What Should You Look for when Buying Barbecue Smokers?

If you love slow smoked meats as much as me, getting a specialized smoker is a worthwhile investment. Nothing beats gently smoked pork ribs and smoke-kissed salmon made in a smoker. 

The good news is that there are many options with convenient features. Gone are the days when you had to keep a constant watch over your smoker – checking the temperature, adding wood, and fiddling with the dampers to get a decent meal. Modern smokers have features that can help you cook with ease. 

Before diving into my recommendations for the best smokers, let me run you through the points that you should consider when shopping for a smoker:

The first thing you want to ask yourself is, are you looking for a dedicated smoker? Or are you looking to get one unit for both smoking and grilling? There’s no use spending on a dedicated smoker if you’re only planning to smoke meat occasionally. Buying a charcoal grill/ horizontal smoker helps you enjoy the best of both worlds. However, all-purpose grills don’t usually come with the functionalities that make longer cooks easier.

Smoker Capacity

You must decide the size of your grill depending on the crowd size and the desired smoker portability. Smaller smokers are portable but can’t serve a large crowd, and larger smokers have the opposite advantages. So you must calculate the trade-off between crowd size and location before deciding the right size of barbecue smoker.

Build Quality 

The build quality has an impact on the smoking process, durability, and safety of your smoker.

Metal Thickness

Smokers made of thin sheets of metal do not retain the heat for extended periods. Smokers should have thick walls to contain heat for longer. Smokers with thicker walls take longer to heat up, but they are less prone to temperature variations like cold or windy weather. 

Thicker smoker walls aren’t just more sturdy, but they are also more durable since they don’t warp easily due to heat.

Rust and Corrosion Resistance

Ensure that your smoker is rust and corrosion-resistant. The best materials are coated metals or ceramics. Stainless steel smokers are rare because it discolors when subjected to heat, leaving the smoker looking old after the first couple of uses. 

Smoker Seal

When smoking, letting in the appropriate amount of air will help you get good smoke quality. However, if your doors and dampers don’t have a proper seal, you can’t maintain a steady airflow. This means that the smoking process will require too much of your time and attention. The continuous need for adjusting the airflow will make it an arduous process.

Rounded/Beveled Edges

I must admit, sometimes I get so lost in analyzing features that I forget about the most important thing – safety. Smokers often have sharp edges that could cause accidental harm to you or your loved ones. Be sure to inspect the moving parts like latches, hinges, and doors to ensure excellent workmanship on the smoker.

Ease of Use

Smoking your meat isn’t the easiest thing to do. You have to maintain a steady temperature between 220°F-270°F (105°C-130°C) for a long duration, during which anything can go wrong. This is why you must use all the tools at your disposal to ensure the best results.

Here are the features that make the smoking process easy:

Temperature Monitoring and Control

Smoking meat takes much longer than grilling, so monitoring and maintaining the temperature of the smoker can be challenging. Electronic thermometers can make life much easier by helping you monitor the smoker’s temperature through your cell phone.

Whenever possible, always look for a smoker with automatic temperature control. Precise temperature control goes a long way in making for an enjoyable smoking experience. If your smoker doesn’t come with a cooking thermometer, you can always check out the best BBQ smokers on the market here.

Precise Damper Adjustability

Dampers help control the heat of the smoker by regulating the oxygen supply to the fire. They are located near the exhaust chimney, and the firebox or the base of the smoker.

Ensure that the smoker’s dampers are easily accessible and can be adjusted precisely without getting too close to the heat. Also, prefer more dampers rather than less because you can always shut off unused dampers, but you have lesser dampers than required, correcting this isn’t as easy.

Active Ventilation/ BBQ Blowers

Getting the right temperature on a charcoal smoker can be challenging. This is why some smokers have active ventilation systems that help adjust and maintain the airflow in the smoker. These blowers can be connected to the cooking thermometer, and the speed can be adjusted automatically to give you the perfect amount of smoke. 

If your smoker doesn’t have this feature, don’t fret, you can always buy some great barbecue blowers separately. These blowers are also helpful if your smoker doesn’t have the required number of dampers for sufficient airflow.

Water Pan Shelf

When you smoke your meat for long, it is bound to lose moisture when the air in the smoker is dry. Using a water pan in the smoker increases the smoker’s humidity to ensure juicy, succulent meat. 

Water pans also help regulate the temperature of the smoker to an extent. Whenever there is a sudden increase in temperature, the water in the pan absorbs this heat and evaporates. This protects the meat from getting burned.

Ash Removal

As you smoke your meat, a lot of ash will form over the coal, cutting off its air supply. At this point, you want to remove the ash without letting the smoke escape. For this, it is best if you have a removable ash pan below the firebox. This collects the ash that falls off the grates of the firebox. 

If you don’t have this feature, the least you should be able to do is remove the ash by opening the firebox door. This has the downside of letting excess air in for the duration it takes to clean out the ash. It is also more time-intensive than dumping out the ash from a removable ash pan.

Other Features

From bottle openers to utensil racks to exclusive apps, there are many other smoker features available. If these nice-to-have features are important to you, keep an eye out for them when buying a grill.