One style of smoker that is a go-to for smoking as much meat as possible at the lowest price is a vertical smoker. Pit Boss just released their new DX vertical smokers, so they sent me one to see the value first hand.

What makes vertical smokers so great for value is the cabinet design. Having a big box to organize and stack meat on racks is optimal, and the DX has racks on racks on racks.

The DX also has solid temperature control because it has a digital controller that offers a large range of temperatures. That also makes it versatile for what you can smoke on it.

Features and Specs

• Retail price of $299 (check price)
• 880 square inches of smoking space to cook a ton of meat
• Digital controller has a digital display that’s easy to use
• Connected smoking with your phone and the Pit Boss app
• Temperature range of 100 degrees F to 300 degrees F
• Two wheels on the back legs make it easy to move around

Assembly

The Pit Boss DX overall is pretty easy to assemble. The instructions are clear and the cooking chamber is already put together.

The process is really installing the legs on the bottom, the vent on the back, and the handle. If you can put together Ikea furniture, you’ll have no problems with this.

Smoking

With the temperature range of this smoker, it’s very much designed for low and slow cooking. It get’s all the way down to 100 degrees F, so that means it will be better than other smoker types for cold smoking. The 300 degree F top end, is high enough for all the usual barbecue.

It works by having an electric heating element, like you’d find in an electric oven, at the bottom of the smoker. Directly above it is a removeable tray that you load with wood pellets or wood chips.

Either wood type will provide lots of smoke but I prefer the flavor of wood chips. Also, keep in mind that using an electric smoker like this will give you a little different flavor that cooking with wood like on a pellet grill, charcoal, or an offset. It will be heavier with smoke but the flavor is a little less deep and less nuanced.

A nice feature of this grill is above the smoke tray is a water pan. This helps with the moisture content of your cook an catches the food drippings.

You don’t have to do much to start rolling smoke with this smoker. Once you have water and wood in it, you just set the temperature and the smoker does the rest.

I found that the smoker held temperature really well. At the start it seems to overshoot your set temperature by 5 to 10 degrees, but just give it a minute and it settles and keeps it where you set it.

You can control your temperature through the Pit Boss app and watch the temperature of your food with the two probe ports on the controller. The Pit Boss app doesn’t have quite as many features as other brands but it has plenty to make cooking easy. Plus, once you use a smoker a little more, you likely never use other random app features.

Holding Oven

I mentioned the flavor of an electric smoker isn’t quite the same as other types, but there’s one other area that it’s better. You can also use it as a holding oven.

If you’re the type that likes to get your food ready ahead of time, you can do that and let it rest in the smoker without wood. You can set the temperature at or above 140 degrees F, and it will stay ready until it’s time to serve.

That’s a big plus for me because it avoids the stress of needing to time everything perfectly for dinner. It also avoids cutting the rest period short because people need to eat.

Big on Value

It’s hard to beat the value of the Pit Boss DX vertical smoker. It has all the features I’d want out of a vertical smoker at a very approachable cost. My minimum requirements are a digital, connected controller, and a wide temperature range. This has both of those to make smoking easy for your next meal or next party.