Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Cave Tools Pellet Smoker Tube.  I recently discovered this brand and will be bringing you more form them soon.  I wanted to start with this item as I think it will have a lot of utility for a lot of listeners.

Out of the gate you can get smoker tubes for as little as 10 bucks and they do work, all of them “work” the key is how well, how long and how practical are they for real smoking use.

If you want to save a few bucks sure just search Amazon for “pellet smoker tube” and take your pick.   If you want to follow my “always be frugal never be cheap” law of life, get this one or one as much like it as possible.

I broke down the criteria to get “the best” as follows.  Note I did not say the best for the price but the best.  While best for the price is something I teach there is also a cost threshold to look at as well.  Once you are under a certain price point, just get the best you can find.  When the best of something is 20 bucks and likely is a lifetime purchase, stop doing math and get on with living or in this case cooking.

The Criteria for me Here Are…

• • Construction – the gauge of the steel should be heavy to prevent warping.  While the gauge was not stated reviews of it were positive (on negative reviews, see PS below).  I had also already bought other items from Cave Tools and knew when they said heavy gauge they were not BSing.  This sees to the question of how long.  Heavy steel equals long life.
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  • Design – this tube is well thought out.  Unlike most that use small circular holes it uses longer ovals, this creates better airflow.  More airflow better smoke.  This sees to how well, good design equals good function.
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  • Capacity – many times I want to put some smoke on something short duration like a steak or chops sure.  The real point to smoke though is “low and slow”.  Tubes actually work better (volume of smoke) the longer they run.  (more on that in a bit).  The last thing you want is to be 2 hours into a 8 hour cook and need to refill (restart) your tube.  There is also a reality here.  Any meat will only “take smoke” beyond the bark anyway for so long, once it reaches a sufficient temp it stops taking smoke.  Hence you want your smoke to simply run for you up to that point.  This tube when full provides 8 hours of smoke.  That is plenty for anything you are going to cook using a smoke tube.  This sees to how practical, volume equals long duration use without a reload.

Based on the above this tool is “the best” in my opinion, that doesn’t mean no other product is as good, it simply means for what it is, it is very hard to do much better.    There are some things to know about using this tube or any tube in my view anyway.

• 1. As I said the longer it runs the better it gets as to volume of smoke.  If you are doing a pork roast for 5 hours this likely does not even matter but the first time I used mine I just put some smoke on burgers.  An hour later I came out and thought I left the burners on the grill and had a grill fire going, instead it was the smoker just doing its job.  Billowing smoke pour out of the grill vents.  I dumped a glass of water on it, went back inside.  An hour later it was billowing still!  The lesson, if you want smoke on a burger or something quick, start the smoker 30 minutes or even more before you start cooking if you want heavy smoke on it.
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  2. They work best full but as above putting them out is not practical.  I am pretty sure if you used enough water to do it, the pellets would expand to pulp and be useless.  So follow the instructions and put some foil inside the tube and limit it to what you need, with a little extra because pellets are cheap and all.
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  3. Use a torch to light it and give it a really good start then LET IT BURN for a good 3-5 minutes.  Don’t worry it wont’ all get on fire, it won’t take out too many pellets too fast, it will all be just fine.  Then let it run (smoke) with the grill open for another 3-5 minutes before closing down the hood.  Don’t soak the dang pellets either.  They are compressed sawdust not wood chips.  All you will end up with if you do this is mush.
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  4. While it is a good idea to have the grill running under it for a bit when you start it, you can cold smoke and there is no real need to have any heat below it once it is running.  Once it is running right it will run for hours and hours with no heat under it.

This is a great item for anyone with a gas or charcoal grill.  For 20 bucks you end up with a “pellet smoker” without another expensive large item on your deck or porch.  And unlike a smoker you can sear, cook fast, etc. or smoke low and slow.  Yes you can do it with foil pouch and wood chips, I have done so many times.  That works, but this works better and in the end it is more efficient and hence more economical over the long run.  As always, be frugal not cheap!

So check out the Cave Tools Pellet Smoker Tube today and take your grill master skills up a notch.

Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com

P.S. – I wish I could just endorse “everything Cave Tools makes” but I can’t.  Some is just rebranded crap like the stupid plastic “meat claws” and some is a good idea not well executed.  That seems to be the case with their “smoker box”.  A box uses wood chips vs. pellets like a tube does.  The box they make seems to be too thin when it comes to the steel and so it warps.  It also seems to have a poor design and hence does not function well.

I am telling you this for a reason beyond do not buy it though. I am telling you it because Cave Tools has made a classic Amazon Vendor mistake.  They have positioned the box and the tube in Amazon listings so that when you pull up one you see the other.  That way you can select either and you see both.  Seems like a good marketing tactic right?  Here is the fatal flaw.

When you do that the Amazon system shows reviews for all the items collectively.  Hence if one item is bad ass and the other sucks ass the suck ass item hurts the quality score for the bad ass one.  That is the case here.  If you read the negative reviews on this listing it becomes clear quickly that almost all of them are for the smoker box, not the smoker tube.  Just a typical thing to look out for when researching your own product choice in the future or when listing items if you ever sell on Amazon.