It is said the best food is that made at home. In these parts, barbeque is revered as food of the gods; it is that which wafts a pleasing aroma to those who need to be appeased - in this case, the family. There's a lot of good BBQ joints around here, but the best can still come from home. If you have the right tools.

My thanks to pogomom, our most esteemed CL, for adding this product to the ever-evolving Epinions database. You may recognize this review from an earlier, unrevised version under the New Braunfels Hondo Smoker product line. How I avoided a OT rating on it I'll never know. Anyway, now that the product is in the database, I revised extensively (due to my year's worth of experience with the product) and moved it here. Those who read the earlier rendition need not rate.

The New Braunfels Silver Smoker, introduced in 2001, gives aspiring barbequers the tools (but not necessarily the talent) for producing this beef ambrosia. It’s similar in size and features to New Braunfel’s Hondo and Black Diamond smokers, with the differences noted herein.

For years, yes, for years it’s been a dream of mine to be able to make barbecue properly. Leave aside the fact that every Texas boy should have the means and the talent for making good BBQ. It was something that I, personally, have always wanted to be able to do well. My friends gave me the chance to do it, from time to time, by letting me use their offset firebox smokers to load up my beef brisket on their grill, start a fire with good pecan, mesquite or hickory wood, and then lovingly tend the batch for the next 10 to 15 hours. I learned a lot from that, and produced some pretty respectable BBQ beef*** as a result.

***Yes, beef: I’ll never understand those people not fortunate enough to live around here feeding on oily-tastin' hog when they could have mesquite-smoked brisket. But I digress.

Until recently I did what most people do – I bought a kettle grill and called what I did on it "barbecuing." Unlike most of them, I knew better. Nothing that's cooked directly above an open flame (unless it's slow-cooked over a pit, as at the Salt Lick), is barbecued. It's grilled. Preparing real barbeque is both an art and a science; beyond having a pump spray bottle of water at hand, grilling is neither.

The art part of barbeque one must learn for oneself. The science part has been largely conquered by the people in New Braunfels, Texas, and the offset-firebox smokers they manufacture. If you bring home one of these barbecuin' machines, you can be confident that you have the science part largely whipped. They’ve done a good job with their smokers, and the Silver Smoker, which I review here, is no exception.

First off, some of the features of the Smoker: it has over 700 square inches of cooking surface (that includes the firebox grilling surface). In case you're wondering, that’s a lot – bring the neighbors if you’re gonna fill that thing with brisket. Or chicken, corn or ribs. You’ll have quite a spread when you’re done.

It’s made of heavy-gauge metal. In case you’re wondering again, I mean heavy – I needed help lifting it out of the truck, and even moving it from one place to another takes a little planning. I believe it dresses out at about 130 pounds, so put your back brace on if you're gonna move before you cook – or find a place you want to keep it and leave it there. It ain't for the casual griller, folks, and that’s a fact.

It’s coated, on the outside, with a high-temperature, rust-resistant powder-coating type paint. I'm familiar with this process, as I used to represent a company that did powder-coating painting for various industrial customers. Essentially, they charge the metal electrically and spray this powder, colored whatever they want it colored, onto the metal. It sticks to the metal because of the electrical charge. They then convey the whole shebang into an oven that melts the powder coating onto the metal while it's still charged, thus binding it and creating a much more durable coating than regular painting can provide. All the New Braunfels smokers are powder-coated black. On the outside.

On the inside, it's not painted at all, which means you have bare metal exposed to the elements unless you do what New Braunfels & Co. tells you to do; i.e., season it. That’s right – unless you don't want it to last, you can’t cook food in this thing until you coat every exposed inch of metal with cooking oil and then start a fire in the firebox and let it do its thing for a few hours. Spraying Pam all along the inside works fine. For the seasoning process, I didn't waste my good smoking wood; I just used regular charcoal to heat it up and bind the oil to the surface.

The front shelf of this smoker is made of hardwood, and there’s a large metal shelf below for storage. Unlike the Hondo or Black Diamond, there's no flat warming plate on top of the firebox. Unlike the Hondo, the grills are not height-adjustable.

All right. With the seasoning done, it’s time to cook. I really like the grill surfaces in the Silver Smoker – they're made of porcelain, which means cleaning the grill just became a lot easier – pop it in the dishwasher. All the surfaces of New Braunfels smokers are made of porcelain, with a view toward making your investment in this smoker last for a long time. Anyway, I coat my surfaces with Pam (again) and get my wood.

