Which kind of BBQ?
Six questions about how you actually cook. What comes back is kinds of cooker — never a product, never a winner — with the reason each one fits, and the reason each one that does not was dropped.
Every kind of cooker BBQHQ models
Answer anything above to narrow this down. Until then, here is the whole set — eleven families, each with the one-line version of what it is for.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
How this decides
There is no score. Every answer either rules a family out or it does not, and nothing is ranked — because ranking would mean deciding whether portability is worth more than capacity, and nothing in BBQHQ’s evidence answers that. Inventing the weight would be inventing the most consequential number in the calculation.
What each cooker can do is taken from its maker’s own manual. How much attention it wants, how much it holds and how easily it moves are BBQHQ’s classifications, made by reading those manuals side by side — no manufacturer here has said anything about a competitor’s cooker.
It recommends kinds of cooker and never a product. There is no affiliate link on this site and no model is being sold to you here.
Where to go next
What each one is, how it works, what it is good at and what is harder.
Decision-shaped comparisons on the dimensions that actually differ.
Already own one? Different question
How long a particular food takes on a particular cooker, with the reasoning attached — the other chooser, for the other decision.
Carbon monoxide, fire, gas and electrical — which apply depends on what you chose.