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This All-in-One idea is really cool. As a smoker, it's very good. Easy to maintain temperature by adjusting the gas flow and air intake. It's a little dificult to run at low temps (200f) if the weather is warm. If you turn the gas down too low, a slight wind will blow out the burner. We solved the problem by giving it more gas, but starving the intake of air.
As a grill, it's not very good. It works, but not very efficiently. We have to crank the gas up real hot to get the pumice warm enough to sizzle steaks. We found that in charcoal mode, it works best after putting a grill inside, raised slightly above the vented tray bottom with some spacers. Put the charcoal on the raised grill. The extra air under the coals makes for a hotter fire.
Now the great part; fried turkeys. This is no 30,000 BTU camp stove. The burner on this baby really puts the heat on 4 gallons of oil. It's almost scary how powerful the burner is.
One final word; this setup does not come with a propane tank. If you don't have one, count on another $25-30 bucks, and on big projects, make sure it's full. Theres nothing more depressing than getting halfway through a 8 hour turkey smoke and run out of fuel.
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i've had this smoker for about 5 months. it took some experimentation to figure out the best way to do things, but now that i've got it down, i'm pretty pleased with it. assembly was straightfoward. mine came with a water bowl that had a lot of paint chips missing, so i called brinkmann and they sent me a new one, without making me send the old one back.the instructions don't mention curing the smoker, but IMO this is a very important step. don't throw your food in this thing without curing it. the first time you get it hot, a lot of paint burns off! spray the inside with oil, like the manual says, then run the smoker on medium high heat for an hour or so with nothing in it.
build quality is so-so. the welds are a little sloppy, but probably good enough. the lid doesn't fit perfectly, but close enough. the temp gauge is a joke. it doesn't show actual temperature, just warm/ideal/hot. it stopped working after a few smoking sessions. i drilled a small hole in the side of the smoker and inserted an $8 instant-read thermometer to monitor temps. it works well, and very little smoke is lost through the hole when the probe isn't in there.
smoking with gas is pretty convenient. it is a little hard to keep the temp low with the gas burner. like another reviewer said, put the gas on low, and adjust the air intake so that the flame turns yellow, instead of blue. the yellow flame is less hot, and allows you to keep the gas flowing at a rate where it won't blow out so easily. you can keep the smoker at 200F like this. smoking with gas isn't completely fire and forget though. you do have to add wood occasionally on longer smokes. wood chunks last longer and are easier to work with than chips.
if you need to use lower temps, go with charcoal. start the smoker with about 23 well lit coals to get 200F. i took the advice of another reviewer and put a 14.5" grill grate in the bottom of the smoker, to keep the coals off the bottom. this helps a lot to keep the coals burning after some ash has accumulated. unfortunately, this smoker has no adjustable air vents to control the temp with charcoal. other charcoal smokers are probably less work, since you can control the temp with air vents, instead of the with amount of coals. i find i have to add new coals about every hour, so charcoal is definitely more work when smoking for longer periods. however, it is kind of fun to be working with coals, as long as you don't have other things to attend to. using a chimney starter for the coals makes things much easier.
one of the reasons i got this smoker was to compare gas smoking to charcoal. using charcoal, the meat does come out a little more smoky, probably because the charcoal provides some smoke, as well as the wood. however, the flavor is not necessarily superior with charcoal, just smokier, IMO.
one of the first issues i struggled with was where to place the wood chips in this smoker. i bought a metal chip box to put the chips in. this makes cleanup much easier, as you don't have to separate the ashes from the lava rocks afterward. a chip box really should have been included with the smoker. i first tried putting the chip box on top of the rocks, but it doesn't get hot enough to smoke when you're cooking with gas at low temps. i had to move some rocks aside and place the chip box flush against the bottom of the smoker. when using charcoal, i just place the chip box right on top of the coals. putting the wood by itself on the coals causes it to burn and flame up, which produces bad flavors. you just want smoldering wood, not flames.
