Why a vertical cabinet, and not a bullet
The two cheap ways into charcoal smoking are the bullet (a Weber Smokey Mountain and its clones) and the vertical cabinet. They cook the same barbecue and they suit different people.
A bullet is a sealed, insulated-by-design drum: fire at the bottom, water pan in the middle, two grates above. It holds temperature almost by itself, which makes it the easy answer for a first smoker.
A cabinetis a box with a door and shelves, and here the fire lives in a separate offset box rather than directly underneath. That gives you three real advantages: far more rack space for the money, a door you can open without disturbing the fire, and the ability to add charcoal and wood without lifting anything off the food. What it does not give you is the bullet’s hands-off stability.
If you want to feed twelve people ribs, this is the cheaper cooker by a wide margin. If you want to put a pork butt on and go to bed, buy the bullet.
The thin steel, and what to do about it
The whole review comes down to this. Steel this thin cannot store heat, so the cooker follows the weather and follows your fire minute by minute rather than smoothing it out. Two practical consequences: it uses more charcoal than a heavier cooker for the same cook, and it leaks — around the door, around the firebox joint, wherever a panel meets a panel.
Leaks matter more than fuel use, because a leak is an air intake you did not choose. If air is coming in around the door, your firebox vent is no longer in charge of the fire, and you end up chasing temperature all afternoon.
The fix is high-temperature gasket tape. Self-adhesive fiberglass gasket, the kind sold for wood-stove doors, run around the door lip and any obvious joint. It costs very little, takes an hour, and it is the single change that turns this smoker from frustrating into predictable. We would do it before the first cook rather than after the first disappointment.
Then ignore the door thermometer.Cheap dial gauges read the air against the door, not the air around the meat, and on a tall cabinet the difference between the top rack and the bottom rack is real. Put a probe at grate level on the rack you are actually using — our dual-probe picks read the pit and the meat at the same time, which is exactly the tool this cooker needs.
Running it
Fire small, feed often.The firebox is not large and it does not want to be full. A modest bed of lit briquettes with one or two wood chunks on top produces clean smoke; a firebox packed to the roof produces the thick white smoke that makes food taste acrid. Aim for 225 to 275°F at grate level, the range USDA guidance gives for smoking meat and poultry, and hold it there by adjusting the intake rather than by adding fuel.
Use the rack gradient. Heat rises, so the top rack runs hotter than the bottom in most cabinets. That is a feature once you know it: delicate things low, things you want to render hard up high, and rotate halfway through a long cook.
Water helps more here than anywhere. A pan of water in the chamber adds thermal mass, and thermal mass is precisely what thin steel lacks. It stabilizes the temperature swings, keeps the surface of the meat from drying, and costs nothing.
Mind the wind. Position the cooker with the firebox vent out of the prevailing draft. On an uninsulated cabinet, wind is the single biggest variable after your fire.
What it's good at
Ribs, in quantity. Multiple racks across multiple shelves, all cooking in the same clean smoke, is exactly what a cabinet is for. This is the cook that makes the purchase feel clever.
Sausage and hanging cooks. The vertical space suits anything you want to hang or lay out flat in bulk.
Chicken and turkey. Plenty of headroom, and the offset fire means no fat drips onto live coals.
Long cooks, with attention.Brisket and pork butt are absolutely possible. They just require you to be present, feeding the fire every 45 minutes or so rather than every few hours. Some people find that the enjoyable part; some find it a chore. Be honest with yourself about which you are — our vertical vs offset guide is built around that question.
Care, because thin steel punishes neglect
Empty the ash after every cook. Ash holds moisture against steel, and this is painted steel rather than porcelain enamel — once the finish goes, rust follows quickly, starting at the firebox floor where it is hottest and where the ash sits.
Keep it covered, or better, keep it under something. A cabinet full of rainwater is a cabinet rusting from the inside. And oil the racks after cleaning; on a budget cooker the racks are the part you replace first.
Treated that way, this is a several-season smoker rather than a one-season one. Treated badly, it is a very sad object by year two.
Who should buy it
Buy it if you want maximum capacity for minimum money, you are willing to spend an hour with gasket tape, and you like tending a fire. The cost per rack of ribs is unbeatable, and the skills you build running it transfer directly to a bigger offset later.
Skip it if you want to set vents and walk away. The bullet smokersare the easy answer and they hold temperature with almost no intervention. Skip it too if you are only ever cooking for four — you are paying in fuel and attention for space you do not need, and the snake method on a kettle would do the job for nothing.