The Red Box Smoker Review

Wes Smoker

When I saw Mark Lambert post a picture of his new Red Box Smoker, I immediately knew I had to have one. A good friend of mine – and frequent contributor to this site – Wes, has been in the market for a smaller smoker for some time now. I thought maybe we had finally hit the jackpot.

I was right.

First of all, I have to point out to those of you that will be purchasing this smoker and having it shipped – don’t worry – the packaging is solid, secure, and very impressive. I didn’t have to ship mine – I bought mine direct at the St. Louis BBQ Store. Ron and his guys always take great care of me. But I had to take a few pics just to show you how impressed I was with the packaging. It also comes with some basic instructions on how to get your RBS all set up and ready to smoke.

Wes smoker 5      Wes Smoker 7

When Wes and I burned it out to season it, we had zero issue getting the temperature up above 300. With no water in the pan, in fact, we had it above 400 degrees for awhile. Because the RBS has the removable water pan, you can really control the temp and cook however you want.

Wes smoker 9                                                        Wes Smoker 8

For our first cook, we really wanted to keep it clean, so we simply put an aluminum pan of water underneath our pork butt. This actually worked great. It caught the drippings and kept the cooking temp around 225-250 the entire cook. I can confidently say you will have no issue getting 6-8 hours on one load of coals, with your cooker at 250 or less.

Wes Pork Butt 2

The pork butt turned out GREAT. We have since cooked chickens, more pork, ribs, wings and sausage on the RBS and it handles everything great.

Wes smoker 7

This cooker is just the right size for the backyard cook that wants to cook a couple of pork butts, or a couple of whole chickens, or a few racks of ribs…for the cook that wants competition quality performance, but doesn’t need the capacity…for the cook that wants to try direct cooking by removing the water pan, but also loves it low and slow…for the cook that doesn’t have a ton of room to store a huge cooker and wants to lift his smoker by himself without a trip to the emergency room…for the cook that wants a portable smoker to take with him camping, or to a park, or on vacation…and for the cook that doesn’t want to drop two grand on a smoker.

Do you understand what I’m trying to say? THIS…is one flexible cooking machine. If you fit any of the above descriptions, I would absolutely recommend the Red Box Smoker to you without hesitation.

3 thoughts on “The Red Box Smoker Review

  1. So, does this reverse your “Backwoods Smoker or the highway” stance that you seem to have held in the past?

    Also, since this article was written, it seems BWS has released a Chubby 3400 with a price of $799. How does this compare to the RBS?

    Thanks!

    1. Tim – I don’t think I ever said Backwoods or the highway….though I do still use Backwoods smokers for competition. And this is a similar construction/design to the Backwoods – probably one of the reasons I love it! It’s just a great little smoker. And it holds up great over time.

      I haven’t used a Chubby 3400 so I can’t speak to the comparison. I’ve used the original Chubby and the Chubby G2 and both are great. The original chubby holds its temp longer than the RBS, but it’s also significantly heavier. There are certainly positives and negatives to both.

  2. Nice write up! This really is a great smoker. It’s consistent, versatile, and the perfect size for a family smoker. With a full water pan, it’s at 225-250 all day without a second look. With the pan empty, it’s a high temp machine at 350+, but requires a bit more attention just to make sure you aren’t too hot. From pork butts to Easter ham, and chicken wings to whole hens, this is a perfect smoker for my needs and most importantly, it was within my budget.

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