Callow Retail Charcoal Smoker BBQ Grill - Black | Premium & Portable 3 in 1 Outdoor Steel & Carbon Garden Barbecue & Griller | BBQ Smoker Rack, Cooking Grate, Hanging Rack, Hooks, Thermometer & Cover

H@T3train!ThaI am brand-new to BBQ Smoking - so I didn't want to spend £200 - £300 to find out whether I liked or whether it was worth the effort.I got this delivered on Wednesday, set it up up on Wednesday night - the instructions weren't the best, but were ok. I had to use a couple of my own nuts and bolts to complete the setup - so just bear that in mind, but not a major issue.Its recommended that you coat in the inside with cooking oil and then light it (without food) to season it. They also say this will burn off any production coatings etc. I did this as 1) they recommended it for longetivity of the smoker 2) it gave a good idea of how it works. I'd light the coals in a BBQ Kettle, then put coals in the smoker but clearing out the centre. I then put the coals from the kettle into the centre - I think the US call this the 'minion' method. The idea is that the coals will then slowly light owards from the centre rather than all at once. This gives a longer burn time without intervention. This little practice run gives you a great idea of how to control the temperature (which is essential in smoking meats) as you need to keep it around 100 degrees Celcius. Basically if it is significantly higher than 100C, then shut all the vents, when it drops, open one up, wait a while, if its still going down, open another - if its going up, close one etc. Smoking just seems to be a bit of balancing act - I got quite used to it on my first proper smoke.As temperature management is so essential - your life will be made exponentially easier with a wireless dual-probe thermometer. I found one on Amazon for £15 - this will be the best £15 you ever spend. I put one probe in the smoker (to measure the smoker temperature) and pushed the other inside the 2kg pork shoulder I was smoking (the internal temperature). You can tell the thermometer what meat you are cooking & whether you want it rare / well done etc and it will tell you the temp to aim for. So the smoker probe you want to keep around 100 / 105 and keep it there, the one inside the meat I wanted to get to 76C.It does take some getting used to it, but I was consistently keeping in the 100-110C range without too many issues, then when the meat hit 76C, I took it off. Nice and easy. If you have a scientific mind I think smoking meat will really appeal to you as it takes all the guess work out of it. You'll love tweeking the air holes and seeing what temperature difference it makes.So all in all, this is a great smoker - especially for a beginner like me. It really seemed to keep its temperature well - when it did need extra charcoal, it was just a handful here and there. It took 8 hours to do a 2kg pork shoulder and about 2.5kg of cheap Amazon "Add-on" charcoal (@ £5 for a 5kg bag). Some pro's will say use different charcoal, but that's good enough for entry level smoking. It's well constructed, looks great, comes with a very handy waterproof cover, not cheap and flimsey. Maybe you'll want to go for a pro-model in a couple of years, but by then you'll be a seasoned veteran. Even in cold weather you can monitor the temperature from indoors with wireless thermometers so I think its a all year round product.

