Realcook Vertical 17 Inch Steel Charcoal Smoker, Heavy Duty Round BBQ Grill for Outdoor Cooking, Black

This is a great smoker and grill for the beach.I was a bit hesitant as I always judge a new product purchase by the 1, 2, and 3 star reviews and find a common denominator or complaint.I found assembly time, temp control, and insulation to be top negatives.Assembly took me about 40 minutes. You will need a 7 and 9mm socket and or wrench and Phillips head screwdriver for this.Anytime you build a new grill, you need to burn it in before first cook. So I loaded it with charcoal and got it up to 400 degrees. During this time, I did notice that smoke escaped quite a bit through the seals. However, this is not entirely a negative because they sell high temp smoker tape at the hardware store or even Amazon. I highly recommend you grab a roll and seal the doors and connections. After doing this, you will have a noticeable difference. The seller should consider including a roll as part of the install process.Lastly was temp control. Honestly, it is just a tank of metal. With most grills, you will have temp control problems if you don't put the right amount of wood or briquettes. Each grill is different so you may have to do some trial and error but I was able to get this properly to 275 where I needed it and smoke some meat.Overall, for the price and portability, this is a great smoker and grill. Going to the beach or lake early? Take this and begin smoking when you get there or use it as dual grill or one grill and one fire pit.Another tip too: overtime any grill may have paint flake off and cause rusting. I highly recommend you get some high temp spray paint and spray down scratched areas periodically. If you take care of this grill then it has a chance to last long.

(updated Review)Been 2 and a half years, and I have used this smoker constantly. I bought a couple of hooks to hang meat and do vertical roasting (I make a lot of different kinds of tacos and make sausages). I know a lot of reviews will talk about how you have to do all kinds of things to it, but I wanted to point out that this is a 100 dollar smoker. Those folks will say the same thing on any smoker in the sub 1000 dollar range, and Since I have done just about everything one can do in this smoker, I want to say that it is a killer smoker that works well even if you don't do anything to it.I have done pastrami, ham, brisket, salmon, smoked peppers, smoked yams and even done a whole bunch of smoked salt and smoked peppercorns. And never did anything more than assemble it. It can work great with pellet soke as well as raw wood or wood chips.I came back looking for a second cheap smoker, and wanted a box style, but this will be my primary for a long time -- preferred even over the fancy electric smoker I bought years ago.Previous Review: I wasn’t able to move my larger grill with side box to my new home, and wanted to do some charcoal cooking and grilling and smoking, so went for this one.Assembly was a bit of a bear, but not hard to do, and was able to get it fired up and cooking some quick dinner steaks that night. The ability to hang from inside has been a boon for doing vertical smoking, and the way the chip bin works to diffuse the heat was wonderful. Great flavor from the smoke — and it does a better job on pork than my electric one does.Could probably use pellets if you wanted. I used chips and chunks, and no soaking needed.It is very light — I have a bit of a strong wind at times, and came home to find it lifted into parts.The dual doors give you a great ability to both regulate the heat (adding hot coals or fresh charcoal) and still be able to adjust for the hotter lower grill and then the cooler upper grill.Like most barrels, it gives off good heat, so can also function as a nice fire pit for roasting marshmallows.Clean up is super easy, as you just lift the parts and everything can be washed if you want.I recommend it.

This was my first ever attempt at smoking and had read reviews on this grill and it seemed like a great choice for a novice. I'm going to share my thoughts on this in sections.First, unboxing: There was a large dent in the lower middle section of the grill. The lid was scratched both inside and out, and one of the legs was bent pretty severely, even though it doesn't appear so bad in the photo. I know this isn't a cadillac of grills, but at the same time, I'm not happy that it looks like crap either. I really wanted to return it, but had planned on smoking on saturday and the grill showed up late thursday night, so i didn't really have time to send it back. and it wasn't damaged enough to harm the function of the grill, so I kept it. I knocked off a star for the condition of the grill only.Second, assembly: The grill has a ton of screws and parts, but assemble was easy. The instructions kind of suck because it doesn't have a good guide as to what screws and nuts are A, B, C, and D. But there are only 2 sizes, so it's not really difficult to figure it out. I recommend sorting them out in groups before starting. I did that and it made assembly go much smoother. The bent leg was the most difficult part of the process as getting it bent back to the right shape was not an easy task. Once over that hurdle though, it took about an hour total probably to get it all together.Third, grilling: The grill was easy to use. I loaded charcoal in the bottom (highly recommend Fogo charcoal by the way), got it lit, assembled the grill sections and waited for it to heat up. Temp climbed up to 200 and as it was rising, I throttled back on the air flow at the bottom of the grill. It hit 220 or there about, and held there. Biggest complaint while cooking was the temp gage. it has moisture in it that stayed there the entire day, even with the heat and sitting in the sun. It made it extremely difficult to read the gage without having to get up and go look at it closely. I loaded on the meat, brisket on bottom grill, ribs on top, and the cook was on. The grill maintained an almost perfect 220-250 for the entire day. I cut the air flow back 2 times during the cook, and then opened it back up once after adding more water to the water pan. Pretty much didn't really touch it during the 7 hours the meat was smoking.Overall, I don't think I could have made a better choice than this grill. It was incredibly easy to use, temp was super easy to maintain, and for this first time smoker, the meat turned out incredible. Ribs were falling off the bone and the brisket was perfect. I really can't wait to do this all over again. I would have given this thing 5 stars had it not been for the damage to the grill itself and the moisture in the temp gage. I never tried contacting the seller to see if i could get them replaced, but I might just to see what they say. It didn't detract from the grills function, but it just looks bad. and the gage fogging over makes it really difficult to read. For a smoker though, this thing is top notch. I have no regrets buying it and would do so again.