Realcook Vertical 17 Inch Steel Charcoal Smoker, Heavy Duty Round BBQ Grill for Outdoor Cooking, Black

Works great. Assembly was little bit challenging because all screw and bolts were all together, and diagrams are small. When all was assemble, we smoked a turkey for thnxgiving and we all loved it, turkey was juicy and skin was tasty. Thermostat was puncutal . Just need to monitor the flame because left unattended, fire will go down and heating go down as well.

I wanted a good beginner smoker. I have a Cobb cooker, which is really nice, and works wonderful but is very small. I've also done offset smoking on my regular grill, but was ready to up my game to a real smoker. After looking at many different options, I decided to go with a simple vertical charcoal smoker and this one seemed like a good option. I've done 3 smokes so far and have been pretty happy with the results. I've done ribs, turkey breast, salmon, chicken, brats, pork roast, potatoes, sweet potatoes. Lots of experimenting!! The PROS: - I love the 2 access doors. 1 for the fuel and 1 for the second rack. It makes it easy to access these areas. - I love that it easily comes apart. This allows you to carefully lift off the upper parts to access the fuel or second grate, etc. - It has a big water pan which I've used with water and beer. Seems to help keep the meat moist. - It seems to heat well for smoking. With the water pan, you can have a very hot fire and it still stays in the 250 degree range. Without the pan, it needs less fuel to be at 250-275 range. - Comes with a hooks and fitting to hang meat for smoking. I have not tried that feature yet though. The CONS: - It's rather cheaply made. I have no idea of the durability yet, but you get what you pay for. It's not made of the most robust fittings and materials. - You need to assemble it and tweak some things. I had to bend the doors and door handles a bit to fit better and close more tightly. - The sheet metal brackets that hold the grills in place are not good. They do the job, but should be made out of thicker material. They bend easily when cleaning. I'm going to upgrade these to something better because they are way too flimsy. - Ash buildup/airflow . I don't think the lower part has enough space for ash and the airflow seems restricted by the small lower opening/ash bucket. The coals only burn in the center and the ash builds up. I might try modifying this a bit to achieve better results. Raising the coal grate and adding lower vent holes may help. OVERALL: I believe this is a good low-end vertical smoker. I've been doing my smokes with the water pan in place for the first 2 hours. Then I remove it to get a little more heat and let the dripping fall on the coals for added flavor. I just got a 6-sensor meat digital meat thermometer to use for my next smoke. I don't know how accurate the built-in thermometer is. I'm curious how the heat is distributed in the smoker. I don't think this is a smoker you will hand down to your kids or grand kids. I don't think it's that durable. I plan to use mine a lot this summer and keep it clean and maintained, so we'll see. But the materials and fittings are just ok. That said, I wanted something I could get into cheap and learn from. I think this smoker fits the bill perfectly. My family has loved the ribs & turkey breast. Oh so good! My wife also really loved the smoked sweet potatoes. Smokey creamy goodness!! Update!! 2022 and still having fun with this smoker that I have affectionately named R2-BBQ. It's still a great value to get started with a smoker. I drilled a small hole in the side so I could insert a temp probe to monitor the interior temp when cooking. I realized that a firebox would be a nice addition to keep the charcoal/wood chunks in place. I'm going to try that. Overall, the durability has held up. I store it inside and try to keep it clean and it still looks good after 2 years. It even smells good too!!

