When you think of barbecue you probably think of cooking outdoors, burning wood or charcoal.

Many people don’t have that option, though. If you live in an apartment, don’t have a backyard, or maybe live in an area with weather that is not always suitable for being outdoors, you may think that barbecue isn’t something that you can enjoy.

Well, GE Profile may have a solution for you. They launched a new Indoor Smoker, and I got my hands on it to try it out. In this review, I’m going to break down the ins and outs of the new GE Profile Indoor Smoker and give you the scoop on whether this indoor smoker can give you real barbecue flavor without stepping foot outside!

GE Profile sent me this smoker in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Is the GE Profile the Best Indoor Smoker?

When GE Profile reached out to me about their new Indoor Smoker I was skeptical, to say the least. I’ve smoked on a lot of different pits – from offsets to barrels to pellet grills and even electric smokers, but smoking meat indoors is not something I thought would ever be possible.

My curiosity got the best of me, so I asked them to send one my way so I could play around with it. Honestly, I’m really glad that I did.

When I unboxed the indoor smoker, I was impressed with the design. It’s a sleek machine! I was worried it may be an eyesore on the counter, but the design is thoughtful and would fit in any kitchen or indoor space.

It’s also not overly large (which is problematic in some ways, but I’ll get to that in a bit), so it fits on the counter without taking up too much space. If you plan to use it often, it wouldn’t take up so much space that you couldn’t leave it out 24/7, but it’s also small enough that you can easily store it in a closet or pantry when it’s not in use.

Now, the flip side to the convenient compact size is that it doesn’t fit a ton of food.

It has 3 grates that are 11” by 9.25”. In order to smoke a rack of ribs, I had to cut the rack in half and use two of the grates, which isn’t inherently a problem, but worth mentioning.

I was able to fit two large Porterhouse steaks on the grates with no issue, but a brisket may be a bit challenging unless you break it down.

My biggest concern with the indoor smoker was that it would leave my entire house smelling like smoke. I’ve used smoking guns and oven-safe smokers that utilize wood chips in the past, and I ended up with a smoky smelling house.

While I love the smell of BBQ, I don’t want my whole house to smell like the inside of a pit.

Luckily, the GE Profile Indoor Smoker has a “Clear Smoke” function. It takes 9 minutes to clear the smoke, so you have to clear it before you’re ready to remove the food, but once the function is complete, the smell of smoke is extremely minimal. I found that I couldn’t smell the smoke anywhere but right by the smoker when it was open.

GE Profile Indoor Smoker specifications:

*This is per the GE Profile website, but full disclosure it would need to be a small brisket to be able to fit it. I think at max it could fit about a 10-11lb brisket and a 6-8lb pork butt.

How does the GE Profile Indoor Smoker work?

My first question was, “How the heck can I smoke meat indoors?” so I’m sure you have a similar question in mind at this point. Let’s break down how the GE Profile Indoor Smoker works:

This indoor electric smoker uses what they call “Active Smoke Filtration” to turn wood smoke into warm air. You fill the hopper with wood pellets to create smoke inside the chamber, but they are not the sole heat source for the smoker. There is an independent heating element at the bottom that controls temperature.

There is a waste bucket at the bottom right of the smoker that you fill with water. Once the pellets have burned, they drop into the water to extinguish the smoke.

This smoker also has 5 different smoke settings, ranging from 1 (light smoke) to 5 (full smoke flavor), so you can adjust the amount of smoke you want on your food depending on what you’re cooking and how much smoke flavor you want to add.

They also included 6 preset food settings for brisket, pork ribs, pork butt, chicken wings, chicken breast, and salmon.

You can alternatively set it for whatever time and temperature you want, but it’s nice to have the preset settings for popular things that you may want to cook.

There is a built-in temperature probe that connects to the inside of the smoker. The input looks like the type of plug you would connect to a guitar amplifier and the probe side is long enough to be able to fit into just about whatever you want to cook.

