About the only good thing we can say about the Char-Griller Smokin’ Pro is the price is unbeatable. MSRP on this is way inflated. You can easily find these for substantially less. Many wide-eyed first time smokers, including me, thought it made sense to buy this tin can as a starter model to learn what BBQ smoking is about before moving up to a more expensive cooker. The problem with the Smokin’ Pro and many other cheap offset smokers is they are hard to use. And once you finally get a feel for them, it’s still tough to get good results consistently. You can really get turned off to smoking altogether by these crummy cookers.
A lot of people buy cheap smokers and either take what they get or spend time and money trying to make them into something they’re not: good smokers. The Smokin’ Pro does have a few features that some other offsets in this price range don’t: the charcoal hopper slides out for easily adding charcoal and wood or for cleaning, the adjustable charcoal grate in the smoker box lets you do some large capacity burger searing and you get two wooden shelves for work space.
