Spent $200 on a fancy smoker that just can't keep temp right

I got a stainless steel barrel smoker from a discount online shop thinking I was getting a deal for BBQ competitions. It's been three cooks and the temperature swings by 50 degrees every time I open the lid. Has anyone else fallen for a cheap smoker that looked good in photos but was a total letdown?

3 comments

3 Comments

charlie1981d ago

Read an article from AmazingRibs.com that said cheap stainless smokers usually have thin walls and poor seals, which matches what you're describing exactly. The real competition guys there always recommend sticking with steel that's at least 3/16 inch thick or just going straight to a ceramic cooker. That temperature swing every time you open the lid tells me the whole thing is losing heat faster than it can recover, and no amount of tweaking is going to fix that.

alext521d ago

Totally agree with @charlie198, same thing happened with my off-brand offset.

patricia_hill6022h ago

Thin walls will do that every time... you can't fix bad metal. Learned that one the hard way myself.