The water smoker: BBQ from the cartridge
A water pan between the food and the charcoal basket is what gives the water smoker its name.
Classic BBQ means grilling low & slow. Indirectly, at low temperatures. The device of choice is usually a smoker, these days often a pellet smoker. But what if these devices are too expensive? Or if you don't have the space to accommodate such a grill? Until quite recently, you had the choice between various water or bullet smokers. And indeed, these space-saving yet quite efficient devices still exist. But what exactly are they? – By Markus Mizgalski
The name says it all
Where the name "bullet smoker" comes from is quite obvious: the shape is reminiscent of a rifle or pistol cartridge. Sometimes these practical grills are also called R2-D2 because they don't look entirely unlike the beeping robot from Star Wars. A little harder to fathom is the term "water smoker." This has to do with the functional principle.
Basically, a water smoker is constructed in the upper and lower parts like a kettle grill. The lower part has a charcoal basket as well as air intake vents, while the upper part has lid vents. Many models also have a bar on the inside of the semi-circular lid for hanging smoked goods. However, the truly exciting part of the bullet smoker takes place between the upper and lower halves of the sphere. This is where a type of barrel sits, as with the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker and the Rösle Smoker 1, or one or more rings (stackers), such as with the Napoleon Apollo or ProQ Frontier. The crucial detail is that a pan filled with water is placed in the lower part of this intermediate section, just above the coals. It is so large that it occupies almost the entire diameter of the grill, except for a narrow area at the edge. Hence the name water smoker.
By the way, a barrel or ugly drum smoker can also be operated as a water smoker, although here the water pan is optional and not necessarily the core of the functional principle. Thus, a good UDS can be consistently regulated through precise air control.
How do heat and water go together?
Now you might be familiar with the procedure of placing a bowl of water in the grill or oven for certain preparations to keep the climate in the cooking chamber slightly moist. This is quite common when baking bread. But several liters at once? And then directly above the embers? The effect is as simple as it is effective. The water eventually begins to boil. Anyone who remembers their physics class knows that this happens at 100 °C (212 °F). The air heated by the coals inside the smoker provides the energy required for this. This means: as long as there is water in the pan and it can evaporate, the air in the cooking chamber remains at approximately 100 °C, which is ideal for BBQ. This is where a property of water that is also important elsewhere comes into play: its high heat capacity. This means that water can absorb a great deal of energy before its temperature rises by even 1 °C. Furthermore, the humidity ensures that, ideally, the effects that cause stall phases in dishes like pulled pork, for example, are reduced. This is because the air in the cooking chamber is already largely saturated with moisture and therefore does not have to draw evaporating liquid from the food.
The water smoker, shown here as a Napoleon Apollo, requires very little footprint.
For long cooking times, use a Minion ring in the fire basket; wood chips/chunks are placed on the briquettes.
Alternatively, sand is often used, which is covered with aluminum foil.
The many joints that are not completely tight allow for side air leakage, making exact temperature regulation often very tedious.
The hot water bottle effect
The water in the pan has another effect. And this also has to do with its previously mentioned heat capacity. Because the ability to store heat ensures that a water smoker is relatively insensitive to temperature fluctuations. At least to a certain degree; the water has the same effect here as in a hot water bottle. Especially when you open the smoker to add fuel or mop the meat, it returns to its target temperature quite quickly afterward.
Sand instead of water
Sometimes, sand is used in the pan instead of water. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the sand – especially if covered with aluminum foil – can be used multiple times. This makes handling easier and makes any refilling unnecessary. In this case, the sand acts as a heat deflector by decoupling the food from the embers. On the other hand, it stores heat and ensures a certain degree of temperature stability. The disadvantage is that regulation is more difficult due to the lack of evaporative cooling. And furthermore, the cooking chamber climate is different than when using water.
A perfect grill device?
So far, it sounds as if a water smoker is a fairly brilliant device for long jobs, making it the perfect BBQ machine. But then the question arises as to why it is disappearing into obscurity more and more. This is related to the weaknesses that bullet smokers unfortunately also have. The biggest problem lies in the construction itself. One idea is to compensate for the heat capacity that a good offset smoker or ceramic grill achieves through its mass by using the water pan, in order to build a compact, lightweight, and easily transportable smoker around it. Therefore, water smokers generally have little difference in material thickness compared to a good kettle grill, but much more surface area while at the same time having very uneven heat distribution from bottom to top. If it is windy or the unit is standing in the rain, the smoker cools down very quickly via the large surface area and – depending on the weather – is difficult to keep at the target temperature or can only be kept there with a lot of fuel. In addition, regulation on many models is not exactly easy due to multiple air intake openings and lid vents, as well as potentially additional side air leakage.
It exists as a variant with a large insert, as seen here with the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker…
The aforementioned heat distribution is another distinct weak point. The temperature of the cooking chamber decreases toward the top. Due to the water pan, heat exchange with the environment through the thin walls, and the energy requirements of the food on the lower level, energy loss on the way to the top rack is significant. Differences of 30 °C are not unusual, which does not exactly simplify working with a bullet smoker, especially since you are often dealing with a very wide spectrum of cooking times.
Conclusion
The water smoker remains a quite affordable solution when it comes to slow-cooking classic BBQ dishes in smoke. Its compact construction and low weight make it attractive, especially if you have little space or only want to smoke occasionally. However, those who frequently serve ribs, pulled pork, etc., will find devices today – albeit a little more expensive – that are simply more comfortable to operate and have fewer inherent weaknesses.
