How does a Smoker differ from a standard charcoal BBQ/Grill?
I’ve seen pics of smokers and they all appear to be “deeper” than a standard BBQ, and some of them mention things like wood chips and water bowls inside them. They seem to usually be kind of round or oval, too.
When I say “standard” charcoal BBQ, I am thinking of a “tray” that is say about 3-4" deep (or so) where you would lay charcoal and a grill directly over it. These Smokers appear to be about a foot or two deep with a grill on top. What goes in all that extra space? They also all seem to have lids, which I assume helps with the “smoking” of the food. Regular charcoal grills do not have these lids… or at least not the ones I’ve seen.
A smoker is designed to cook food much more slowly than a grill. For that reason, they’re deeper (so the heat doesn’t char the meat, due to being too close).
If you’re looking for a charcoal grill, I highly recommend the Weber. It has a slightly egg-shaped design that helps trap the heat. I’ve had one for several years, and it’s consistently performed well.
A smoker and and a grill differ in the way they cook the food (obviously).
With a grill, you basically create your fire and/or coals, and cook directly over the top of it. This cooks quickly, and often has a characteristic “char”.
Smoking is somewhat similar to baking, I guess, in that you build your fire in a separate compartment (usually), and the heat moves from that compartment to the exhaust point (smokestack). In between the firebox and the exhaust is usually the cooking chamber, and since the heat passes through this chamber it’s where the cooking is done. Since there isn’t any fire in the cooking chamber, you can put a water bowl in there to keep the chamber (and the food in it) nice and moist (I think some people also use water to even the heat distribution).
In either case you can put wood chips (soaked in water for at least 30 min.) into the coals to create flavorful smoke.
I’ve the got the Silver Smoker (here: http://www.nbsmoker.com/smokers2.html), which serves as both a grill and a smoker. You can build a fire in the main chamber and grill over it, or build a fire in the offset side chamber and “smoke” in the main chamber.
I meant that smoking is similar to baking only in the respect that you’re cooking in a hot chamber, as opposed to direct contact with a hot surface or flame.
A conventional charcoal grill (the 3-4" deep pan that you mention cooks via dirct exposure to the heat. You build a fire under the grill and throw the meat on top of the grill right over the charcoal. This is called grilling. (this is also what a gas grill does)
A Weber kettle is more properly described as a grill not a smoker.
When it comes to smoking, then you are dealing with a different kind of cooking. The heat is applied indirectly, it is the smoke that does most (or all) of the cooking. First off there are two different types of smoking, hot smoke, and cold smoke.
Cold smoke is what is done to cure hams, and jerky. Very low temperature smoke is used (about 100F-140F or so) for long periods of time. Cold smoke is how meat was preserved in the old days.
Hot smoke is smoke plus the addition of heat. Temps for hot smoking range from a low of about 180F-250F. While this also smokes the meat, it also cooks it at the same time. Most old fashion barbeque is hot smoke (pulled pork, brisket) When hot smoked the meat will have a ring of pink inside the outer edge of the meat. This pink ring is how far the smoke has penetrated into the meat.
When it comes to smokers there are all different kinds. In the old days, people would either build a pit type smoker, or even a smoke house. Now a days most people buy smokers.
Smokers come in several different configurations
A vertical like a Weber Smokey mountain Which is sometimes called a bullet of obvious reasons
An offset, like this unit where the fire is built in the box next to the smoke chamber
Or even this update of an old Japanese design called a Big Green Egg (I like this one I own one)
And lots other ones besides. I even saw a picture on the net of a guy that converted a 4 drawer file cabinet into a smoker.
If you want more infomation on smokers and barbeque check out the