there is no door for adding chips or coals, but when you lift the upper section off the smoker, very little heat is lost, as shown by my instant read thermometer. the hot air stays inside the upper section, as long as you don't take the lid off. having the entire bottom of the smoker exposed makes accessing coals and/or wood quite easy. you just have to be careful not to spill any water when removing the upper section. don't fill the water pan too full.
using gas, this thing doesn't make a good grill. it takes an absurd amount of gas to get it hot enough for grilling. it does work, but sure is wasteful. this is surprising, because the burner seems strong enough, but somehow it just doesn't transfer enough heat to the rocks. probably a lot of heat is lost out the sides when the burner is really roaring. using charcoal, it works ok as a grill, as long as you have the extra grate in the bottom. when charcoal smoking, you can move a grill grate to the bottom position right above the coals and sear your meat for a little caramelization. i haven't used the burner for frying yet, but i'm sure it would do a good job.
overall, i'm still glad i bought this smoker. it's my first smoker, and i think it's a good one to start with. at some point, i'll probably upgrade to a more serious charcoal-only offset smoker, but i'll keep this one around for those longer smoking sessions, such as turkeys, where i don't want to be hovering over the smoker all day long.
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I just put mine together and it warns that you mustn't keep the gas connected and that each time you reattach the gas you have to do a soap test. I guess I can keep screwing the propane tank on and off, but that's such a pain and the soapy water is messy!First roast turned out well, but in Winter, California, 60 degree weather it took a little longer than expected (2.5 lbs beef and it was edible/medium 160 degrees internal in about 3.5 hours and two rather large handfuls of apple chips soaked for 24 hrs). The flame blew out three times and scared me because I wasn't watching it the whole time, and when I thought of propane exploding upwards! I didn't think it would go out so easily, so I just ended up feeding it more gas and tried to cut the intensity of the heat using the air intake adjustment.
You have to add more chips to get a lot of smoke flavor so that is easy, but you have to lift the whole body up and off including the water pot and meat, which could get heavy, but at least you can keep the lid on and keep some of the heat in there. A good thing about this design is that if you are doing charcoal, you can replace the charcoal quickly.
Overall, I'm very excited, but I had those couple gripes...no door to access the water pan and no way to access the coals without lifting the whole top off and no easy way to remove the propane for safety. I love the ease of having a gas option as you have to have the patience of a saint to tend to my other charcoal smoker as it didn't have a way to get rid of the ash to keep the temperature even and accessing the coal bowl was really a pain, especially if you wanted to add HOT glowing charcoal.
I'm pleased though! I got this one for my birthday as a gift to myself since I always wanted a gas grill for instant gratification. I do love charcoal briquettes and chunks as well, so I'm pleased I still have that option. Read the owners manual thouroughly before purchasing so that you don't have any surprises. You also need adjustable wrenches or specific sizes (I used two crescent adjustable wrenches) to put it together, but it went together fairly intuitively and quickly.
Honest reviews on Brinkmann 810-5000-0 All-In-One Outdoor Cooker, Black
I've had one of these smokers for 4 to 5 years. I'd buy another one if my current wears out... well, well worth the price. This cooks the best chicken, turkey, and, above all, salmon that I've ever tasted. Try marinating salmon filets overnight in teriyaki and smoking for 45 to 60 minutes with alder chips for the most moist, flavorful salmon you've ever tasted!Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Brinkmann 810-5000-0 All-In-One Outdoor Cooker, Black
The smoker is great. I bought this because my boss has the same model and has smoked mouth-watering whole chickens.My only gripe is that the smoker shipped with an owner's manual for the Smoke 'N Grill/Cook 'N Cajun smoker. These are charcoal smokers, not propane. While some of the components are the same or similar, it was still confusing putting it together. I also believe I received a set of screws and bolts for those other models as I ended up with a bunch of extras that don't fit in any of the pre-drilled holes. Good thing I had enough of the right sizes to put the all-in-one together. To make it worse, the 800 numbers for customer service rang to busy signals all day long. My emails to Brinkmann's also went unanswered. Maybe they have a lot of similar problems??? Luckily Amazon has the owner's manual available online now -Brinkmann's own website does not.
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