# What was your very first smoker?



## ribwizzard (Jul 17, 2013)

Thought this would be an interesting thread, with some cool stories, good and bad.  I know Ive cooked on and wasted money on many a piece of **** in my days.


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## tucson bbq fan (Jul 17, 2013)

My first smoker was an old Weber vertical cylinder (kind of like the Smokey Mountain cooker today, but built back in the 90's).  It had a water pan, charcoal pan under it, and room for a medium size turkey.  It had a small door to get to the charcoal pan, but everything was loaded top down. I mainly did turkeys in it.  Keeping good temp control was difficult (thin walls) and one Thanksgiving, it snowed all day and took twice as long as normal.  I didn't branch out to other cuts of meat until my wife bought me a Pitts & Spitts horizontal pit with offset wood box - that's what I really learned to smoke lots of good stuff on.


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## smokinut (Jul 17, 2013)

My first is the one I'm smoking on now. Got a Brinkman Smoke 'N Grill for Father's day. So far I've done salmon filets, chicken breasts, a Boston butt, 2 fatties, and 2 spatchcocked chickens. The salmon and fatties both could have been better, but it's a learning process and I'm getting better. 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## ribwizzard (Jul 18, 2013)

Well my first one was one of those old cast aluminum gas grills ( back when they built them solid )that I aquired with a rusted out burner. I started cooking on it by stacking charcoal to one side and doing the indirect heat.( I was about 18 and had no money) Eventually I found some metal box that was probably 1/4" or 3/16" that I mounted underneath it and moved the fire below the cook chamber. It was just an open top box, and it wasnt even connected to the grill. I just had it sitting on cinder blocks about a few inches below the cook chamber. The top of the box was open and the bottom of the cast grill already had holes in it, so the heat just kind of flowed into it. I would prop the lid of the grill open with a soda can to get more air flow through there. I probably cooked on that well into my early twenty's. I dont know what I'd think of my cooking now, but back then I though it was the bomb..


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## chef jimmyj (Jul 18, 2013)

Got a Mecco Bullet similar to a Brinkman, in 1990 and a nice heavy New Braunfels in a year later. The Mecco was a PITA, but the NB was awesome and with a few mods had even temps. Very nice. I live in an Apt now and we have an Electric only policy so the MES 40 makes all my Que...JJ


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## ribwizzard (Jul 18, 2013)

Another thing very popular back in the day was we used to cut open 20lb propane tanks and do nothing more than install a small rack (usually a piece of expanded metal) to hold the meat above the charcoal. You would light a mear handfull of charcoal in the bottom, put the rack in and a chicken on top and put the top back on. The loose fitting top was the beathing holes. Come back four hrs later and it was done


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## hambone1950 (Jul 18, 2013)

A friend at work gave me a brinkmann gourmet smoker that he got as a gift and had no patience for.
I cooked a lot of stuff on that smoker , but the temp was too hard to control and I sold it and bought my WSM.that was before I discovered this forum. I kind of wish now that I'd kept it because it was real good for doing chicken on. And I liked how it looked too. 












10193e6f6dc6c2253f2b9d4e0a59a824_zps309dc8e3.jpg



__ hambone1950
__ Jul 18, 2013


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## timsnewatsmokin (Jul 18, 2013)

My first smoker was a Brinkman bullet electric smoker, I just did turkeys on it and it was a long process, then I went to the little charbroil offset smoker, now I have a BBQ pro that I got for 50 bucks at a garage sale and I really like it, it does need a few mods though


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## ribwizzard (Jul 18, 2013)

The little Brink man that I refer to as a R2D2 smoker does make the best Turkey's. I've had several over the years.   Many of Thanksgiving mornings you would see me out on the porch at 3am in my underwear , dropping white hot coals on my bare feet trying to reload that darn thing.....

Memories huh......


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## suie (Jul 18, 2013)

A Chargriller with the SFB. I still have it today, but only use it for grilling.


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## biteme7951 (Jul 18, 2013)

My first smoker was about 40 years ago while I still lived at home. We had a little chief that we did fish and jerky in but quickly outgrew it, so we gutted out an old Kelvinator refrigerator and put a hotplate in the lower compartment and use that baby for years...wish I still had that piece of nostalgia. 

Barry.


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## kathrynn (Jul 18, 2013)

Mine was an Electric Brinkman....bright lipstick red....like the picture above.  Named her Elvira....she makes the best Brats and Bacon wrapped pork loin today.  Still have her...and not giving her up.

