Nordic Ware Nordic Ware 365 Indoor/Outdoor Kettle Smoker

Gave this to my husband for Father's Day and we have really enjoyed using it. We use it on the camp stove outdoors because using it indoors makes the kitchen smell really smoky! (we don't have a stove hood) If you are a fan of smoked foods, I would definitely recommend this. I chose this model because you can do a whole chicken because it is domed, rather than a flatter type of smoker. It is also pretty easy to clean, and red!

I've had my eye on this for a while now. I have a Camerons stovetop smoker, but that is kind of limited; you want to smoke something that is not flat, such as a whole chicken, you have to mess with tenting it with foil, and you have to get the foil on tight enough so that too much smoke does not escape. Also, Camerons does not recommend using their stovetop smoker on a glass top stove. So when we bought a house that came with one, I had to buy an electric coil burner hotplate in order to use that smoker. But this one not only has the domed lid, but it can indeed be used on any cooktop. I also like that it comes with a thermometer so you can monitor the internal temperature of the smoker. When I saw that Amazon was offering it at a much lower price than I had seen elsewhere, I went for it.The smoker comes with two sample packs of wood chips, apple and oak, so you can use this right out of the box. The wood chips are made by Camerons and are good for any stovetop smoker. Since I already have a Camerons smoker, I also have a collection of different flavors of wood chips for it. You can buy a variety pack right here on Amazon:  Wood Smoking Chips Variety Gift Set - Set of 8 Pints (Oak, Apple, Cherry, Pecan, Maple, Bourbon, Hickory, Mesquite) . A little goes a long way. The smoker also comes with an instruction/recipe booklet and a short instructional DVD.The guy on the DVD made a "beer can" chicken, but without the beer can. You just pour the beer into the drip pan. You can season it with any spice rub you like, even just salt & pepper as the guy in the video did. I used  Bicentennial Rub By Penzeys Spices 8.2 oz 1.5 cup bag . The chicken was about 4.5 pounds and it took about two hours to cook, just as the guy said it would. I used apple wood chips, but you can certainly use whatever kind you like. The chicken turned out very well, nice and tender, and not at all dried out.I also smoked some homemade andouille sausage in this. The recipe is from  Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage Maker . The book only gives smoking instructions for outdoor smokers, and he says not to smoke indoors, but I think this book was written before stovetops smokers were a thing. But you can easily do this on this smoker - I used pecan wood chips, put some water into the drop pan, and smoked at around 200 degrees F for a total of 90 minutes, turning the sausages every 30 minutes. Most of the recipes in books for the home sausage maker make about five pounds, and that much will not fit in this smoker at once, unless you get a rack like this one:  Update International (STR1050) 10-1/2" Chrome-Plated Steamer Rack . Or you can smoke it in two batches. I did not have the rack when I made these sausages, but I just ordered one so I will have it for the next time.My only mistake was not heeding the suggestion that you line the drip pan with aluminum foil. I didn't have any trouble when I did the "beer can" chicken, probably because I poured enough beer into the drip pan so that any fat dripping off the chicken did not burn. But for the sausage, the water I did put in the drip pan evaporated out, and the fat from the sausage dripped and got stuck in the drip pan. When I went to scrub it out, it took some of the nonstick coating off with it. The pan is still usable, but scrubbing was a pain, so you can bet that I will lining it with foil for all future uses. Fortunately, the nonstick coating on the main grill pan stays on.But I did heed the instructions to use the exhaust fan over the stove. This does release some smoke, but not a lot. With the fan on, it did not fill my kitchen with smoke, and opening a window was not necessary. It also did not set off any smoke alarms. But if you have sensitive smoke alarms, you may want to open a window.All in all, I am glad I bought this, and if you buy it, I hope you enjoy it, too! Wood Smoking Chips Variety Gift Set - Set of 8 Pints (Oak, Apple, Cherry, Pecan, Maple, Bourbon, Hickory, Mesquite)Bicentennial Rub By Penzeys Spices 8.2 oz 1.5 cup bagBruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage MakerUpdate International (STR1050) 10-1/2" Chrome-Plated Steamer Rack

