Thinking about buying a smoker, any advice?

Very good choice for a smoker. Reasonable size and very good results. You could pay a little more for a ProQ Excel or a fair bit more for a Weber Smokey Mountain but I personally think the Frontier is one of the best bang for buck smokers you can get.
 
Had a look at the excel but it was a little bit out of my price range! Decided to go with the Frontier since it seems to be almost identical to the Weber in terms of features but a fair bit cheaper.

I did also look at the Brinkmann smokers but they seem to be regarded as a bit naff due to the lack of basic features such as air vents.

Thanks for the advice! I'll be smoking pork shoulders in no time! :D
 
It's pretty difficult and still pretty expensive. To di a decent job. Requires tools most people don't have like a mifpg welder. and even when you have that. I still spent over £100 on my drum BBQ which I no longer use, terrible heat patches, terrible air flow. Not enamelled, and rubbish thin grill grate. You can send them out to be enamelled but that's more cost, as with making a decent grate made, or if you lucky you might be able to find one the right size. Not enough cast iron grates around these days. If only cast iron was as easy to smelt at home like aluminium.

I'm still drooling over the excel 20. And provisionally sold the car, just waiting for money. So :)
 
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Since i bought it my smoker has become my favourite thing, i use it at least 1-2 times a week and can't stop thinking about bbq and what i want to cook or practice next. I have the WSM 47cm so very similar to yours. You're going to love it.

I buy my wood from here - http://bbqsmokingwood.co.uk/
Paul is a great chap and will sort you out with whatever wood he has available pronto, cheaper and proper fist size chunks. Much better than the weber bagged chunks.

There is also a wealth of information on these sites -
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/
http://www.bbbqs.co.uk/
 
Great info in that post. Also don't forget http://www.amazingribs.com :)

In regards to building your own... It's possible to do and you can get good results but as Glaucus said, it's a faff and costs enough money to get those good results that I value my time higher than the extra £100 to get something decent pre-built.
 
Thanks for all this! loads of stuff to read through for recipes and tips!

I was very impressed at the site I ordered from (for food smokers), it went from order placed to payment confirmed to dispached in about 20mins!

Ill get on the phone to Paul too for some wood chunks!

Should make for a good house warming party!
:D
 
Svack said:
Thanks for all this! loads of stuff to read through for recipes and tips!

I was very impressed at the site I ordered from (for food smokers), it went from order placed to payment confirmed to dispached in about 20mins!

Ill get on the phone to Paul too for some wood chunks!

Should make for a good house warming party!
:D
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I bought my ProQ Excel from For Food Smokers and the service was excellent. If memory serves, you should get a bag or two of free woodchips to get you started. I think they're just hickory but they're still good.

I don't think you'll be at all disappointed with the ProQ Frontier. I love my Excel :)

And remember, once you've used it, post up what you've smoked in the OcUK BBQ thread so we can all see :)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18593446
 
Really?

I just borrowed a mig welder when I did mine, the welds were like pigeon **** but it held up a good few years and it was all good practise. To be honest I could have just riveted it if I was bothered.

Spent £15 in all, oil drum was a fiver from a bloke I know who works in a garage, then it was a few bits from a hardware store and a bit of chicken wire.

No need to get fancy with smokers, the best kind are the kind you make from nothing.
 
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Well, yeah, you can build something serviceable pretty quickly without spending much (especially if you can borrow tools). This is a primarily geeky forum though so it should hardly be surprising that people would want to geek out on other things and try to build something extra shiny/high-spec :)
 
pitchfork said:
Spent £15 in all, oil drum was a fiver from a bloke I know who works in a garage, then it was a few bits from a hardware store and a bit of chicken wire.
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Well of course, because everything you do is better than everything anyone else does. As always.
 
pitchfork said:
Really?

I just borrowed a mig welder when I did mine, the welds were like pigeon **** but it held up a good few years and it was all good practise. To be honest I could have just riveted it if I was bothered.

Spent £15 in all, oil drum was a fiver from a bloke I know who works in a garage, then it was a few bits from a hardware store and a bit of chicken wire.

No need to get fancy with smokers, the best kind are the kind you make from nothing.
Click to expand...

First off, I don't even know what a mig welder is, nor how to get hold of one so I'd probably imagine that I'd just as equally not know how to use one. I don't know anyone that works in a garage so again, I wouldn't be able to get a cheap oil drum. Bits from a hardware store within that £15 budget and chicken wire is doable, although I'd imagine that cooking on chicken wire isn't ideal, and finally as has already been said the majority of decent UDS builds include some sort of decent operational temperature control, usually cannibalised from an old BBQ or even a cheap BBQ from somewhere. And as has already been said, the best smoker has good temperature control and heat distribution. Whilst it cost me a lot more, I work hard for a living and can afford to treat myself to something that I really want rather than trying to build it myself. I make a lot of my own stuff but figured that given how well kitted out most smokers and BBQs are these days, that spending money on one is well worth it. And I wasn't wrong :)
 
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