You’ve been saving for months to purchase a new BBQ smoker. You’ve been doing your research to seek out the best smoker for your needs. You’ve read a million reviews, and you have it narrowed down to a couple of manufactures and models. So, how do you know you’ve made the right decision. We are going to dig dealer than just quality, style, smoker type. I hope to help you with the selection process with this easy to follow guide.
Cooking Capacity
The most important thing to consider is the size of the cooking chamber. You want to make sure the smoker will cook everything you want it to cook at one time. Are you a home owner, a caterer, a competition team? Will you be cooking for a crowd? Is it just you and your spouse or do you have a large family to feed? A good start is to start asking these kinds of questions.
Humphrey’s makes this easy! We have many sized smokers to choose from. We literally have something for everyone. Smokers as small as The Weekender, to the most popular The Pint, to the largest The Double Wide are all part of our line up! All of our smokers will hold full size hotel pans, offering a whole lot of cooking space, no matter which size you pick. No need to trim your racks of rib or brisket. You can fit a full packer brisket on a rack in our standard smokers!
Tip from the Pros: if you budget allows go one size larger, you will be thankful hat you did.
Ease To Control The Heat
There are some BBQ'ers that love to sit by the pit to tend and fuel the fire all day long. Some BBQ’ers would rather set the smoker to cook at a specific temperature and run without babysitting it all day.
Humphrey’s Smokers offers a reverse flow air design. The hot air and smoke are generated at the bottom of the smoker and the heat and smoke will rise up the baffled channels within the dual walled construction, roll over the top of the cooking chamber, then down thru the food and out through the chimney. This helps to dial in even temperatures from top to bottom, left to right, front to back.
Humphrey’s Weekender smokers offer a daisy wheel on the front of the firebox door. This easily controls the temperature of the smoker. Open it up and it will get hotter, close it down and the smoker will lock into the temperature. Replace the Daisy wheel with a Performance Plate to hook in a PID pit fan controller such as a FlameBoss. This eliminates the learning curve, while creating a set it and forget cooking apparatus.
Humphrey’s Smokers also offers gravity feed and offset smokers.
Still stuck on a decision of what smoker to pick, give me a call. I am an expert and can help!
Type of Fuel
One thing that is super important to consider is what type of fuel your new smoker will use. Some of the most popular options are propane, wood splits, pellets, and charcoal. The type of fuel you use will effect the flavor of your meat. Each fuel giving its own flavor profile.
Humphrey’s Smokers cabinet smokers requires charcoal. Charcoal is easy to find at your local grocer or hardware store. We find this fuel paired with our reverse flow air design gives the perfect amount of smoke flavor. It is so perfect that multiple World BBQ Championships have been won with Humphreys Smokers.
When we designed the smokers we wanted a super fuel efficient smoker and that is how the cabinet smoker was born. In addition to the cabinets, we offer wood split fed offset smokers. The offset smoker offers a heavy smoke, but you must have a constant supply of wood splits.
Footprint
Smokers have all shapes and sizes. Something to consider is how much room your new smoker is going to take on your patio.
Humphrey’s cabinets off loads of cooking capacity in a small footprint. We offer three different width smokers: The Standard, The Qube’d, and the Plus. Offset smokers take up loads of room for minimal cooking space and gravity feed smokers are so heavy!
Accessory Options
You’ve been saving and saving for your new smoker, make sure to choose one that fits your aesthetics and lifestyle. Humphrey’s has many different add on options. Some include body and door colors, caster sizes, stainless steel component upgrades, shelves, drop down counters and tools. We can build a smoker to your specs. Want to add your logo or name, no problem, our design team is ready to assist you!
Where is the smoker made?
This is a big question to ask! Knowing where the steel and other materials are coming from is important because it effect the quality.
One of Humphrey’s claim to fame is the fa t that we build a quality smoker using quality items. Our steel is sourced in North America, The thermometers are made in Rochester, NY and the powder coating is formulated by American companies, just to name a few. We purchase American made machinery when feasible, and we employ American Citizens. We are proud to be American Made! Our employees are also proud to build a quality American made product! This leads me to.....
Customer Service
its important to find out from other previous customer how the customer service is after the sale. Is the smoker builder there to answer your questions during business hours, after hours, even after the sale? Or do they only want to get the sale? Is there a users group and does the smoker manufacturer participate in answering questions on the group? Is the group an active group?
Humphrey’s works really hard to build a relationship with our customers. We keep in contact over the years with our customers. We also try to make ourselves available via phone during business hours and by messenger or email during non business hours for any questions they may have before, during and after the sale.
Our Facebook users group is amazing! I’m not tooting my own horn, but the horns of all our amazing, sharing customers who offer recipes, stories, pictures, tips and ticks everyday! We also have members of the tech dept of Flame Boss (our preferred pit controller) on our users group who will chime in and help when they can about their products. Oh did I mention.....most of our smoker fabricators, welders, assemblers and shop managers are also on the users group. Some of them also own Humphreys of their own! They will also chime in when the question hits their expertise! So as you can see.l.we have a huge support system as you move forward with your BBQ passion!
WOW! We covered a lot! Please email if you want to discuss this further or shoot me an email!
info@humphreysbbq.com or 207-793-2598