the meat above begins to cook, the drippings fall on the wood and then the meats grease is what burns, which gives your meat a nasty burnt meat flavor and smell, yuck. Further the water in the smoker is an important part of the chemistry of a smoker, filling the water pan at least halfway keeps the drippings from burning, and adds the humid environment that good BBQ needs. I place my chips in and around the burner below the water pan – which works very well, though it burns away quickly if you don't use chunk wood.

Also troubling is the smoker's lid. The smoker does not allow the smoke to pass over the meat and exit though the top of the smoker, creating a smoke pocket in the lid that slowly pours out the lids seal with the base, inevitably bittering your meat which is left sitting in a kind of bowl of smoke. The lid also condenses water that then drips on your food, covering your food with sooty water that has a foul taste. Covering your food on the top grill with foil will prevent this (see below for another customization that will help with both these problems).

Pimp Your Smoker!

The blessing of this unit is that it is made of reasonably tough materials (though I found that the paint tends to come off the inside of these cookers over time). These smokers, cleaned maintained and treated well will last for at least a couple of years. The other thing that the smokers 14 gauge steel provides for is a good foundation for reasonable customizations. The rest of this article and review is about making this cheap, half assed smoker into a more serious machine that will make you much happier with your results.

Fixing the Heat Control:

My first step in customixing this smoker was fixing the heat control (or lack there of). I put baffles in the bottom of the smoker by drilling 3/8 inch holes around the base of the unit, above the burner reflector, just below the burner itself. Next I went out and purchased a bag of replacement lava rock for a propane grill and poured this around the burner. The rock takes in the heat and distributes it more evenly than the reflector plate did, and creates a good surface for the wood to smoke, and, the baffles allow me to add some charcoal (shhh!) when I can't keep the temperature quite high enough (think Fall, Winter and Spring), I control the temperature with small pieces of stainless steel screwed in place next to the holes that I rotate out to open and close - contolling air flow. When I am done smoking I UNPLUG THE UNIT repeat UNPLUG THE UNIT, remove the burner and hose out the ash. I have also added a set of three 3/8th inch holes in the very bottom of the unit to allow the water and ash that accumulates there to leave the smoker. If you don't do this rain fills the base of the unit up anyway, so you might as well.

If you want to add some real flexibility to the unit, for instance adding the option of cold smoking, you can do that as well. Go online and find a Variac – which is also known as a Variable AC Transformer (Note: A Variac is not a dimmer switch – use a dimmer switch for this and you will have an electrical fire on your hands!). You will need one that is rated for at least 20 amps, and plug this unit in between your power and the smoker. The variac will allow you to have very precise control over your burner heat. With this addition you will be able to control the temperature of any electric smoker down to the degree – no joke. In a search for this article I found at least 3 used Variacs online that would do the job, from between $25 and $50. Set your smokers temp knob to max and use the large dial on the Variac to find your exact temperature, high or low. The best thing about the Variac it that it will make your smoker look like FrankenSmoker!

Fixing the Smoke Control:

This fix is a simple one and does a lot to fix two of the problems presented by the Char-broil. The Thermometer on the lid is a useless piece of junk – you have to use a a different thermometer, so pull that piece of junk right out of the lid, and add a smoke baffle instead. You can actually use tin foil for this if you want to work on the cheap, just shoving the foil in the hole and allowing a hole on one side to let out the smoke. This fix solves two problems in one – both the smoke bowl problem caused by the closed lid, and the drip problem caused by condensation on the lid roof. Allowing the smoke to pass over the meat is key to good barbecue, and this fix will make a huge difference in the taste of the food you can produce in this otherwise mediocre cooker.

I would love to be able say that I don't fall for gadgets. The thing is I do, and in general I end up not liking them. I have basically never found a "handheld" to be of any use at all. I just don't pick it up, they have a terrible interface,and are just not pleasing to use. ick. Thing is, I own two of them.

In my kitchen, I don't actually have all that many gadgets. A few, that work, I do keep handy. For instance, I love my silicone spatula that I can stick in a fire and scoop out molten lead with (ok, but almost!). I like my fancy lemon zester, my bread machine, and... I do have a waffle iron. After that, its all woks and pans and knives, the essentials.

The Flexicado™ is a gadget. No question. but is it a nice one? like my ginger grater, or a another piece of junk, Like... every pepper grinder I have ever owned. After my first two uses, I think it might actually be a keeper. I picked it up after reading a review that mentioned in a magazine, and I thought - "I have to have one of those!" A trip to Sur La Table and $5.20 cents later I had one.

$5.20. That's a great price. I thought well, if this thing is junk, at least it isn't Krups junk. It's more like fru fru fancy overindulgent coffee drink junk. So I went straight to Harris Teeter and picked out 2 miracle perfect avocados.

Last night I used it the first time. The body of the Flexicado™ is made from flexible nylon, so that it can change size to help follow out the shape of the avocado; this is about 85% effective and on smaller avocados it works fairly well. On larger avocados you may need to make a second pass.

IF you are a big avocado fan the Flexicado™ is pretty cool. For salads and Guacamole this will save you time. The slices are a bit rough around the edges, though I imagine that I will get better at using it. I do fear that the nylon is going to get dull but I will have to see how it stands up to use.

