Brian, for a great FAQ about starting out on various styles of smokers, go take a look at the
BBQ-Porch FAQ. LOTS of excellent instructional material there gleaned from several years of posts.
Robert and I have a trailer-mounted stick burner and 2 WSMs, and I use the WSMs a lot more often than the stick burner. The
stick burner is an Oklahoma Joe's clone, homemade by a neighbor of ours and sold to us after he had used it for seven or eight years. It isn't a fancy rig by any means, but it is built very well - 1/4 inch steel pipe all 'round, 20" firebox, 48" horizontal cooking chamber, and a 48" vertical cooking chamber, all mounted on a horse trailer frame. BUT - it's still an offset, and, as such, needs more attention than the WSMs. It's great for times when you're cooking with friends around, and you're just sitting around the smoker telling lies and tending the fire every half hour. Also great for hauling to a campout for feeding larger groups, or for pulling into service when the two WSMs don't give enough capacity. Many of my cooking sessions are overnighters with the goal in mind of getting the food cooked well, and the attention needed by the offset negates the partial night's sleep that I can get with the WSMs. That being said, it does do some might fine ribs and turkeys. I've never done butt or brisket on it, as I use the WSM's for those items.
We start the fire in the offset with a chimney full of flaming charcoal, and feed it with 1/4 to 1/8 split logs from 10 to 18 inches long. Depending on how the bed of coals is looking, we may add some lump during the cook - the goal at all times is to have a very small but hot and clean burning fire, usually no more than two splits burning at a time, on a good thick bed of hot coals. Oak seems to make the best coals - some other woods burn straight to ash and don't make the coal bed that you want. We use mostly pecan, although our big woodpile out back includes pecan, hickory, apple, and peach.
If you get an offset, get one bigger than you think you'll ever need, and get one that you can haul behind a vehicle or on a trailer. I know that, personally, were we to sell our current offset, I'm pretty sure that I'd go either for a
Lang offset, although I've been lusting after a
Cookshack FE-100 pellet muncher . Another one in my sights is a
Backwoods Competitor. I'd love a Klose or even one of Jamie Geer's incredible
Jambo smokers, but I unfortunately have champagne tastes and a beer budget
Fun thing is to go to a cookoff on Friday night (not Saturday morning when tension is high), wander around, and talk to some of the competitors about their smokers. It's a great way to get a education on the different offsets and how they work.
Keri C, smokin' on Tulsa Time
(who STILL can't write a short post to save her life...)
