Drum smoker
A barrel where the food hangs over the fire on hooks, set once for your altitude and then left alone.
- Runs on Charcoal briquettes or Lump charcoal
- Smoke Charcoal combustion, Oak chunks
- Attention Set it and leave it
- Feeds A family
- Learning Forgiving to learn
- Moving it Movable, with effort
What it is good at, and what is harder
What it is good at
- Hanging exposes food on every side at once, and it uses vertical space rather than grate area — a rack of ribs takes one hook.
- Fat falls straight into the fire instead of into a pan, which is the flavour argument for this design.
- One vent, set for where you live, and then largely ignored. There is very little to get wrong.
- Simple enough that there is nothing on it to fail: no gasket, no controller, no plate to clean.
What is harder
- There is one vent and the maker tells you to set it for your altitude and leave it. Holding a chosen number through the cook is not something this design does.
- Fat dripping into a live fire is exactly the arrangement that produces flare-ups.
- It runs hotter than a water smoker and does not have a low, gentle setting to fall back on.
- No indirect zone at all — there is nowhere in a drum for food to be out of the fire's way.
The comparisons on this page are BBQHQ's reading of each maker's own manual set beside the others. No manufacturer here has said anything about a competitor's cooker, and none would be admitted as evidence if it had.
Carbon monoxide — read this first
Do not use this in an enclosed space — including a garage, a tent, a porch or a shed with the door shut. BBQHQ has no manufacturer instruction permitting it.
This is recorded from a source, never inferred from what it burns. BBQHQ does not derive indoor safety from the absence of combustion — an electric cooker still presents fire and smoke risk, and only its own manufacturer’s instruction can permit enclosed-space use.
How it works
A barrel with a basket of charcoal in the bottom and steel rods across the top, from which food hangs on hooks. Fat falls straight into the fire, everything cooks from all sides at once, and the single intake vent is set for where you live rather than adjusted through the cook.
What heats it
- 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.
- 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.
Where the smoke comes from
- Charcoal combustion
The modest smoke character charcoal contributes on its own, plus what comes from fat dripping onto the coals. Frequently the only smoke source in a cook that nobody thought of as smoking.
- Oak chunks
Fist-sized pieces placed on or beside a fire. Large enough to smoulder for a long time rather than flaring and finishing in five minutes, which is what makes chunks the default for long cooks.
What you can cook on it
Smoking — Designed for this
Low and slow — Designed for this
Direct heat — Possible with the right setup
- Fit the grate rather than the hanging rods, and run with the lid cracked open about a quarter of an inch.
What it will not do: indirect heat, two-zone fire. That is a fact about the architecture rather than a gap in the evidence — no accessory changes it.
Is this the one for you?
Written as conditions rather than as types of cook, because the same person wants different things in June and in November.
Get this if
- You want to light it, hang the food, put the lid on and come back later.
- You cook ribs and chicken more than you cook briskets.
- You have decided that fiddling with vents is the part of barbecue you do not enjoy.
Look at something else if
- You want to control the temperature through the cook rather than accept the one it settles at.
- You need an indirect zone, a low setting, or a grate to sear on.
Your first cook on it
- Fill the charcoal basket level, light about a quarter of it in a chimney, and pour it back over the top.
- Set the intake vent for your elevation rather than for a target temperature, then leave it.
- Hook the meat at least a couple of inches from the edge so it does not tear off into the fire.
Worth cooking on it
Techniques it supports
Fast cooking over direct heat. What most of the world means by barbecuing, and what American barbecue specifically does not mean — a terminology collision worth knowing about before reading any recipe.
Bring the food up slowly on indirect heat, then finish it hot and fast over direct. One method, two heat configurations, in that order — which is exactly why the technique and the fire arrangement are described separately here.
Many hours at low temperature with smoke, until collagen-rich cuts become tender. The method that gives American barbecue its name and its arguments.
Very hot, very short contact to develop surface colour and flavour. Not, despite the persistent belief, a way of sealing in juices.
Small pieces threaded onto skewers and cooked close over an open fire. Included because three separately sourced traditions turn out to share it, and because the skewer material — iron, bamboo, lemongrass, bicycle spoke — is a real variable that the sources themselves distinguish.
Looking after it
Keeping it working, which is a different subject from keeping it safe. The safety rules are above and below; these are the jobs that decide whether it still holds a temperature in three years.
- Empty the basket and the ash after each cook; the intake is at the bottom and ash chokes it.
- Keep the lid seating clean, because the lid is most of the temperature control on a drum.
- Store it dry — a barrel collects rain like a bucket if the lid is left off.
Safety for this cooker
Never take a barbecue into an enclosed space
Never take a barbecue into a tent, awning, caravan, motorhome, garage, shed or any other enclosed space — including to keep warm, and including when it is no longer flaming.
Burning charcoal, wood or gas produces carbon monoxide, which is colourless, odourless and gives no warning before it causes harm. In an enclosed space it accumulates to lethal concentrations.
Where this comes from
A barbecue continues to produce carbon monoxide as it cools. A barbecue that is no longer flaming is still lethal in an enclosed space.
Well established
Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland) — States this directly
“Even a cooling barbecue gives off plenty of poisonous carbon monoxide”
- Why it happens:
- Incomplete combustion continues while fuel is still smouldering.
- Combustion chemistry, so it does not vary by jurisdiction — unlike the food rules.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland) — States this directly
A barbecue should never be taken into a tent, awning, caravan or motorhome, including when it is only cooling.
- What it covers:
- Applies to charcoal and other combustion barbecues.
- Carbon monoxide is colourless and odourless, so there is no warning before symptoms.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
London Fire Brigade — States this directly
“After cooking, let it cool and make sure it is properly out – smouldering ashes can give off dangerous carbon monoxide fumes and can be fatal.”
- An independent authority reaching the same conclusion as the Public Health Agency by a different route — a fire service rather than a public-health body.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
Spent coals can reignite for up to 24 hours
After a charcoal fire appears extinguished, unconsumed embers can retain heat for up to 24 hours and can burst into flame unexpectedly when fresh air reaches them. Embers outside the firebox can ignite combustible surfaces such as a wooden deck.
BBQHQ already carried the UK fire-authority instruction on how to dispose of coals. What it did not carry was HOW LONG the risk lasts, and 24 hours is a great deal longer than the interval most people assume from a barbecue that has gone cold to the touch on top. Filed under 'fuel' — the disposal and handling of charcoal — rather than under 'fire', which is jurisdiction-bound because fire regulations are national and this is a manufacturer's statement about the material rather than a fire authority's about a country. It sits alongside the UK fire-authority rule rather than replacing it.
Where this comes from
A charcoal fire that appears extinguished can retain heat in unconsumed embers for up to 24 hours and can flare again when fresh air reaches it, which is why spent fuel is a fire risk long after a cook has finished.
Well supported
Oklahoma Joe's (Char-Broil, LLC) — States this directly
“After a charcoal fire appears extinguished, unconsumed embers can retain heat for up to 24 hours, and if exposed to fresh air, can burst into flame unexpectedly.”
- The figure:
- Twenty-four hours is a longer interval than any other document in this catalogue gives for a dead-looking fire, and it is a manufacturer stating it about its own charcoal appliance.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-20
Where to go next
Bullet water smoker or Drum smoker?
Two charcoal smokers at roughly the same money that disagree about what the cook should be doing. One asks you to keep a pan filled; the other asks you to leave the lid alone.
Answer six questions about how you cook and see which kinds of cooker fit — and which do not.
All eleven families on one page, grouped by what they are for.
Work back from when you want to eat, through resting, cooking and lighting the fire.