Buy a BBQ Smoker

Go by weight: the 600 Grillmaster is 300 kg empty and the 2-door smoker 1,040 kg. The grills have a drawbar so they can be manoeuvred by hand; the smoker sits on a braked chassis. If you change location regularly, take the trailer version and hitch up rather than lift.

It is the question inspectors and customers both ask, because the meat spends hours in the range where bacteria grow. In practice you work to a measured and recorded core temperature and to a tight schedule from chilled storage to smoker to service. For professional use you write that into your food safety plan, and the thermometers on the unit are what let you evidence it.

This is where caterers get stuck: an inspecting authority often wants a closed preparation area, while a smoker sits outside by definition. Ask your council or inspection body how they assess it before you buy, and tell us what they say. In a lot of cases the answer is a smoker for the cooking alongside a closed unit for preparation and service, and we build both.

Brush them while they are still hot, that takes the least effort. For anything stubborn, lay a sheet of aluminium foil over the area while the unit heats up, then brush it away. Do not use oven cleaner and do not leave the grates soaking, because that strips the layer that protects them and keeps them non-stick. Re-oil them with a high smoke point oil every few cooks.

Rust starts on the inside, from moisture and fat left standing, not from the outside. Clear out the ash and the fat after every cook, run it dry now and then, and keep it under a cover. Re-oil the inside when the layer starts to look dull. Every unit comes with one year of warranty.

Yes, and do it before any food goes in. Wash the inside with water and a little soap to remove manufacturing residue. Coat the whole interior, the firebox and the grates with a high smoke point oil such as sunflower, rapeseed or groundnut oil, and leave it for fifteen minutes. Then run it empty for two to three hours at around 120 to 135 degrees. Let it cool and wipe it down with a soft cloth. The dark, glossy layer you are left with is what protects the steel from rusting out from the inside.

Yes, provided the chamber holds its heat. The 2-door smoker is a heavy, indirect-fired build with controlled air supply, which is what lets you hold a temperature when it is cold and windy rather than chasing it all day.

Both depend on the model, the outside temperature and the wind, so treat the first few cooks as your calibration and note what you use. Build it into your costing from the start: in northern Europe, wood and tending time are a real line in the budget, and they go up in winter.

You control the fire with the air intake at the firebox, not with the chimney damper, which you generally leave open. Some variation along the length of the chamber is normal, so move your meat halfway through, or use the cooler zone deliberately for the pieces that are nearly done. The 2-door smoker has six thermometers so you can see what each zone is doing instead of guessing.

The smokers run on wood and the grills, such as the 350 Club and the 600 Grillmaster, on charcoal. Gas only tends to come up as a way of getting through a long night, and it costs you exactly the smoke profile you bought a smoker for. Use dry, split hardwood: damp wood is the main cause of bitter smoke and of a temperature you cannot hold.

On a category B licence you can tow a trailer up to 750 kg; above that the combined weight limit of 3,500 kg applies and you need BE. Our BBQ trailers come with a registration document and a CoC, so they are road legal across Europe. Do not assume you are limited to the smallest model, because that is not usually the case: ask us for advice with your vehicle and licence, and we will tell you what you can actually tow.

For the grills we work in burgers. The 600 Grillmaster holds around 60 burgers in one go on a 140 by 76 cm grill surface, which works out at roughly 600 an hour once you are in a rhythm. The 350 Club is the smaller version at around 350 an hour, and the 1200 models are roughly double the 600. For the smokers we work in guests, and the 2-door smoker covers around 250 people. With low and slow cooking your turnaround time matters as much as the grill surface, so tell us your menu and the size of your busiest service and we will work it through with you.