Kat


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## hambone1950 (Jul 18, 2013)

KathrynN said:


> Mine was an Electric Brinkman....bright lipstick red....like the picture above.  Named her Elvira....she makes the best Brats and Bacon wrapped pork loin today.  Still have her...and not giving her up.
> 
> Kat



Ha ha! Well I never thought of it as lipstick red , but I hear ya. I called mine " the smoke bomb"
I was kind of hasty in selling mine , but space was kind of a factor. :grilling_smilie:


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## grumbum (Aug 14, 2013)

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I came across this thread looking for a good idea as to what to pick up as my first smoker. I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC so eastern style pork is a weakness of mine. I live out in the mountains of NC now and you can't get any good bbq out here let alone quality pulled pork. No restaurants out here can smoke anything well, the best smoked meats I have had since moving out here have all been from backyard smokers and homemade pits. I love food and I love cooking and I have put off beginning my personal smoking odyssey for far too long. I am a renter so I can't really go all out with a big rig (nor should I as a novice who doesn't really know what he is doing) but I am looking for some advice as to what to start out on. I was looking at some Brinkman and Char-Broil vertical smokers between $80-$150 both the cylinder and cabinet styles. Sorry for rambling on but I would love some advice on what you guys think is a good starting smoker. Thank you for your assistance and sorry for posting this in the wrong place.


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## ribwizzard (Aug 14, 2013)

Key word you mentioned is "pork" . And I am going to assume you are talking about pork butts.  And you sound picky about it being done properly. With that in mind, your going to want anywhere from a 6hr to a 12hr smoke.  and you have a $80 to $150 price range.

So here is my advise/opinion, ( and your fixing to get many) about your best two options.

option A: go with a cheap dept. store offset style smoker, the off set style will allow you to reload easier than a verticle smoker for those long smokes. Take care off it and there are plenty of modifications you can do to make them more efficient, plus more cooking room.

option b: Go with a propane verticle smoker like a master built. It will be in your price range, you will have to add chips for flavor, but after four hours it really doent need it anymore and the propane will give you consistent heat so you can sleep with out having to worry about the fire going out.  It wont be the same as a real wood fired smoker, but they can still turn out darn good.


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## glocksrock (Aug 14, 2013)

I had a masterbuilt XL propane smoker, then got a MES 30, got rid of both of those and got a MES 40, and now have a Old Country Wrangler stick burner.


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## ribwizzard (Aug 14, 2013)

so, would you recommend the masterbuilt to grumbum  considering his requirements?  What did you pay for it?


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## grumbum (Aug 14, 2013)

Thank you very much wizzard. I am very partial to pork but I am a man of many tastes and I do not discriminate when it comes to breaking bread and stuffing my face with delicious meats. I was initially looking at a cheap offset smoker, I have a buddy who has one (he pretty much is a junkyard hoarder) but he has never used it and the inside is fairly rusty. It is not rusted through anywhere and the structural integrity is sound but the inside is certainly pretty rough looking. If the inside is cleaned and I get new grates can I use this one without adverse effect on the flavor (or health implications?) With regards to the vertical smokers and their difficulty in reloading, a few of the vertical ones I was looking at were cabinets with a lower door access to the FB and a top door to the CC (if my abbreviations are incorrect I apologize). Do these cabinet style ones have bigger downsides than the cylinder models?

Thank you again ribwizzard.


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## black (Aug 14, 2013)

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## up in smoke (Aug 14, 2013)

I too had the Brinkman electric bullet! Although I preferred to call it fire engine red! It was a convenient lil smoker, and after I modded it a bit and built an enclosure for it (I lived in Pittburgh then), it did a pretty nice job until I desired more smoking real estate, so I got myself a Stainless Grand Hall (Members Mark) propane vertical. I just wasn't in a position to use a stick burner at the time. I should have kept ole Brinky...but a young guy just starting out needed it more than I, so he could smoke his mom a turkey on his first (new place Thanksgiving). I think he still has it.

Now that I am out in the sticks in Alabama by the water, I may get that stick burner just to play with, but I won't be getting rid of my Grand Hall... It is just too dependable and convenient and easy to keep clean. Not nearly as messy to deal with as a wood burner. Plus my honey says it is way prettier than "those messy old black sideways oil cans"! Hee!


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## ps0303 (Aug 14, 2013)

The propane Master Forge in my avitar.  I just recently purchased a Brinkmann Trailmaster LE.


