I purchased one of the 5 series copperhead smokers from Walmart a couple of weeks ago. I have done 2 cooks on it and I like it so far. There have been some challenges for sure but that is the case with any new cooker in my experience. I have never used a pellet cooker of any kind so there was a bit of a learning curve. Having said that both cooks turned out great.
Assembly was relatively easy. I did it by myself in about 40 mins and I wasn't in a hurry. I set it up and did the burn in right away. it burned off all the assembly chemicals etc...
I did have a damaged door. That seems to be a big issue with these, many are apparently damaged inside the box. I think they need to rethink their packaging. Dealing with the company for warranty was very easy though. They are shipping me a new door. In the meantime the damage is only cosmetic so I am still using the smoker.
Both cooks I did were in the 6-7 hour range. The first time I did beef ribs and the second time I did 3 racks of spares and 2 boneless turkey breasts. Both were delicious! On the first cook the temps spiked a little high after the water evaporated out of the pan. I didn't have it all the way full so that is my fault. I think in the future I may put some foil wrapped fire bricks in the pan in lieu of water.
The second cook I had an issue because I was cooking on my driveway which has a pretty good slope! When I topped off the water pan it spilled out the back of the pan from the slope and it must have gotten into the bottom of the hopper or the auger area. It got an error and quit working. When I inspected the cooker I noticed that the pellets had gotten wet in the auger area and wouldn't let any new pellets in. I dumped all the pellets out with the access door in the back. Then I took out the 15 or so screws that hold the hopper on the back of the cooker out and pulled that part off. This gave me access to the top of the auger. I cleaned out the mushy mess with a screwdriver and shop vac. After I put more pellets in and held the prime button for a bit it fired right back up and we were smoking again. It was a pain but it was all my fault. I guess my main point to posting this is that I have read a couple of other posts were people either complained or were concerned about how to access the auger area for a clean up like this. If you take the back of the hopper off (which was easy) then it was a breeze to fix the issue. If you tried to do all this through the access door it would be almost impossible.
Over all I am VERY happy with the unit. It holds steady temps (as steady as anything) and produces good BBQ. I love the capacity and easy access to the meat! I can't justify spending the kind of money it would take to get a FEC or other comp style vertical cooker so this is a good alternative for me.
Quite a bit more convenient than my WSM so I think I will be using it a lot more.
Assembly was relatively easy. I did it by myself in about 40 mins and I wasn't in a hurry. I set it up and did the burn in right away. it burned off all the assembly chemicals etc...
I did have a damaged door. That seems to be a big issue with these, many are apparently damaged inside the box. I think they need to rethink their packaging. Dealing with the company for warranty was very easy though. They are shipping me a new door. In the meantime the damage is only cosmetic so I am still using the smoker.
Both cooks I did were in the 6-7 hour range. The first time I did beef ribs and the second time I did 3 racks of spares and 2 boneless turkey breasts. Both were delicious! On the first cook the temps spiked a little high after the water evaporated out of the pan. I didn't have it all the way full so that is my fault. I think in the future I may put some foil wrapped fire bricks in the pan in lieu of water.
The second cook I had an issue because I was cooking on my driveway which has a pretty good slope! When I topped off the water pan it spilled out the back of the pan from the slope and it must have gotten into the bottom of the hopper or the auger area. It got an error and quit working. When I inspected the cooker I noticed that the pellets had gotten wet in the auger area and wouldn't let any new pellets in. I dumped all the pellets out with the access door in the back. Then I took out the 15 or so screws that hold the hopper on the back of the cooker out and pulled that part off. This gave me access to the top of the auger. I cleaned out the mushy mess with a screwdriver and shop vac. After I put more pellets in and held the prime button for a bit it fired right back up and we were smoking again. It was a pain but it was all my fault. I guess my main point to posting this is that I have read a couple of other posts were people either complained or were concerned about how to access the auger area for a clean up like this. If you take the back of the hopper off (which was easy) then it was a breeze to fix the issue. If you tried to do all this through the access door it would be almost impossible.
Over all I am VERY happy with the unit. It holds steady temps (as steady as anything) and produces good BBQ. I love the capacity and easy access to the meat! I can't justify spending the kind of money it would take to get a FEC or other comp style vertical cooker so this is a good alternative for me.
Quite a bit more convenient than my WSM so I think I will be using it a lot more.
