How To Clean Your Bbq Smoker

Fast Eddy's by Cookshack FEC100 — Cookshack Inc.

There are few things in this world simpler than a box. Box smokers (also known as vault smokers, cabinet smokers, block smokers) are basically a box with a heat source in the bottom and cooking chamber on the top. Because the heat source is directly below, like in a vertical water smoker, the heat is conserved. The one issue that separates good box smokers from bad ones (like the Camp Chef Smoke Vault, on the low end of the scale) is the insulation. While all box smokers have a lot of similarities, if you set a Pitmaker Vault next to a Stumps Vertical next to an FEC-100, you have smokers that look alike but operate very differently.

There are a number of box smokers sold in big box stores that are simply worse than less expensive vertical water smokers. This is because they have no insulation, thin metal, and a poorly fitting door. Typically gas or electric, this type of box smoker is nothing more than a burner or heating element inside a metal box that you can put meat in, with wood chips held over the heat to smolder. A little breeze or light rain and these smokers lose heat. You would do better with the more efficient shape of a round smoker.

The better box smokers cost a lot more, but they do produce large amounts of great barbecue in a highly controllable environment. If you need to smoke barbecue for a competition, catering, or a restaurant, these smokers can be the most dependable and easiest-to-use smokers on the market.

Inventor-designer Ed "Fast Eddy" Maurin might not appreciate us referring to his competition staple as a box smoker, but look at its picture. The FEC-100 is stainless steel, "refrigerator-style" pellet smoker with an airtight door, heavy insulation, and a computer operated temperature control system. With the external pellet hopper and the meat probes, you can load this smoker up and not actually open the door until the temperature control system tells you that the meat is done.

The Stumps Vertical Smoker is, like the other good box smokers, highly insulated. The standout feature on this smoker is the gravity feed charcoal system. Charcoal loaded into the back feeds down into the combustion chamber allowing for long smoking times. It is the level of oxygen inside the smoker that regulates charcoal consumption. Simple and brilliant. Stumps smokers, like the FEC, are popular with barbecue champions.

If you are serious about barbecue and want to produce a lot of it, then one of the larger, better made, and more expensive box smokers might be for you. The less expensive versions simply don't have the engineering to be serious about barbecue.