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## raastros2 (Aug 14, 2013)

smoked on a 18.5 and 22.5 weber grill for a long time then got a ECB


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## daveomak (Aug 14, 2013)

Bride bought me this back in the 80's I think.....   This thing has seen probably 1500 #'s of fish throughout the years....  I really can't remember that far back.....  For consistently smoked excellent fish, this is my GO-TO-SMOKER..... After about 2 years I tried smoking a turkey in it......   Tasted like fish.....  Bride don't allow me to smoke fish in anything but this now.....













1 Front.jpg



__ daveomak
__ Aug 14, 2013


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## linehand (Aug 14, 2013)

The all famous ECB!  still  have it  and  sometimes use it its perfect for fatties


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## ghostred7 (Aug 15, 2013)

My 1st actual smoker is my current MES40.  Going to upgrade to a trailer-towed reverse flow within the next yr or so.


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## wade (Aug 15, 2013)

New Braunfels in the mid 90s - Imported back to the UK from Houston. It cost me more to ship than to actually buy!


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## mdboatbum (Aug 15, 2013)

My brother gave me one of the infamous red electric Brinkmanns back in the early 90's. I had no idea of the concept of low and slow, and assumed it was broken the one time I tried to use it because it didn't seem to get very hot. It stayed in the garage from then on. 20 years later I read up on BBQ and got a used charcoal ECB. Then made the mini WSM.


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## ribwizzard (Aug 15, 2013)

My dad had one of those red electric ones. Back then you could get a box of danish pork ribs ( very small baby backs . 3 to 4 rib peices)  for next to nothing and he would put them on there with no wood chips or anything and dry them until they were like Jerky.

I had a neighbor years latter buy one and called me over to check it out. He was trying to smoke some country style ribs and I noted that he still has the wood chips in the water pan. We ended up in an argument due to the picture showed the wood chips soaking in the water and he felt that is how the unit was designed to run.


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## mtm29575 (Aug 15, 2013)

Like a lot of you, my first smoker was a Brinkmann Gourmet Smoker - charcoal. Used it for a few smokes years ago, but because the temp was so hard to control, I gave up on smoking and just used it for grilling. Just now getting back to smoking but use my MES 40.


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## hambone1950 (Aug 15, 2013)

grumbum said:


> Good Afternoon Everyone,
> I came across this thread looking for a good idea as to what to pick up as my first smoker. I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC so eastern style pork is a weakness of mine. I live out in the mountains of NC now and you can't get any good bbq out here let alone quality pulled pork. No restaurants out here can smoke anything well, the best smoked meats I have had since moving out here have all been from backyard smokers and homemade pits. I love food and I love cooking and I have put off beginning my personal smoking odyssey for far too long. I am a renter so I can't really go all out with a big rig (nor should I as a novice who doesn't really know what he is doing) but I am looking for some advice as to what to start out on. I was looking at some Brinkman and Char-Broil vertical smokers between $80-$150 both the cylinder and cabinet styles. Sorry for rambling on but I would love some advice on what you guys think is a good starting smoker. Thank you for your assistance and sorry for posting this in the wrong place.



Brother , if you can swing the roughly 300 bucks , you would do real well with a weber smoky mountain. My first cheapo smoker was a royal PITA ! 
The WSM is a great smoker. Uses charcoal. You don't have access to free wood , do you? If you do , then a stick burner would make perfect sense.
You might be able to pick up a used WSM  for far less than retail.
I'm just saying I've been real happy with mine.


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## ribwizzard (Aug 15, 2013)

Its been so hot out lately, I have no desire to fire up a wood burning smoker.......but I just bought everything to start making my own sausage ( something I can do in the air conditioning)

So, I'm thinking an electric unit would probably do better for sausage.   Anybody on here big on sausage making and had any luck with the small electrics?


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## munxcub (Aug 15, 2013)

My first was a cheapish propane cabinet, after a year I acquired an 18.5" WSM. I am currently building an RF out of a 35 gallon or so compressor tank.

I like the propane cab for ribs, the WSM for butts and brisket, hoping the RF will be good for everything.


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## beefmeister (Aug 15, 2013)

What they used to call a "water smoker", the upright cylindrical thingy seen at the beginning of this thread. Don't remember the brand name and I never liked it. Cheap, thin metal, and hard to keep consistent.


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## flash (Aug 15, 2013)

ECB.jpg



__ flash
__ Sep 2, 2012






The Original Charcoal Brinkman ECB, AKA R2D2

A pain to start with, but once you gave it some mods turned out consistently good smokes

Served me for 34 years or so. Retired it last year.


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