Beginning in the world of using smokers to cook your meat, there are in fact, a lot of options to choose from. These options range from your super traditional barrel style smokers, to your luxurious electric powered smokers. Any of them can produce a great piece of meat. The real quality comes in the preparation and heat you cook the meat. Here is a short overview of a couple your popular smokers:

Barrel or “bullet” style smokers:

These smokers are super basic. Imagine a 55 gallon drum, with a fire lit at the bottom. This can be in the form of just wood, or even an electrical plate burner. This will lead up to a water bowl. This will basically act as a buffer between your fire and your meat, therefore giving you the indirect heat you desire in using smokers. The water bowl does not go all the way to the edge of the barrel so it allows heat to rise completely around the bowl, leading to the meat rack. The meat rack of most any type of smokers, is going to be at the very top point of the unit. You feed your fire to maintain temperature and your water bowl to keep the moisture in the meat. It doesn’t get any more simple than this.

Off-set smoke box smokers:

These can be made from a similar style of barrel that the bullet styles are made from, the 55 gallon drum, but its  going to be sitting horizontal, instead of vertical. What separates this from just a regular charcoal grill, is your fire, or heat source, is found in a box that is attached to these smokers. This is what is referred to as a “smoke box.” It can be fueled by wood or even an electric source as mentioned before, but this does give you the true sense of indirect smoke, as the smoker box is not under the meat. Wind flow will move your heat and smoke, usually from left to right, and that cooks your meat. These smokers are generally your most popular middle-of-the-line options but can also very well still be custom made for your needs.

Electric auger-style smokers:

These units tend to be the “Cadillac of smokers.” The reason behind this is for one simple reason, and that is because they are fully electric powered, even in terms of their temperature control. They have a box to the side, like the off-set style smokers, that contain a specially designed wood pellet, that can be of your favorite choice of wood. The box will is connected to an auger-style bit that will, slowly or speedily, feed the wood pellets into your smoker. This is basically your form of automatic temperature control. You have the ability to set your speed, check your temperature, and leave your smoker alone for hours at a time. This to me, is the luxurious, less raw style of smokers. If you have a busy day, or you have something come up unexpected, but you want to cook some delicious bbq, you couldn’t ask for more.