The Smoking Gun™ Review

A hand held food smoker, otherwise known as the Smoking Gun™, may be a perfect Father’s Day gift. This small device works to infuse smoke flavor into a variety of foods that you cannot smoke in a traditional smoker, including: cheese, spices, teas, and liquids. It is manufactured by PolyScience, and is available at Williams-Sonoma stores, for about $100. With the kit, you’ll get a small (.5 oz) jar of both hickory and applewood chips.

Available Wood Chips for the Hand Held Food Smoker

The wood chips come in sets of four jars. These cost approximately $25 each. One set includes:

• Cherrywood
• Applewood
• Hickory
• Mesquite

The Vintage Cellar

• Cabernet Barrel Oak
• Whiskey Barrel Oak
• White Oak
• Vineyard Grapevine

Fruit Orchard

• Peach
• Nectarine
• Apricot
• Pear

Using the Hand Held Food Smoker

To use the hand held food smoker, simply load the chips into the chamber, attach the tubing, and place the tube into the container of food you want to smoke. Light the chips, and smoke will start rolling into the container within a few seconds. Seal the container to hold the smoke in for at least five minutes to impart a decent flavor. The longer you run the machine into the container (bag, tupperware, etc) the more smoke will go into it, and the longer you leave it sitting, the more flavor will be imparted. You can smoke foods before or after they’ve been cooked.

We’ve been using Smoking Gun™ for a few months now, and we love it. We’ve mostly used it for spices, including black pepper and sea salt. We’ve also used it to add a smoky hint of flavor to tortillas for burritos, and most recently, have used to it smoke peppercorns for a homemade smoked black pepper vodka.

Pros

• The wood chips do not need to be soaked prior to use.
• Several different types of wood are available for the hand held food smoker.
• Smoking the food only takes a few minutes, and you can do it with raw or cooked foods.
• You only need a couple batteries to use it, and the unit comes with them!

Cons

• Price. $100 is quite a bit to spend on the device. By the time you add a full sized set of the wood chips, you’re in $125 plus tax. The chips are expensive, too.
• A lack of availability. We can only find the products at the local Williams-Sonoma Store.
• Depending on how strong you want your flavor, you may need to run more than one smoke cycle into your dish.

If you had a hand held food smoker, what would you infuse?

This post was written by...

Cindy Watrous – who has written 146 posts on Its Foodtastic.

Cindy is a wife and mother who works as a freelance writer and WordPress web designer, with a love for good food.

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