"phyteach" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Saw something new at Home Despot (;-)) today. It is an offset firebox
> horizontal smoker from char-broil for 150 bucks. It has ~800 (IIRC)
> square inches of cook surface, dampers, grates and all that. Anybody
> have any experience with this unit? I also noticed that the door to
> the firebox has 1/16 gap all the way around. That is, the door that
> you would add more wood, on the vertical side away from the food
> surface. Is this a bad sign? The unit appears to be made of a fairly
> heavy gauge steel. Any thoughts?
>
> Scott

I've had one of these for several months now; previously owned a 22"
Weber kettle. I've found this smoker to be much less efficient than the
Weber and have had very mixed results. Admittedly, I may not be using
the thing properly; I've tried using charcoal in the fire chamber with
wood chunk for the smoke, much as I did with the Weber. The fire needs
to be much hotter in the fire chamber to combat the heat loss from the
greater surface area of the two chambers (obviously the near-spherical
shape of the Weber has a much lower SA to volume ratio than the
cylindrical CharBroil). It can hold a greater volume of meat, like a
whole suckling pig, which is why I got it but have yet to utilize its
full capacity. I undoubted would get better results using all wood for
the fire; I just haven't located a good source of clean hardwood in my
area yet.

pakehaole