• The KillerFrogs

OT: Smoker Recommendation

Horny4TCU

Horny4TCU

Active Member
What brand and model of smoker do you use? I am looking for a good one. Currently, I'm thinking of an offset, the one in particular is Oklahoma Joe's Highland. It seems pretty good for a backyard mesquite warrior... any thoughts, other suggested smokers, or experience with it?
 
Frog-in-law1995

Frog-in-law1995

Active Member
I have a highland with an aftermarket baffle plate. It’s a great smoker, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I don’t want to wake up before dawn on Saturday and spend all day tending a fire just to put dinner on the table. I’ve also got a BGE, a homemade drum (3, actually), a cabinet pellet smoker and a Weber kettle. I’ve also recently owned but given or thrown away a Weber bullet, an electric and a very cheap offset. I built the drums for use in BBQ competitions (got one this weekend in Carthage, in fact), and also use them at home for practice, so they get the most use, and they are great smokers. But if I didn’t compete, the egg is the one I would use the most. If I were buying one today, though, Kamado Joe has probably surpassed Big Green Egg as the best kamado style cooker out there. They’ve just put way more thought into design versatility and air flow regulation. But, kamado prices have shot up in recent years, so if you don’t want to spend over $1000 on a cooker, I’d recommend a drum smoker. There are several guys on the competition circuit who build and sell great ones (couple of guys from Wise county sell well-designed drums at $500 and $650 price points...Short Rib Drum Smokers). Or if you are a DIYer, you can do what I did and buy a 55 gallon drum from North Texas Barrel Supply in Sulphur Springs and the parts you’ll need online from UDSparts.com and build one yourself for around $200-250.

edit: and if anybody out there chooses to build a drum smoker, please, for the love of god, pm me first. I’d love to keep you from making the 3 or 4 dozen mistakes I did.
 
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Peacefrog

Peacefrog

Degenerate
Frog-in-law1995 said:
I have a highland with an aftermarket baffle plate. It’s a great smoker, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I don’t want to wake up before dawn on Saturday and spend all day tending a fire just to put dinner on the table. I’ve also got a BGE, a homemade drum (3, actually), a cabinet pellet smoker and a Weber kettle. I’ve also recently owned but given or thrown away a Weber bullet, an electric and a very cheap offset. I built the drums for use in BBQ competitions (got one this weekend in Carthage, in fact), and also use them at home for practice, so they get the most use, and they are great smokers. But if I didn’t compete, the egg is the one I would use the most. If I were buying one today, though, Kamado Joe has probably surpassed Big Green Egg as the best kamado style cooker out there. They’ve just put way more thought into design versatility and air flow regulation. But, kamado prices have shot up in recent years, so if you don’t want to spend over $1000 on a cooker, I’d recommend a drum smoker. There are several guys on the competition circuit who build and sell great ones (couple of guys from Wise county sell well-designed drums at $500 and $650 price points...Short Rib Drum Smokers). Or if you are a DIYer, you can do what I did and buy a 55 gallon drum from North Texas Barrel Supply in Sulphur Springs and the parts you’ll need online from UDSparts.com and build one yourself for around $200-250.
Click to expand...
This thread is your porn.
 
tyler durden

tyler durden

Tyler Durden
Yep, got a Big Green Egg in December and have loved it. You can get a 12 hour cook off it as easily as you can grill hamburgers. Serious fun on the back patio if you like cooking outdoors.
 
AroundWorldFrog

AroundWorldFrog

Full Member
Wood.

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*would
 
F

froginaustin

Active Member
I used to have 3 or 4 wood/charcoal cookers, but wife announced that our yard looked like Fred Sanford's. I could only keep one.

Big Green Egg. It does a lot of things well. It will get very hot for grilling. For smoking or slow cooking with or without a baffle plate, if you put in a lot of fuel and watch it as the fire gets going, you can slow it down regulating air intake and exhaust when it gets to the temperature you want. It will hold a temperature for hours without a lot of further attention if it starts out with a belly full of fuel. I have had good luck with it holding temperatures as low as ~180 and as high as 350. I haven't tried to have it hold a temperature any hotter than 350.

Friends have a Kamado Joe. It has more nice features than an Egg, but doesn't seem to hold temperatures as well.

My Big Green Egg is fragile. Two baffle plates have broken. Each cracked into 2 pieces being carefully moved on or off the cooker. The ceramic liner is cracked and likely should be replaced. Replacement parts are available, but expensive.

The BGE that I have is not easily moved. It's fragile, and the shipping weight on the ceramic parts alone was 100 kilograms.

Although BGE instructions strongly discourage using any fuel but lump charcoal, but I have done very well mixing aromatic wood-- hickory, apple, cherry-- with lump charcoal.
 
BrewingFrog

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
I am able to do great things on trusty Weber. 95% of my outdoor cooking is done on it. The other 5% is done on my custom built heavy duty smoker rig that I had some deranged metal fabricators put together in '90 or so. 5/8 steel pipe, Stainless firebox, two level racks; it's nice. Of course, now that I've had it for 30 years, I could make a lot of little adjustments, but it does what I need it to do: Get hot, stay at temperature, and provide a wonderfully tasty environment for meat to transform. Lately, this has meant smoking bacon at low temperature. We are eating a lot of bacon...
 
YA

YA

Active Member
I use a Smokin Tex 1400 with all types of wood from cherry to oak. Never had any issues. I also have a Grand Turbo 40 grill that I cook anything that needs a sear or doesn't need smoke.
 
CryptoMiner

CryptoMiner

Active Member
One of the best you can buy straight from the prisons of Texas (seriously a great smoker 10 Ga. carbon steel):

https://tci.tdcj.texas.gov/products/metal/park/bbqsmokergrill.aspx

32” x 75” x 77” tall with 21” x 18” firebox and 7” x 36” stainless steel work surface. Constructed from 10 Ga. carbon steel, 6 sq.ft. expanded metal cook surface in smoker, 2.625 sq. ft. of cook surface in firebox. Smoker/ Grill includes cool grip wire handles, damper controlled firebox, utensil hooks, grease drain, and threaded mounting hole in front of lid for thermometer (thermometer not provided, hole is filled with a threaded plug). Finish is high‑temp black paint.
 

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