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My first endeavor was cooking a whole hog. It was a learning experience. Practiced with chickens and tried suckling pigs later with much better results.
I have cooked with charcoal, hickory and cherry. The last lot of hickory is too old and just makes a horrible smokey, revolting creosote flavor. quality of wood is important.
it doesn't look priddy, but I put the fire on the opposite side and the meat on the top opposite the fire. with aluminum commercial baking sheet lids there is a nice draw of blue smoke. this cheap, cement block smoker does a very good job of cooking.
after mastery of this brick pit, it produces much better smoke flavor than my pull-behind reverse flow smoker and is less recovery, clean-up time. the brick pit burns slower. Just the cement blocks themselves hold heat very well. A reverse flow smoker uses wood much faster for less smoke flavor. What I need is a trailer that pulls 100 cement blocks and accessories. that would be neat.