long smokes on barrel smokers

[Chris Smith]

I got a nasty reminder of how good I have it with the WSM regarding long cooks on a recent trip home to visit my dad. Not only did he want to smoke a butt, a brisket, and 3 racks, but we used his dual-zone (but single lid) charcoal grill. Cooking duties have pretty much been handed over to me, and while I've pulled off smoking with it before, the grill is really tough when you're doing three completely different meats. I'm spoiled by overnighters on the WSM...I put a butt in, get the temp stabilized, and go to bed knowing the temp will hold almost perfectly without needing to get up in the middle of the night. With his grill, it's extremely difficult to dial in a temp and keep it there, and we have to burn a lot of fuel to keep temps up...replenishing charcoal and wood every 2-3 hours just plain sucks. To make matters worse, to try and keep it indirect we put all the meat on one side and the fuel on the other, but the meat closest to the heat of course gets cooked faster...so there's plenty of lid lifting to move things around. It is all around a pretty poor experience and I don't intend to repeat it.

All that brings me to question the process used by people with your basic barrel smoker with firebox hanging off the side. My brother and I were thinking about getting him a proper smoker for Fathers Day and that style has crossed my mind. It would seem those would also require frequent refueling (relative to a WSM, anyway) for the long smoke sessions...am I right? Do people typically use all wood with those? Can anyone share some basic techniques compared to the basic ones used with the WSM?

 

[R. Hanson ("Rondo")]

Many refer to that type of smoker as an Offset smoker...I started with one

They work just fine but require a lot of tending, eat a lot of fuel and smokewood

On the positive side you can cook a lot of chow at once and with practice keep the temp fairly steady. One tip, start a robust charcoal fire first and then feed sticks of split oak for the duration of your cook

A reasonable retail offset costs a little less than a WSM, but can be unbelievably pricey in the custom market