British BBQ Society Forums

Hi All,
Got this site off a friend who knows I'm dying to get smoking ! I'm from Swindon however live in Newbury, Berkshire. I am hoping you guys can help educate and supply what appears to be endless knowledge for my new adventure in making some amazing food!

I don't want to spend a fortune so I hope you can help advise what smoker to go for that's good for a newbie. I have looked on eBay etc and appears to be lots of cheap smokers but on reading reviews they are rubbish.

Look forward to learning from you all.

Thanks

Hello and welcome, if you're looking for advice on UK bbq there are certainly people on here willing to help

The WSM and ProQ units are well regarded as the best value for money dedicated smokers that work straight out of the box. A weber one touch kettle is a cheaper option that will grill, and with a little bit of effort smoke. Most start with a kettle and then add a bullet smoker at a later date

Hi and welcome

I'd ask yourself what you need more, a smoker, or a grill, or the best of both worlds. If you're interested in grilling more than smoking, then getting a Weber OneTouch Pro or MasterTouch is a good idea, as you can smoke on this, although it is a bit more effort to maintain temperature and has a higher learning curve because of this.

If you're going to do more smoking than grilling, then a WSM or a ProQ is a good choice. However, if you want the best of both worlds, the ProQs can also be used as a grill with the base and the lid, but obviously it is very low to the ground. You can put it on top of something to grill, but obviously you'd need to make sure that it is definitely safe to do so, as you don't want any accidents

For me personally, I picked up a ProQ Excel as I already have a Weber kettle and felt that the ProQ gave me more features over the WSM and also gave me the option of taking it away on holiday to use as a grill if I just took the base and the lid

Hopefully this helps rather than complicates things for you