I love ribs! My method of cooking them indoors was to bake them on a rack in a covered roaster with some liquid, at 350 deg. for three hours, then into the broiler (or out door charcoal grill) for 10 minutes. Moving on...I just wasn't sure this kettle smoker could cook ribs at 200 degrees for 90 minutes or so, and give them a nice smoky flavor with only 2 TB of smoking chips. Well, I don't know how it did, but it did! They were tender and delicious, with just the right amount of smoky flavor. You could put them under the broiler or on a grill when finished, to get that char, but they were really great as is.I used Baby Back ribs (spare ribs may need a little longer time), with 2 TB of hickory. (Cameron's brand for stovetop smoking). The best advice I can give is don't forget to line the drip tray with heavy foil! I had the vents closed, and absolutely no smoke came out of the kettle. All I could smell was a mild hickory and meat cooking smell. Towards the end of the cooking time however, the drippings from the ribs started smoking and I could smell something burning. The drippings had really burnt on to the foil. The ribs were just a tiny bit dryer than we were used to so I will be putting a cup of apple juice in the drip tray next time. I think that will stop the rib grease from burning in the drip pan too. UPDATE: Putting apple juice in the foil lined drip tray worked perfectly! The vents were kept open a tiny bit as recommended in the instructions when using the wet method. Result, juicy, very moist ribs!This is truly an amazing piece of cookware. I used a gas burner on the stove, but one can also use a gas or charcoal BBQ for the heat source. The instruction booklet is small but very informative. Experimentation is part of the fun!. If you keep to the 200 degrees or so, the cooking times are pretty accurate. I left the burner on medium and the temperature never moved from 200 deg. When I took the cover off to test the meat or apply sauce, the temperature did drop about 50 degrees, but it went back up In a couple of minutes. By the way, it took almost 30 minutes for my kettle to get to 200 deg. on my gas burner. But they said to start timing the cooking from when the smoke appears, which was less than 5 minutes after turning the burner on.Clean up was fast and easy. Nothing stuck to the food tray, and the foil in the drip tray went into the trash. The wood chips were black but they didn't smell burnt. I added a bit of water as suggested to be sure they were completely out, then dumped them into the trash. There really was nothing to clean. It is very easy to be successful with this kettle smoker and I highly recommendedUPDATE 6/24: PIZZA!!! I just made my first pizza in this smoker. To my amazement IT GOT CRISP! My home made crust was medium thickness and I smoked the pizza for 20 minutes. I was too impatient to let it go another 5 minutes, but although the top was not as brown as it could have been, the bottom was nice and crisp. I used a little spaghetti sauce on the bottom, smoked corn on the cob, (left over from a rib dinner), fresh spinach, and mozzarella on top. The corn did not get over smoked because it was on top of the sauce with spinach and cheese over it. The cheese got a nice smoky flavor as did the crust. Two suggestions: 1. Try not to press down on the crust after it is in the pan. If the crust pokes down through the holes it will burn. 2. Eat this as soon as you take it out of the smoker to keep the crispness. Of course one can always re-heat it for breakfast and get it crisp again! Honestly, you won't believe how good this is. I just ordered several more flavors of Camerons smoking chips. Next pizza...pulled pork with the bourbon/oak chips.UPDATE: 12/19/16. This is still my favorite kitchen appliance and I have found a new use for it. I wanted to make steamed BAO (Chinese dumplings, meat and veg. filled buns) and did not want to spend money on a bamboo steamer. Purchased the 10 inch steaming papers which fit perfectly in this. Water in the bottom of the smoker (about 2-3 inches) and heat on high. VOILA! steamed buns!!!