You can also set your desired internal temperature, and the smoker will monitor the temperature and shut off when the food reaches your preset temperature. It also sets off a little alarm when you are 5 degrees away from where you want to be. I found this to be very convenient because I didn’t need to actively watch the meat cook.

One really cool feature of the GE Profile is the warming function. You can set it to warm mode and keep meat at a stable temperature while its resting, or even to hold food if you happen to finish cooking too early.

If you smoke the meat on the GE Profile, the smoker will automatically switch to warming mode at the end of the cook. However, even if you smoke something on another grill, you can easily transfer it to the GE Profile and use it as a warmer.

I have a feeling I’m going to be using this warming function a lot, especially during holidays or when I’m having people over for dinner. It’s a handy feature that replaces the need for a Cambro or cooler to keep your food warm while it is resting!

Cooking on the GE Profile Indoor Smoker

I decided to start with a rack of ribs for my first cook on this indoor smoker. Pork doesn’t have a lot of inherent flavor and tends to pick up smoke flavor well, so I wanted to test it out and see if I was able to get good smoke flavor on one of the most popular BBQ meats.

I was not able to fit the whole rack on the 11” x 9.25” grates, so I cut the rack in half down the middle and placed each half on a separate rack.

After about two hours, I used the Clear Smoke function to clear the smoke, which took about 9 minutes. Then, I pulled my ribs out and wrapped them in foil with a bit of honey, brown sugar, and seasoning.

At this point, I figured they were wrapped in foil, so I didn’t add more pellets to the smoker—essentially, it became an oven at this point.

After about another hour and a half, I pulled them out and unwrapped them. I added a bit of barbecue sauce and placed them back on the smoker open.

I added more pellets and cleaned out the waste container to try to get as much smoke flavor as possible on the ribs. After about another hour,, they were done.

There was definitely smoke flavor on the ribs, but it was not as strong as if I had cooked them on my offset smoker.

It had a very similar flavor profile to that I’ve come to expect from other pellet grills, so overall, I was happy with the flavor. The ribs were also cooked evenly, so there didn’t appear to be any “hot spots” that I noticed.

The next thing I cooked on the GE Profile was a couple of Porterhouse steaks. I set the temperature to 250°F and inserted the smart probe into the steak.

I set the smart probe to notify me when the steaks hit 120°F (because I planned to sear them in a cast iron pan to get a nice crust). The alarm went off when I was about 5°F away from my desired temperature, so I was able to utilize the Clear Smoke function without overcooking my steaks.

I finished them in a pan to build a nice crust and the steaks turned out fantastic! They had a touch of smoky flavor and were cooked perfectly from edge-to-edge. I was really impressed with out great these steaks came out!

Should you buy a GE Profile Indoor Smoker? 

As I mentioned before, I was pretty skeptical when this smoker hit the market. I had a hard time believing that I could get real smoke flavor indoors, but the GE Profile Indoor Smoker proved me wrong.

If you live in an apartment or don’t have an outdoor space, this smoker is a great option for you. You can get smoke flavor in your food right from your kitchen without having to worry about smoking up the whole house.

It’s also a great option if you live somewhere where the weather isn’t always ideal for cooking outside. For example, I live in Houston, TX, and during the summer, we have regular temperatures over 100°F. I don’t always want to deal with cooking outside when it’s that hot. The same goes for rain, snow, etc. This smoker gives you a lot of flexibility to smoke food even when the weather isn’t ideal.

Now, it’s not going to give the same flavor you would expect from an offset smoker or barrel, but it’s a similar amount of smoke that you would expect from a pellet grill or electric smoker, in my opinion. It gives nice smoke flavor without overpowering the food, so there is a lot of flexibility there – especially with the 5 different smoke levels they offer.

Its sleek and compact design means it can fit in pretty much any kitchen. While it won’t be able to feed an army, it can easily hold enough food to feed your family a tasty BBQ meal without stepping foot outside.

I think the GE Profile Indoor Smoker is innovative, and it’s exciting to see more options hitting the market for versatile ways to cook barbecue. I’m excited to keep playing around with this smoker and seeing how much it can handle!