Meco 5030 Electric Grill and Combination Water Smoker

No more tending the coals every hour when smoking meats; Meco’s Combo Water Smoker offers optimal control, longer cook time, and less monitoring than traditional charcoal smokers. Perfect for smoking chicken, fish, and other meats to a savory finish, the combo smoker coils boil water to produce steam and burn wood chips to produce smoke that, together, more efficiently penetrate and flavor meats while they cook. The combo smoker features a removable thermostat control with low, medium, and high settings for smoking just about anything, from thin strips of sockeye to thick beef briskets. The smoker plugs into standard household outlets and converts quickly into an electric, lock-and-go, portable grill. Two nickel-plated, 15-1/2-inch cooking grids let you cook at different levels. With 351 square inches of cooking surface, there’s room to smoke nearly 50 pounds of meat at once. A porcelain-glazed pan holds 5-1/2 quarts of water to last up to five hours for extended smoking operations. Sliding access doors make it easy to check water levels and add more if necessary. Meco designed this smoker so that you can add wood and water without even removing the cover, so heat loss is minimal and meats are tender. A 1,650-watt heating element ensures even heat distribution from top to bottom. Heat-resistant wood handles on the sides and hood mean easy transport and monitoring. And, the grids inside are equipped with durable handles, so there’s no messy oven mitt to clean afterward! –Brian Olson

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Junk!
Total wast of money. Will not heat up enough to cook anything unless you plan to cook it over the course of three to four days. Because the heating element it soo cheap and the fit of the rest of the smoker is loose – it will not hold even enough heat to generate smoke. The design of having a smoking pan at the bottom that is also the base for the heating element just does not work. It even has a hole in the middle of the smoking pan for ???What??? I dont know. Its a water smoker and has a water pan between the element and the meat – so it cant be for a drip cup. Just an all around aweful thing. I went out to Lowes and bought a Brinkman $89 electric water smoker that does a MUCH better job. Amazon should not even sell these as they really are not fit for use. Total garbage and now in the garbage!

5 Stars Great Performance at a Good Price
First let me say that I am not a cook, But I have gotten nothing but rave reviews on the BBQ briskets and chicken that I have done on this great little smoker. An eight pound brisket fits quite well on the top shelf, while a chicken and some links snuggle on the bottom shelf. I followed the cooking times given in the Meco instruction sheet for all items, and the results are Great! Both mesquite and hickory have yielded excellent flavors. We can’t wait to try some other fruitwoods and rubs.

Given the price of this smoker, I find the quality to be right on. I can, and have, recommended this water smoker to friends and family. It is well made, Very easy to use and very easy to clean up (both grates and the water pan clean up well on the pots-n-pans setting on our dishwasher).

If you are looking for a good, easy-to-use home smoker, look no further … You’ve Found It in the Meco.

1 Star Quality control stinks
The first shipment arrived missing the heating element. The replacement arrived with a damaged bowl. Fortunately I had not yet returned the first one so I managed to cobble one together by combining parts. Assembling was not too bad, given that the manual did not have step by step pictures but only a picture of the overall assembly.

I really can’t comment on the smoker’s performance yet as I have only used it once. At least it didn’t blow a fuse and given the poor quality control exhibited I had my doubts about that.

I will probably keep it unless it fails to perform correctly but I cannot recommend anyone purchase it given the quality control issues.

2 Stars Not well built
This smoker creates some terrific Bar B Q, but the construction of this smoker is disappointing. After two years of use, we have to replace it. The metal lid warped the first time it was used, which means the lid and body don’t fit together well. The biggest problem, though, is that the electric control is flimsy and must be jiggled constantly or it stops cooking. This smoker was recommended by Cook’s Magazine, and while the food is terrific, poor construction means that after only two years of infrequent use, we have to replace it.

5 Stars DON’T BUY! – Lasted 9 months: Already THROWN Away – Electrical Problems
I’m editing my review (thanks Amazon) less than a year later (about 9 months) to tell you I’ve already TRASHED this smoker. I have run into the same exact problem other have, namely the dreaded electic element/controller burnout. Don’t believe me? Check out Amazon’s own page on the replacement element (http://www.amazon.com/Meco-Replacement-Heating-Element-Grills/dp/B0000CGEQX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1247782625&sr=1-1) which gets a two star review by the way. The reviews on the side of the main Meco 5030 page tell the story, as others mention the power problems.

I noticed that the smoker had been having temperature issues and ended up checking the electrode of the heating element. Sure enough, one had cracked completely where it joined the element, and melted (metal) itself so that it wasn’t straight anymore. The electic controller had plastic burn marks at the hole and the conductors where burned as well. I even thought about shelling out the $50 bucks to replace these parts, but then noticed that people were having these issues over and over again, even with the replacments!

If you buy this smoker, you expose yourself to a systematic defect since there seem to be numerous instances of this. I can’t believe this grill didn’t last a year. On top of that, the wire grills are rusted out and have lost their coating and the thermostat is broken as well.

Planned Obsolescence? Perhaps, but they won’t be getting any more of MY money. I’m buying a new smoker: the Old Smokey Electric. So long, Meco. There’s a reason why the smoker gets lots of one and two star reviews.

DON’T BUY!

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