This was my first ever attempt at smoking and had read reviews on this grill and it seemed like a great choice for a novice. I'm going to share my thoughts on this in sections. First, unboxing: There was a large dent in the lower middle section of the grill. The lid was scratched both inside and out, and one of the legs was bent pretty severely, even though it doesn't appear so bad in the photo. I know this isn't a cadillac of grills, but at the same time, I'm not happy that it looks like crap either. I really wanted to return it, but had planned on smoking on saturday and the grill showed up late thursday night, so i didn't really have time to send it back. and it wasn't damaged enough to harm the function of the grill, so I kept it. I knocked off a star for the condition of the grill only. Second, assembly: The grill has a ton of screws and parts, but assemble was easy. The instructions kind of suck because it doesn't have a good guide as to what screws and nuts are A, B, C, and D. But there are only 2 sizes, so it's not really difficult to figure it out. I recommend sorting them out in groups before starting. I did that and it made assembly go much smoother. The bent leg was the most difficult part of the process as getting it bent back to the right shape was not an easy task. Once over that hurdle though, it took about an hour total probably to get it all together. Third, grilling: The grill was easy to use. I loaded charcoal in the bottom (highly recommend Fogo charcoal by the way), got it lit, assembled the grill sections and waited for it to heat up. Temp climbed up to 200 and as it was rising, I throttled back on the air flow at the bottom of the grill. It hit 220 or there about, and held there. Biggest complaint while cooking was the temp gage. it has moisture in it that stayed there the entire day, even with the heat and sitting in the sun. It made it extremely difficult to read the gage without having to get up and go look at it closely. I loaded on the meat, brisket on bottom grill, ribs on top, and the cook was on. The grill maintained an almost perfect 220-250 for the entire day. I cut the air flow back 2 times during the cook, and then opened it back up once after adding more water to the water pan. Pretty much didn't really touch it during the 7 hours the meat was smoking. Overall, I don't think I could have made a better choice than this grill. It was incredibly easy to use, temp was super easy to maintain, and for this first time smoker, the meat turned out incredible. Ribs were falling off the bone and the brisket was perfect. I really can't wait to do this all over again. I would have given this thing 5 stars had it not been for the damage to the grill itself and the moisture in the temp gage. I never tried contacting the seller to see if i could get them replaced, but I might just to see what they say. It didn't detract from the grills function, but it just looks bad. and the gage fogging over makes it really difficult to read. For a smoker though, this thing is top notch. I have no regrets buying it and would do so again.

The smoker comes disassembled and takes several hours to put together but well worth it. There are mutiple ways to use it besides a smoker or grill. Here is a picture of our Christmas Day smoked ham.

This is a great smoker and grill for the beach. I was a bit hesitant as I always judge a new product purchase by the 1, 2, and 3 star reviews and find a common denominator or complaint. I found assembly time, temp control, and insulation to be top negatives. Assembly took me about 40 minutes. You will need a 7 and 9mm socket and or wrench and Phillips head screwdriver for this. Anytime you build a new grill, you need to burn it in before first cook. So I loaded it with charcoal and got it up to 400 degrees. During this time, I did notice that smoke escaped quite a bit through the seals. However, this is not entirely a negative because they sell high temp smoker tape at the hardware store or even Amazon. I highly recommend you grab a roll and seal the doors and connections. After doing this, you will have a noticeable difference. The seller should consider including a roll as part of the install process. Lastly was temp control. Honestly, it is just a tank of metal. With most grills, you will have temp control problems if you don't put the right amount of wood or briquettes. Each grill is different so you may have to do some trial and error but I was able to get this properly to 275 where I needed it and smoke some meat. Overall, for the price and portability, this is a great smoker and grill. Going to the beach or lake early? Take this and begin smoking when you get there or use it as dual grill or one grill and one fire pit. Another tip too: overtime any grill may have paint flake off and cause rusting. I highly recommend you get some high temp spray paint and spray down scratched areas periodically. If you take care of this grill then it has a chance to last long.

My complaint about this smoker is that it was missing parts and several of the bolts had messed up threads and couldn’t be started. Luckily I have a huge supply of varies nuts and bolts and I was able to assemble it. The part that was missing was one of the latches that holds the upper and lower sections together so you can move the smoker as one unit. That wasn’t too big of a deal since I haven’t had to move it to a different location. As for how it works as a smoker, it does a great job. I have always preferred the water type smokers, I have owned several over the years. And for those saying it is a good starter smoker (honestly don’t know what that really means) this smoker is pretty much all you will ever need unless you plan on hosting a lot of people or start a BBQ stand. Again, the function of this smoker is really great, it keeps a good steady temperature with not much stoking needed. I really love the hooks that come with it, they are great to hang a side of ribs from. All of my previous “droid” type (looks like an R2 unit from Star Wars) didn’t have this feature and I had to modify the grills to hang ribs. If it wasn’t for the missing part and the really bad bolts, I would give this a 5 star rating.

Looks to be very functional, and easy to transport if needed. It was not difficult to assemble. Can't wait to try it.

We smoked a turkey for the first time and it was easy to use and turned out great!