First Impression: Good, though pretty function specific. Materials are a little lighter that they could be (thinking stainless spring steel and wire...) works pretty well, and has a low space impact. Probably floats (important on a boat), and looks pretty cool. I think I will probably use it until it gets dull, won't throw it away for too long, and then won't get another one.

Brennan G. Proctor (a.k.a. Uncle Brutha) sells his hot sauces in person at Eastern Market on the weekends. I have been picking up the occasional bottle over the last year on the weekends I that I am lucky enough to have the time to go by the market. I haven't been lucky enough to have his Chile Verde sauce yet but the next time that I hit the market I am certainly going to pick one up. You can also pick up Uncle Brutha sauces at his website, http://unclebrutha.com.

Throughout the country, you will find all kinds of chile peppers. Texans boast their citrus-hot jalapeños and squat poblanos. In Louisiana, cayenne and tabasco peppers are the chiles of choice. Cooks in Miami have fallen in love with the fiery habanero, and in California, the chiles selected are most often pasillas, fresnos, and California chiles. But in New Mexico, there is only one chile of any real importance, The New Mexico chile. The New Mexico chile comes in both fresh and dried varieties and depending on when they are picked are served either red or green.

The New Mexico chile comes in many different varieties. The most popular mild pepper is the NuMex conquistador, which is great for chiles rellenos. The NuMex sweet variety is used like a bell or anaheim pepper, as it has little or no heat at all. The NuMex Joe E. Parker is a medium-hot pepper that is excellent for salsas. And for the serious chileheads, there's the Sandia, a very hot southern variety, that is used in many green chiles that you will find throughout New Mexico.

This week we had our first whole weekend back on our boat since we had it put back in the water last week. After 6 weeks living away from our floating home I was ready to do some cooking.

I finished setting up my smokers on the dock in front of my boat and started them up. In the galley I had a brisket soaking in a quick rub I put together, two chickens and a mess of poblano chiles waiting.

In our time out of the water I had worked up the recipe that follows this posting for a smoked chile - and man did it turn out! Naomi and I had a couple of friends over for the results; Slow Cooked Brisket with homemade Mango Habenero Barbecue Sauce, bowls of Smoked Chicken and Pablano Chile and a mess of Green Chile Cornbread. By the end of the day the smoker had let all of our neighbors know we were home.

My father has loved Tabasco Sauce for years, and for almost as long I have been trying to convince him that while there is a place for Tabasco - it isn't on everything you want hot; because when you add Tabasco you also add a lot of vinegar, and in my opinion at least, scrambled eggs just aren't any better with vinegar on them - even if it is spicy vinegar.

Recently though my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco (which isn't really Tabasco anymore now is it?) In the last 2 or 3 years chipotle chiles have become very popular. A restaurant chain carries the name, and endless products containing some variation of the smoked chile have been put on the market, from sauces to mustards. When my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco - I saw my chance to introduce Los Chilernos Chipotle powder as an alternative to his vinegar habit.

I have tried a couple of chipotle powders and so far this is the best I have found (though the search continues!) Los Chilernos advertises itself as providing the ingredients for "gourmet" southwestern cuisine and in terms of chile powder so far as I have tried, they do sell a high grade set of products.

This powder is great stuff. The smoke is right up front, it has a sweet smell but the taste is all chile and wood. It is great sprinkled on salads, mixed with a bit of olive oil and used as a bread dip or added to soups and stews to add both heat and a great smoky quality. This chile powder is pretty hot and carries its flavor along way with just a touch, so use it carefully at first until you figure out how much you like.

I had my parents over for dinner on our boat and served a ceasars salad with a light dusting of this chile powder over the top, and ended up sending them home with an extra bottle. My dad still hasn't given up on Tabasco Sauce, but he is mixing it up now with this great powder. I totally recomend it. You can find Los Chilernos chile products at Whole Foods Markets, but more often that not they they don't carry the powder in this shaker bottle - the powder is the same either way but the shaker is a nice way of serving it up. You can order it online at http://www.888eatchile.com for about $6.00 a bottle or a 3 pack for about $17.00.

Next Chipotle Powder? Chile Today-Hot Tamale Chipotle Powder.

I ran into this plastic tub of "red chillies" at a local Pakistani food store in Falls Church. I couldn't help picking it up for two reasons. The first was the price! At 1.99 I didn't think I could go wrong and I had never seen these little peppers before and I just had to try them out.

I am not at all sure what kind of chile these little guys are, they are a bit smaller and much brighter in color than Hungarian cherry peppers or cascabel peppers. I would guess that they are related to cascabel though only about a third the size, and about twice the bite. These little chiles like Hungarian cherry peppers are loaded with seeds. Bright red , smooth, and round in shape, measuring about ½ an inch in diameter. medium fleshed and pretty hot, with a sweet fruit/raisin quality. Low in tannins, The flavors are a little smoky sweet, rather like a riesling grape. The heat is first noticeable at the back of the throat, but hangs on around the front of the mouth and lips. Great for sauces, soups, and stews, and might make a great powder if you have the patience to seed them - I don't.

I will definitely be back for more of these. They are perfect for bringing up the heat in any number of chile dishes and grind really easily, just drop them into your grinder and give them a spin - just 3 or 4 of these will add a noticeable note of heat in any