Oklahoma Joe’s Off Set Smoker

I personally would recommend saving a little more and going with something like an Old Country if you're dead set on an offset. I was of the same mindset of not wanting to spend a ton in the beginning, but it's exponentially harder to manage fire on a thin steel cooker. Gold standard is 1/4" steel thickness. 3/16" is probably the best sweet spot for home cooks / beginners as a compromise between price, weight, and heat stabilization. Older model Ok Joes were 1/4" or 3/16" before Char Broil bought them out and made them 1/10".

If you just want to get into smoking in general, I'd recommend a drum or ceramic smoker, or even a Weber Kettle. A drum smoker with temp controller burning wood chunks is the perfect combination of convenience, quality, and price IMO. Convenience of a pellet smoker with 95% of the taste of an offset. It's what I use 99% of the time now.

If you buy it you have to invest in a few mods. Basket for fire, baffle plate, gaskets and clamps on the lid, stack extender etc. None of it is expensive. You can generally control temps running all that. I had one for awhile. I like babysitting the fire. Part of the fun for me. It’s definitely not going to be a set it and forget overnight rig.

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but they are a ton of work trying to maintain the temp in the fire for a long cook.

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Can attest to this. Young me loved sipping whiskey all night and waking up every few hours to check on the fire. I was running pure hardwood at that time.

Older me said screw this shite! I have sold off most of my equipment and run on a weber for all smoking needs. But it's just for the wife and I now, no more tailgates and cooking 20 butts for friends, family...

ETA:
Get a WSM, look up the "Virtual Weber Bullet" forum and it will handle most of what you will ever need!

I have one, used it regularly. Until I bought a Lang...

I love an offset for some cooks, had an OK Joe's for 10 years or so. It did not make the move with me up to TN. I have a Bandera now, I can attest to the thinner walls. But, it's easier to hold a temp in the cabinet than on the offset. My eventual setup will be a reverse flow offset with a cabinet, and an open fire grill setup for grilling.

So on your question, get one with thicker metal if you can. If it's your grill and smoker, note that not all fireboxes are big enough or shaped right to make that easy.

I love mine. I used gaskets and high temp seal to get everything nice and locked up.

Takes some trial and error to get it ruining at the temps you want, but once you get it figured out, it creates some outstanding BBQ

You might want to consider a pit barrell smoker. Not expensive but cooks great. It takes up a lot less space

I had one I never could get it to cook right. Probably me but I was cooking fine in the cheap chargriller it replaced, and am cooking fine in the new cheap chargriller I replaced it with.

It wasn’t worth the hassle for me

I’ve had one for over thirty years. 40” x 20” cooking chamber with a 20” x 20” firebox. Built a bit stouter than the ones today. Haven’t done a thing to it in all the time that I’ve had it other than cook on it. Start with a chimney of coals, throw a couple of logs on, bring it to temp and then walk out to take a look at it every 45 minutes or so. Poke the fire or throw another log in, when needed.

Makes for a nice day when hanging around the house. :)