I live in a condo, so I only have balcony, and cannot use regular grill. Currently I use pellet grill because there is no open fire and not much smoke comes out to disturb neighbors. When I first saw this cooker, I did not think that this method can actually infuse food with enough flavor. But reviews were positive, so I decided give it a try.I did both indoor, and outdoor cooking on a balcony. Indoors I used gas stove. On the balcony I used portable gas stove which you can find on Amazon easily, as most of Asia uses them for cooking.For indoors cooking you really want to have your windows open, or have an exhaust vent to the outside. I don’t have an exhaust to the outside, I have a recirculation stove hood, which does not eliminate the smell itself, just dissipates it. Now if you don’t open windows, you will not end up with smoke in your house, and your alarm will not go off, but a strong smoke smell will float all over the house, and despite it smells nice when cooking, you don’t want it to stay long, which smoke smell tends to do.Outdoors cooking with portable gas stove is a breeze though. Your apartment neighbors will not notice literally anything, and results will be the same.Now on the results. One word. IMPRESSIVE. I smoke-cooked sweet potatoes and chicken. If I had this thing before, I would skip buying my pellet grill for several hundreds. This thing is far more superior, when it comes to the results. And all with FAR simpler design. My grill needs electricity, has electronics, fan etc. This thing gets you better results with no moving parts whatsoever (except the thermometer) leave alone electronics! It is simple and effective (which makes me think why it costs 90 bucks, but I give it to the designers and engineers who did a great job and it’s still much cheaper than pellet grill). The smell of the food comes out great with 2 tablespoons of chips! It cooks thoroughly. It stays juicy. All with little attention of controlling the gas under it to keep the temp at 200F.The only design con I can think of is cleaning. Inside is made of rust-resistant steel, which is good and will not leave anything in your food except iron which is again fine, but since there is no coating cleaning it fully clean is hard or even impossible. But you don’t really need to break your back. You need to treat insides than don’t touch your food more like grill, than a pan. The tray where food stays cleans easily though. So no nasty things in your food.Overall I am very happy with the purchase so far.UPDATE. After several months of use, I am decreasing the rating to 4 stars. Several reasons:1. If you don't clean the item thoroughly, then creosote is going to collect on the walls, and make your food taste like you smoked it over the tailpipe of a pickup truck2. Item is very hard to clean3. Smoking indoors without a powerful ventilation going outside is hardly an option, as your whole house will smell like there's a fire.4. Unfortunately it cannot fully replace grill, since a steak will not be a steak in this smoker, it will be something else, a brisket, just meat, but not a steak (and god forbid don't do wet smoking with the beef, don't repeat my mistake, you'll get boiled beef with weird smoke flavor).

I was looking for a smoker to use outside but accidentally ran across this one. I was fascinated with it! I ordered it and two days later it arrived. I have used it twice now - the first time with chicken and the second with pork. I messed up the first time by placing the chips in the drip pan which didn't result in very smokey chicken. The second time I got it right, however I left the pork cooking for too long and it got very dried out and hard. And I have burnt black stuff in the drip pan that I can't get out so it'll have to stay.I watched the video that comes with the smoker a few times but I still need to keep practicing. I bought more wood chips and will try it again in a couple of days. I like that it's easy to clean (except for the mess I made in the drip pan), and with the overhead vent fan on not too much smokey smell gets in the house. The thermometer that comes with it is easy to use and I check it frequently to make sure that I'm at 200F. I use my smoker on a gas stove so it's easy to see the flame and adjust the heat as necessary.I haven't been discouraged just because I haven't had a raving success yet. I just need to keep experimenting with it until I get it right. I think it's a great idea that it can be used inside the house and outside on a grill during the summer. I love smoked meats and will finally get my technique perfected.UPDATE: 5.28.14 - I smoked a whole chicken yesterday and it turned out pretty good. It was still partially frozen when I started so I gave it extra time in the smoker. I added about 3TBLS of wood chips, and I put about a cup of water in the drip pan. After it smoked for over 2 hours it was done, but it didn't look all nice and brown like the chicken in the product video. It was however, extremely tender and juicy. The meat just fell from the bones and it tasted very good.UPDATE: 8.25.14 I have discovered that this smoker smokes chicken the best. I'm no longer hesitant to use a lot of seasonings on it, along with a heaping amount of wood chips. I smoked a batch of chicken legs/thighs the other day that were heavenly. I mean, I think I've got this thing figured out.....at least for chicken. I'm still working on smoking the greatest pork in the world and will update when that day finally arrives.