BBQs & smokers
Eleven kinds of cooker, from the kettle in most gardens to a smoker you feed logs for eight hours. Every one of them is genuinely good at something and genuinely bad at something else, and this is where both halves are written down.
I want to grill
Fast, hot, food over the fire. These cook a steak, a burger or a tray of vegetables in the time it takes to lay the table.
Three-burner hooded gas grill
Turn it on, cook, turn it off. The cooker that removes fire management from the evening entirely.
A full table · Set it and leave it
I want to smoke
Long, low and dedicated. None of these will sear a steak, and that is not a fault — the fire is deliberately kept away from the food, which is the whole design.
Offset smoker
A fire in one box and food in another, run by hand for the whole cook — the traditional way, and the most involved.
A crowd · Hands on throughout
Pellet grill
A wood fire run by a thermostat: an auger feeds pellets into a burn pot and a controller keeps the number you set.
A full table · Set it and leave it
Bullet water smoker
The most forgiving way into long smoking: a pan of water sits between the fire and the food and steadies the temperature for you.
A full table · A look every few hours
Digital electric cabinet smoker
Set a number, load the racks, add a handful of chips. The least demanding smoker there is, and the most bounded.
A full table · Set it and leave it
I want one cooker that does both
These grill and smoke on the same machine. What they trade for it differs — a kettle wants a fuel arrangement, a pellet grill wants a socket, a kamado wants patience.
57 cm charcoal kettle
The one most people mean by 'a barbecue', and far more capable than its price suggests once the coals go to one side.
A family · A look every few hours
Ceramic kamado
A thick ceramic egg that holds whatever temperature you set it to, from a low smoke to a pizza oven.
A family · Set it and leave it
Electric outdoor grill with wood-pellet smoke box
A small electric outdoor cooker with a separate box of pellets for smoke — heat from the wall, flavour from wood.
One or two people · Set it and leave it
Drum smoker
A barrel where the food hangs over the fire on hooks, set once for your altitude and then left alone.
A family · Set it and leave it
Gravity-fed charcoal cooker
A column of charcoal that feeds itself into the fire, with a fan holding whatever temperature you set.
A full table · Set it and leave it
Reverse-flow offset smoker
An offset with steel plates under the grate that send the heat to the far end first, to even out the one thing an offset is known for.
A crowd · Hands on throughout
Three things people call “fuel”, which are not the same thing
This looks like a modelling detail until the moment it decides whether an appliance can kill you in a garage.
An electric smoker produces carbon monoxide. Its element burns nothing at all — and the wood chips it makes smoke with are burning, which is why its own maker warns that they give off a gas with no odour that can cause death.
So BBQHQ keeps three questions apart on every cooker page. What heats it. What smokes it. What you do with it. A pellet grill runs on mains electricity and burns wood; a gas grill smokes nothing unless you add a source; a water smoker takes both from the same fire. Any page with a single “fuel” row has to pick one of those facts and be wrong about the other.
Lump charcoal
Wood burned in the absence of oxygen until only carbon remains. Lights faster and burns hotter than briquettes, less predictably, and leaves less ash.
Produces carbon monoxide — never in an enclosed space
Charcoal briquettes
Compressed charcoal with binders, uniform in size and therefore in behaviour. Burns cooler and longer than lump, which is exactly what a long cook wants.
Produces carbon monoxide — never in an enclosed space
Wood
Burning wood directly, so fuel and smoke are the same material. Demands the most attention of any fuel and gives the most control over the character of the smoke.
Produces carbon monoxide — never in an enclosed space
Wood pellets
Compressed sawdust, fed mechanically. Doing two jobs at once — fuel and smoke — is what makes the pellet grill convenient and what makes it the hardest case for a data model that assumes one fuel field.
Produces carbon monoxide — never in an enclosed space
LPG (bottled gas)
Bottled propane or butane. Immediate control and no smoke of its own, which is why a gas grill that is to smoke anything needs a separate smoke source.
Produces carbon monoxide — never in an enclosed space
Electricity
Mains power driving a heating element, or a controller and fan on a cooker that burns something else. Produces no carbon monoxide — which says nothing whatever about whether the appliance may be used indoors.
No carbon monoxide from the fuel — which does not mean indoor-safe
Every cooker, on one line
The same ten, as a table, for when you know what you are looking for. What heats it and what smokes it are separate columns for the reason above.
| Cooker | What heats it | What smokes it | Feeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 57 cm charcoal kettle | Lump charcoal, Charcoal briquettes | Charcoal combustion, Wood chips, Oak chunks | A family |
| Three-burner hooded gas grill | LPG (bottled gas) | Wood chips | A full table |
| Ceramic kamado | Lump charcoal | Oak chunks, Charcoal combustion | A family |
| Offset smoker | Wood, Lump charcoal | Oak chunks | A crowd |
| Pellet grill | Wood pellets, Electricity | Pellet combustion | A full table |
| Electric outdoor grill with wood-pellet smoke box | Electricity | Wood-pellet smoke box | One or two people |
| Bullet water smoker | Charcoal briquettes | Charcoal combustion, Oak chunks, Wood chips | A full table |
| Drum smoker | Charcoal briquettes, Lump charcoal | Charcoal combustion, Oak chunks | A family |
| Digital electric cabinet smoker | Electricity | Wood chips | A full table |
| Gravity-fed charcoal cooker | Lump charcoal, Charcoal briquettes, Electricity | Charcoal combustion, Oak chunks | A full table |
| Reverse-flow offset smoker | Wood, Charcoal briquettes | Charcoal combustion, Oak chunks | A crowd |
Where to go next
Which kinds fit how you actually cook — and which are ruled out, with the reason.
Direct, indirect, two-zone and low-and-slow: what each does and which cookers can do it.
Carbon monoxide, fire, gas and electrical
Which of the four apply depends entirely on which cooker you own.
Won't hold temperature, heavy white smoke, coals keep dying — diagnosis rather than advice.