I started out with a Great Outdoors Smokey Mountain (GOSM) propane smoker. It is a vertical box with no insulation, 2 side vents and an exhaust vent on top. It had a waterpan, a cast iron chip box and 4(?) cook grates. I usually used a combination of sawdust and wood chips for smoke. Much later I found the SMF site that is kind of dedicated to the GOSM and had some mods I wish I'd done to make it more user friendly.
At the time I had young kids involved in multiple year round sports and little time to devote to live fire cooking, and it fit my lifestyle at the time. Also had 3 co-workers that had the same smokers and we actually had a little smokers lounge going every Monday! I still followed recipes and processes gleaned from the TVWBB site and yearned for a WSM, so when I finally got my first bullet I was primed and ready to go.
The GOSM produced some good eats at a time when I was just learning low and slow smoking.
A couple things I learned from using it was:
FOIL is your friend, and there is no shame in finishing the foiled meats in the oven. This was stressed in the Instruction Video that came with the smoker.
Keep an extra full tank of propane handy at all times.
Normal smoking conditions would net me 25-30 hours of cook time on a 5 gallon tank op LPG
It comes in handy as a warming-holding oven for catering/vending (Health Depts. kind of like that) at a competition or for large parties at home.
Hope this helps.
