One example is the convection plate found in popular smokers like the Horizon, manufactured in Oklahoma. This sounds somewhat more complicated than it really is. To equalize the internal cooking temperature, manufacturers have developed what is known as reverse flow technology. The bigger the grill, the more pronounced the temperature disparity. So in addition to maintaining the fire, you also have to rotate the food or otherwise manage the airflow to avoid uneven cooking. (Open vents mean more oxygen, which produces a hotter fire.) In practice, temperatures vary inside the cook chamber, with the end nearest the firebox being the hottest. You control the heat and smoke flow in an offset smoker-in theory, at least-by adjusting the air intake and exhaust vents. This flow of hot air and wood smoke is one of the defining features of the offset smoker, producing ribs and pork shoulders with deep red smoke rings and briskets with exceptionally crisp “bark” (crust).
The heat and smoke flow through a portal into the cook chamber where they circulate around the food and exit through the chimney. You build a wood or charcoal and wood-enhanced fire in the firebox, so the heat is next to (not directly under) the meat. In some models the firebox is in the back. Most horizontal offset smokers have a similar construction-a lidded barrel-shaped or box-like smoking/cooking chamber with a firebox connected slightly lower to one end (hence the name “offset”) and a chimney rising from the other. He called his smoker business “Pitt’s & Spitt’s”-today one of the most respected names in the offset smoker industry. Texas metal fabricator Wayne Whitworth, founder of an oil contract-dependent business in Houston, started building barbecue pits to keep his employees busy during the downturn. In the early 1980s, the price of oil dropped from $30 to $10 a barrel. They based the offset design on traditional brick barbecue pits where the fire is built in one chamber and the smoke and heat cross the food in another. Far from home and restaurants, it didn’t take much for barbecue-starved welders to look at surplus oil pipe and 55-gallon steel drums and see grills and smokers. The first offset smokers were likely built by oilfield workers in Texas and Oklahoma. Now, thanks to mass-market models available at stores like Home Depot and Lowes, they’re bringing their own particular aura of machismo to American and European backyards.
For years, these hunka-hunka smokers-a.k.a., offset barrel smokers, horizontal smokers, pipe smokers, or “stick-burners”-have dominated the competition barbecue circuit. But nothing establishes your street cred as pit master who means business like an offset smoker. Water smokers, box, barrel, and pellet smokers do a fine job smoking meats and seafood.
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