When you’re picking out wood for smoking, the idea is to use a wood that will burn well, burn for a long time, and won’t screw up the taste of whatever you’re cooking. It's generally accepted that to achieve these things, you use fruited hardwoods. By "fruited" I mean a type of tree that bears a nut, berry or some type of fruit. The most popular smoking woods are hickory, post oak, pecan, mesquite, apple and peach. I tend to use mesquite because it's indigenous to Texas and can be had almost anywhere (including some vacant lots, if you keep an eye out). Not to mention – I love the taste and smell imparted by mesquite smoke. Pecan is almost as plentiful, the smoke taste isn’t quite as strong, and many of the great barbeque joints in Texas prefer that wood.

Because of the bad taste they impart and possible health concerns arising from burning their sap, I strongly advise against using pine, cedar or other fir-related evergreen varieties. Stick with the fruited hardwoods.

Now, the popular gossip is that any wood used for smoking should be cured at least one year. Reasoning: green wood still has sap and moisture, it's hard to get it hot enough and keep it hot, and the smoke produced is much stronger, imparting a stronger flavor and turning the outside of your brisket black. However, I’m here to tell you that the fans of strongly-smoked brisket are many, and the best brisket I ever had look like a large, black lump of coal coming out of the smoker. When you cut it open on the inside . . . ahh, it was a thing of beauty; buttery soft, juicy, with a fine smoke ring and flavor from here to Dallas. Point is, though – you should do what you want. It'll take some practice to make your brisket come out just the way you want it, no matter which way you decide to go. Some people control the smoke taste by covering their meat with aluminum foil for part of the cooking time. I tend expose it to smoke for the duration. Like I say, do what you like.

Those of you who are stuck on grilling shouldn't feel left out. The Silver Smoker can grill – set a grill surface in the offset firebox, start your fire and you’re ready to go. Again, for those of you who are not privy to this arcane parlance, grilling is defined as cooking directly over the fire, using direct heat. You grill steaks, hamburgers, hotdogs or anything that you may like cooked over charcoal – you know, typical Memorial Day fare. When you’re grilling, remember that the temperatures are high - anywhere from 350 to 550 degrees, so you need to watch things closely to avoid burning the entire batch.

But New Braunfels smokers are really made to barbeque. You barbeque using indirect heat, and this smoker’s offset firebox design provides the means to do exactly that. Light up your wood (with maybe a small charcoal bed), and the heat and smoke from the firebox flow through the attached horizontal chamber. Barbeque requires a fairly constant temperature of 200 to 300 degrees, but I would never let it go over 250 for very long – brisket is a tough, sinewy meat and considerable time at lower temperatures is required to create the desired tender result (about an hour per pound). If you cook it at higher temperatures, you'll end up cooking it before it's tenderized – it'll be tough and dry. Other good foods for barbequing are ribs, chicken, shrimp, fish, steaks, sausage, wild game and even (hiding my head) pork. Or even vegetables.

You can also do low-temperature smoking with this machine, but it'll take a lot of time with anything you decide to smoke. That’s the case with any smoker, though. When you slow-smoke, the temperatures need to stay between 140 to 200 degrees. I have done slow smoking with turkeys (starting the evening before Thanksgiving), hams, chickens and briskets. When you slow-smoke, locate the meat on the opposite end of the smoker, away from the firebox.

New maintenance notes: I've discovered that the seasoning I mentioned earlier needs to be done once a year. The rains and other weather-related phenomenon play havoc with the inside of the smoker. Also, the screws used to hold up the grills were too short. When the smoker heated, there was a real risk that the expansion of the unit would cause the screws to withdraw outward, from under the grill, and then the grill surface would fall. I replaced the screws with longer ones and fixed that problem, and I have seen that the newer Silver Smokers have longer screws installed than mine did, so that should not be a problem for people shopping for one today.

For the outdoor cooker who wants to go to a little extra trouble to get the perfect brisket and not spend a whole lot for a real wood smoker, the New Braunfels Silver Smoker is your machine. Yes, you have to use wood – there’s no propane tanks attached. No, it's not grilling, and charcoal doesn't produce the desired effect when you're making barbeque or when you’re slow-smoking. I do recommend that you get the optional temperature gauge, since monitoring temperature is an important part of the process.

Since my last writing, I believe Brinkman's has bought New Braunfels. Check out their web site as many of New Braunfels' smokers have the same configuration and sometimes even the same name. Look for them at Home Depot, Sam's Club, Academy Outdoors, WalMart or Lowes, rent a truck if you don't have one and bring the taste of Texas to your casa. It's worth it - yesiree.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 149.95