"Brinkmann All-In-One Griller and Smoker — 170,000 BTU, 50-Lb. Capacity"  Product Reviews

"This product is terrific! It is very easy to assemble, taking about 20 minutes if you take your time to do the job. It works great! Perfect smoked baby-back ribs are possible every time since the fire never actually goes out! If you are looking for a smoker that you can use occasionally as a cooker or conventional grill, this is the product for you!"

"i've had this smoker for about 5 months. it took some experimentation to figure out the best way to do things, but now that i've got it down, i'm pretty pleased with it. assembly was straightfoward. mine came with a water bowl that had a lot of paint chips missing, so i called brinkmann and they sent me a new one, without making me send the old one back. the instructions don't mention curing the smoker, but IMO this is a very important step. don't throw your food in this thing without curing it. the first time you get it hot, a lot of paint burns off! spray the inside with oil, like the manual says, then run the smoker on medium high heat for an hour or so with nothing in it. build quality is so-so. the welds are a little sloppy, but probably good enough. the lid doesn't fit perfectly, but close enough. the temp gauge is a joke. it doesn't show actual temperature, just warm/ideal/hot. it stopped working after a few smoking sessions. i drilled a small hole in the side of the smoker and inserted an $8 instant-read thermometer to monitor temps. it works well, and very little smoke is lost through the hole when the probe isn't in there. smoking with gas is pretty convenient. it is a little hard to keep the temp low with the gas burner. like another reviewer said, put the gas on low, and adjust the air intake so that the flame turns yellow, instead of blue. the yellow flame is less hot, and allows you to keep the gas flowing at a rate where it won't blow out so easily. you can keep the smoker at 200F like this. smoking with gas isn't completely fire and forget though. you do have to add wood occasionally on longer smokes. wood chunks last longer and are easier to work with than chips. if you need to use lower temps, go with charcoal. start the smoker with about 23 well lit coals to get 200F. i took the advice of another reviewer and put a 14.5" grill grate in the bottom of the smoker, to keep the coals off the bottom. this helps a lot to keep the coals burning after some ash has accumulated. unfortunately, this smoker has no adjustable air vents to control the temp with charcoal. other charcoal smokers are probably less work, since you can control the temp with air vents, instead of the with amount of coals. i find i have to add new coals about every hour, so charcoal is definitely more work when smoking for longer periods. however, it is kind of fun to be working with coals, as long as you don't have other things to attend to. using a chimney starter for the coals makes things much easier. one of the reasons i got this smoker was to compare gas smoking to charcoal. using charcoal, the meat does come out a little more smoky, probably because the charcoal provides some smoke, as well as the wood. however, the flavor is not necessarily superior with charcoal, just smokier, IMO. one of the first issues i struggled with was where to place the wood chips in this smoker. i bought a metal chip box to put the chips in. this makes cleanup much easier, as you don't have to separate the ashes from the lava rocks afterward. a chip box really should have been included with the smoker. i first tried putting the chip box on top of the rocks, but it doesn't get hot enough to smoke when you're cooking with gas at low temps. i had to move some rocks aside and place the chip box flush against the bottom of the smoker. when using charcoal, i just place the chip box right on top of the coals. putting the wood by itself on the coals causes it to burn and flame up, which produces bad flavors. you just want smoldering wood, not flames. there is no door for adding chips or coals, but when you lift the upper section off the smoker, very little heat is lost, as shown by my instant read thermometer. the hot air stays inside the upper section, as long as you don't take the lid off. having the entire bottom of the smoker exposed makes accessing coals and/or wood quite easy. you just have to be careful not to spill any water when removing the upper section. don't fill the water pan too full. using gas, this thing doesn't make a good grill. it takes an absurd amount of gas to get it hot enough for grilling. it does work, but sure is wasteful. this is surprising, because the burner seems strong enough, but somehow it just doesn't transfer enough heat to the rocks. probably a lot of heat is lost out the sides when the burner is really roaring. using charcoal, it works ok as a grill, as long as you have the extra grate in the bottom. when charcoal smoking, you can move a grill grate to the bottom position right above the coals and sear your meat for a little caramelization. i haven't used the burner for frying yet, but i'm sure it would do a good job. overall, i'm still glad i bought this smoker. it's my first smoker, and i think it's a good one to start with. at some point, i'll probably upgrade to a more serious charcoal-only offset smoker, but i'll keep this one around for those longer smoking sessions, such as turkeys, where i don't want to be hovering over the smoker all day long."

"I have no complaints about this smoker griller. It is really easy to get together and switch from charcoal to propane. Great fun!"

"I no problem assembling this great idea went to use it the paint caught on fire melted a hole in the barrel of this nice idea could have used better grade of metal and better grade of paint. still wait"