Smoking food is a time-honored tradition and arguably one of the best ways to cook food. You trade the quick cook times of a high-temperature grill for the low and slow approach. The longer cook times help break down the connective tissue's collagen in meat, allowing you to turn cheaper cuts of meat into tender and juicy centerpieces for your next barbecue. There are a variety of smokers out there, including charcoal, electric, propane, wood pellet, and many others.

For beginners, an electric grill is a great place to start. It's much easier to use than offset or charcoal grills and lets you smoke food for long periods without having to babysit the smoker. So, whether you're smoking a delicious brisket or trying something daring like smoking a pot roast, an electric smoker will get the job done with reasonably good results. There are multiple types of electric smokers. Some use an electric coil to heat wood chips that smoke upwards into a chamber, while others use an auger to move wood pellets onto a burner and release the smoke into the cook box.

Thus, there are plenty of choices when it comes to electric smokers. People like some more than others, though, so here are the smokers that consumers tend to like best. For this list, we sourced nationwide retailers like Lowe's and Home Depot, along with any other retailer we could find that sells smokers.