5 Best Propane Smokers That Money Can Buy

At home, I’m not a rock star. I wear dad-appropriate attire. I drive a truck. And we go to the mountains to light fires and have barbecues. – Brandon Flowers

For most people, grilling, smoking, and barbecuing are all part of the same whole. But we’re not most people, and neither are you.

We know that there’s a world of difference between the different disciplines of the cook-out and that each of them takes a lifetime to master and is responsible for creating a cornucopia of different flavors.

And we also know that these different disciplines require vastly different equipment to perfect, and regardless of which school of outdoor cooking we put our faith in, we also know that we’ll never reach the pinnacle of our chosen discipline without the right equipment to perfect our culinary art.

We’re dedicated to smoking, we’ve invested our time, energy, and more effort than our families would like, and is probably good for us, into improving our smoking ability. And, over the years, it’s paid off as we’ve become pretty good at smoking a nearly endless variety of foods. But one of the secrets to our smoking success is the smoker that we use.

Despite what other smokers may tell you, we’ve always sworn by propane smokers instead of the traditional charcoal or even wood pellet fueled smoker variety. That’s why we’ve put together a list of the best propane smokers so that you can shatter the smoking glass ceiling and discover the world of flavor that’s waiting for you. It’s time to start cooking with gas and smoking with propane…

 

5 Best Propane Smoker

 

1. Char-Broil Vertical Liquid Propane Gas Smoker

Believing that there’s a grill for every griller and a smoker for every, well, smoker, Char-Broil has spent the last seven decades honing and perfecting generation after generation of smokers and grills. So it isn’t really surprising that they’re responsible for designing one of the best propane smokers that any dedicated outdoor cook can lay their hands on.

This lightweight smoker has five hundred and ninety-five square inches of smoking space spread over three chrome-plated cooking racks and a gas burner that’s capable of delivering sixteen thousand five hundred BTU’s of heat. This means that you’ll be able to smoke as much as you want, whenever you want with Char-Broil’s smoker.

With a front-mounted temperature gauge and control, this propane smoker has been engineered with precision and dedication to making every cook’s life better than it already is.

While it’s been built to be functional and easily fulfill all of your smoking needs, Char-Broil has also made it to last and last and last, and its heavy-duty all-steel construction makes sure that the only things that will survive the apocalypse are cockroaches, and this smoker.

If you’re looking for a smoker to put all of your smoking faith in, you should choose a machine that was brought into the world by a brand that was built on smoking ingenuity. And that’s Char-Broil.

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2. Masterbuilt Propane Smoker with Thermostat Control

Masterbuilt follows a simple credo. Do the work and make it fun, and everything they do centers around innovation and using leading-edge technology to make your life easier.

And after forty-five years at the forefront of the smoking and grilling business, their name has become a byword for quality, durability, and reliability.

With four chrome-coated smoking racks that provide a total of nine hundred and eighty-one square inches of cooking space and a burner capable of producing fifteen and half thousand BTU’s of heat that’s easily controllable with its front-mounted thermostat dial, this Masterbuilt vertical smoker has all the room that you’ll ever need to smoke as much food as want to, whenever you want to.

Its automatic shut-off valve is designed to switch the propane supply off immediately if the burner’s flame goes out and the simple to read fuel gauge makes sure that you always know just how much propane you have left to play with.

Designed to let you set the temperature and just walk away, the Masterbuilt’s glass front means that if you’re more interested in seeing what it does up close, you can just grab a bucket of popcorn and watch as the smoke and heat gradually envelope everything on its smoking racks.

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3. Dyna-Glo 36″ Vertical LP Gas Smoker

Dyna-Glo specializes in delivering the sort of grills and smokers that make your outdoor life more enjoyable.

While they may not be a name that long time grillers and smokers whisper about in fervent, hushed tones or a brand that threatens to topple the established leaders of the industry off the top of the smoking mountain, they have carved their own purpose-built, affordable niche in the world-wide grilling scene.

With a burner that’ll produce fifteen thousand BTU’s of heat and seven hundred and eighty-four square inches of smoking space spread over four chrome-plated cooking racks, the Dyna-Glo was engineered to create all of the smoking room that you’ll ever need or want.