I'd seen this smoker advertised on a few places like eBay etc. but I chose to purchase through Amazon to take advantage of the Prime delivery option. Unit arrived 2 days after purchase so Prime wins again!Putting it together.Assembly was straight forward though the instructional images were a tad on the small side no major problems were encountered. Refreshing to see stainless screws, nuts and washers supplied in the fixing kit too. You'll need a Phillips screw driver and a pair of long nose pliers or a 10mm swan neck spanner to put it together.Note: The instructions stress that you must season the interior walls with a wipe down using cooking oil to prevent rust and other moisture build up. I didn't follow this step as I'm not going to be using the water tray as intended given my results (keep reading!).The unit itself is well made, powder coating looks durable and locks are tight - enough to allow you to carry the whole unit by the cover handle when all the locks are clipped in.The Cook.This is my first time using a smoker and though I'd read up on quite a few techniques, experiences and things to expect I still found it a steep learning curve. I did a trial run for my first smoke to save expensive meat mistakes - would strongly advise you do the same! Observations from the trial run:- Use boiling water to fill the tray up. No point using valuable energy from the pan to warm up water.- Open all vents to achieve max airflow during warm up- Use a temperature probe to monitor temps in the chamber. The included thermometer is useless!- Follow the Minion method (google it) for a controlled burn - suits this setup nicely if pan is modified (see below).- Add foil to the top of the front door to seal it, also had to bend the door to better fit the profile of the barrel and create a tighter seal.- Things happen slowly with a smoker. Be prepared to sit back and wait for temperature swings to settle.- Use Charcoal Briquets. Burns longer and gives off less smoke than lumpwood.- Get yourself a Chimney Charcoal Starter (loads on Amazon) to get your coals white hot to tip into your pan.Problems found.The charcoal tray is deep enough to stack briquets for a long burn but it has a design flaw. Whilst the bottom of the tray is open to allow ash and air to circulate the high sides of the tray are solid. Given the lower air vents are positioned adjacent to side of the pan it doesn't really allow for much air to feed the pan if ash starts to accumulate during a long burn. I took matters in to my own hands to solve this by drilling the side wall of the pan with a 10mm drill bit, all the way around with alternating holes at different heights. Doing this ensured more air was able to reach the fire. The other solution to this would be to purchase a wire coal basket which is completely open. Haven't looked for one yet that will suit this smoker but I'm going to have another stab at doing a cook without using water in the pan to determine what the temperature control is like.Use of water as a method to control temperature was an issue for me. For my second cook I let the smoker get up to temp without adding any water. I found I could hit 115 degrees and more importantly control that +/- by 10 degrees by using the vents. Adding 3L boiling water to the pan, caused this to drop and once the smoker had recovered I could never get it to rise above 97 degrees regardless of vent position. I did have some success using a hair dryer to force air into the pan which caused the temp to rise to 98 but it soon fell to 97 again. This was a problem for me as I needed 103-107 degrees to cook the Brisket and Short Rib and be in with a fighting chance of punching through the stall period during the cook. Knowing I'd not achieve the internal temps required I decided to smoke the meat for 3hrs and then transfer to an oven set at 125 degrees to complete for the remainder of the cook. Using foil to wrap each piece of meat and keep the moisture levels up.Worth noting outside temps were in the region of 6-7 degrees which will have a bearing on things. I'm planning to repeat the water tray method in summer to see if that has the effect of achieving a higher controlled temp. I expect it will but for my next cook in a couple of weeks I'll be using sand in the water tray along with a foil tray placed on top of the sand containing water. Thinking less volume water wise and sand to prevent any fat from flaring up.The cover included to protect the unit is useless. Far too thin and the thing tore as I opened it out for the first time.and lastly... Built in Thermometer. It consistently reads temps ok but that reading is 40% what the actual temperature is. Buy yourself a proper probe!TL;DRGood smoker but Pan needs modification to allow air circulation and I'd advise deviating from water tray instructions by using sand and separate foil water tray to have the best chance at controlling temps using the vents. Included thermometer is absolutely useless so do yourself a favour and buy a decent dual probe thermometer - pref wireless. Other than that for the price it's a perfect entry point in to the world of smoking.

Bought this smoker over a month and been using it each weekend before leaving a review. I have to admit, I love this smoker, and for the cost, it’s fantastic! It gets you into low and slow smoking and happy with the purchase compared to other well-known brands that are three times the cost. I still use my gas bbq and only bought this one to do low and slow cooking at the weekends.The good:- For the price, it’s a great bit of kit. Truly, you will not be disappointed with it and the money you save you can buy all the extras you need to bbq, briquettes, chimney, digital thermometer probe (why didn’t I buy one of these years ago!!), selection of wood to create the smoke, etc.- the smoker will cook for a small family, you do have two racks so could do larger cooks, but I would imagine you will struggle to get the temp up for it!- once put together, feels like it will last (with a few mods, new thermometer, another gromlets, better nuts and bolts, tap to seal the gaps)-The bad:- instructions are useless...truly useless and will take you a good few hrs to put together as EVERY BIT, is in bits hence the price- you will need to buy some extras, more nuts and a few new bolts so you can create a locking nut on the vents otherwise the vents will unscrew and fall off- the temperature gauge is useless (like most thermometers that come with BBQs) so worth buying a new one OR buying a digital thermostat that connects to your phone (best kit I’ve bought)- the gap between the door and bbq body is enormous so you will need to buy some grill gasket tap to plug the gap or all your smoke will come billowing out!Buy it, get to know how to use it and enjoy some good food!