If you love the smokey flavor of barbecue but don’t have outside space for a grill – or you just don’t want to cook in rain and snow – there’s a new countertop appliance that promises the results of a pellet grill without all the smoke that can set off your fire alarm. The catch? It’ll cost you $1,000 (around £800 / AU$1,500).
The appliance in question is the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker, which uses wood pellets to give your favorite meats, seafood and vegetables a genuine smokey flavor. The gadget can apparently achieve this without smoking out your home thanks to its active smoke filtration, which converts the smoke to warm air before releasing it.
It’s also a lot more efficient with the pellets it uses compared with outside smokers. GE hasn’t given exact figures, but a tester from House Beautiful who has tried the gadget out says a single pound of wood pellets got them through several cooks, whereas they'd normally get through several pounds of pellets to do the same amount of cooking on an outdoor smoker.
The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker comes with a few helpful additional features too, like independent heat sources for your wood pellets and meat, so that you can cook and smoke at optimum temperatures; a built-in temperature probe, so that you can avoid turning your food into jerky unintentionally; and adjustable smoke and food settings so you can prepare your food how you want it.
As we mentioned, the only major downside is that this smoker will cost you an arm and a leg at $1,000 – putting it up there with the most high-end outdoor smokers in terms of price. What’s more, if you like to cook outside when the weather is right you’ll probably want a separate grill, as this gadget is intended for indoor use only.
There are also a few other minor downsides according to people who have tried it out. It takes up a fair amount of counter space, and it’s only really suitable for cooking for up to about six people.
We’ll need to try the Smart Indoor Smoker out for ourselves to see just how well it performs, but right now this is a one-of-a-kind gadget, and if you'd like to be able to prepare smoked food indoors, and you have the budget, it might be worth a look.
If you're after a smokeless indoor grilling option then check out our Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer review for our thoughts on that appliance, or read our five-star Ninja Woodfire review for our verdict of the outdoor grill – both appliances are considerably cheaper than the Smart Indoor Smoker.