Its side-mounted dampers allow you to vary the amount of heat and smoke that you can use to cook with, and you’ll always know just how much heat you have at your fingertips thanks to its door-mounted thermometer.

It’s an easy to set up, and even simpler to use smoker that might not bowl you over aesthetically, but will win your smoking heart with its functionality and practicality.

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4. Cuisinart Vertical 36″ Propane Smoker

We were raised in a kitchen that was filled with Cuisinart products, and if there’s one brand name that we were brought up to trust implicitly, it’s Cuisinart. And, much to our surprise they’re as adept at making grills (even indoor grills) and smokers that were built to cook outside as they are at making ovens that are engineered to cook inside.

Like Doctor Who’s infamous Tardis, the Cuisinart is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside and holds four porcelain-coated cooking racks that provide a total smoking area of almost eight hundred square inches.

Able to smoke for up to ten hours from a single twenty-pound propane cylinder, the Cuisinart weighs around fifty pounds, so when you want to load it into the back of your RV and hit the road with it, you’ll be able to do it without worrying about throwing your back out.

And best all, thanks to having a polished steel interior and porcelain-coated smoking racks, it’s also devastatingly easy to clean once you’ve finished smoking everything that you need to. Trust us, when it comes to making sure your smoker is ready to go again, the easier it is to clean the better, which means that you’ll be thankful that you decided to smoke the Cuisinart way after a long day of smoking.

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5. Camp Chef Smoke Vault 24″

Camp Chef knows that there’s a better way to cook and that way revolves around the belief that we’re better together than we are apart. Food brings us together, helps us to create the sort of memories that last forever, and the relationships and friendships that help us to define our own lives.

That’s why they set out to design the sort of equipment that makes cooking fun and allows us to revel in each other’s company at cookouts, barbecues, and family gatherings.

Their twenty-four-inch high propane-fueled smoker weighs just seventy-five pounds, so with a little careful planning can be taken just about anywhere with you.

Able to generate nearly eighteen thousand BTU’s (British Thermal Units) of heat from a single tank of propane, thi smoker transfers all of those BTU’s directly to its heavy-gauge steel wood tray to create a maelstrom of incredible heat and smoke that’ll infuse anything and everything that you cook on it’s two interior grids and jerky rack.

It’s three easy to use dampers allow you to fully control the heat which the Camp Chef will smoke at, and its door-mounted thermometer will make sure that you always know just how hot it is inside your smoker. You know low and slow is the best for smoking most meats, so watching the temp might be the most important step!

And, to top it all off, the Camp Chef also has the sort of retro-tastic good looks which hark back to the days of the Old West and celebrate the pioneer spirit that helped to found our nation No matter how long and slow, or fast you want to smoke, the Camp Chef will make sure that whatever you cook always tastes exactly the way you want it to.

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Best Propane Smoker Buying Guide

Which Propane Smoker Is The Right One For Me?

There are three rules that you need to adhere to when choosing a propane smoker. How big do you want your smoker to be, how much meat (which will let’s face it be the primary food that you’ll be smoking) do you want to smoke and what sort of price bracket do you want it to fall into – in other words, how much do you want to spend on your smoker.

Once you know the answer to all three questions, take another look at our list and it should be relatively easy to choose your dream propane smoker.

That said, if you wanted our advice to help you choose your ideal propane smoker, we’d always recommend that you invest in the same smoker that we regularly use, and that’s the smoker that Char-Broil makes. We were brought up to smoke the Char-Broil way, and we’ve been fans of their smokers since we were knee-high.

It’s time to start cooking up a storm. Happy smoking!

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is A Propane Smoker?

A propane smoker is an outdoor oven that uses propane as a fuel source to create the heat that it needs to smoke food. The propane is used as both a source of heat and to ignite the wood chips or pellets that the smoker needs to create the smoke it uses to infuse the food being cooked with extra flavor.

Made to cook the long, low, and slow way, propane smokers need to be efficient, so that they don’t burn through too much propane, and durable in order to survive life outdoors and weather whatever Mother Nature can throw at them.