Lowes is selling a discontinued Master Forge charcoal grill for $139 (originally $199). It is built like a tank, tons of rack space, and easily accepts a Smoke Daddy. I've been looking at round or vertical smokers and they just don't have adequate rack space for my needs.
There is plenty of ventillation slots and a chimney, which is important. I bought this purely for cold smoking and will never do hot smoking in this as I have a Cookshack. By the way, the Cook Shack does great hot smoking, but is not very good at cold smoking because it puts too much heat into the box even with the baffle plate and ice. I suppose I could use the Master Forge for charcoal grilling, but eh, too messy for cold smoking.
I drilled on hole in the ash tray on the Master Forge, installed the Smoke Daddy Big Kahuna (sells for $125-something). On the lowest pump setting, you get plenty of smoke and will run for 2-3 hours easy on a mere handful of wood chips. After 3 hours if smoke is dwindling down, drop another piece of wood in the Smoke Daddy and 30 seconds later you got smoke again. Even though the Smoke Daddy gets hot itself, the smoke it pushes into the smoker is just moderately warm. Adding only a few degrees of heat to the smoker. This is incredibly advantageous for anyone trying to cold smoke when it is 85 deg F out in the summer.
For the Master Forge:
use the ash tray for drippings and whatever. You can remove it and hose it down. Also if you mount the Smoke Daddy to the ash tray, there is no interference with any of the side shelves, front door, or grate lifter...and you have full access to the Smoke Daddy to add chips or such.
use the adjustable charcoal grate as another smoking rack, effectively doubling your rack capacity. It is adjustable up and down so you can move it out of the way of direct smoke flow. Use the warming rack as another smoking rack, adding another 50% capacity. I am able to load 30 lbs of pork belly (for bacon) at one time.
because this is a charcoal grill, there are many places for convective air flow, to keep fresh air in the box, and also to release any accumulated heat. Stagnant smoke in a box is less desired than a continuous fresh smoke supply.
After putzing around on how to modify a box, or another grill, or a vertical grill, I saw this and I've got a first-class operation that is simple, engineered perfectly, wide open for easy access to racks, pans, etc... and I'm in for less than $250 including wood. Best yet, it is virtually a zero-heat-input smoker, so as long as the outside temp is below 85F, I'm good to go.
Hope this helps someone out there.
