Andy’s Smoker: A Closer Look at the Rig Behind the Cooks
Cooking proper low and slow, true Texas style barbecue is not something you can fake with the wrong kit. Real offset smoking depends on the right firebox, the right steel, and the right airflow to get genuine wood smoke into the meat over many hours, and that means the equipment matters as much as the technique. This is how we do what we do and get the very best version of Texas style barbecue at home in North Yorkshire.
The build
It is a 120 gallon offset smoker from Ironbrand, built in 2025 and sourced direct from Jason at Ironbrand. They are a small team of steel fabricators working out of the Chiltern hills, hand building offset smokers using skills developed over decades in the steel industry. The Ironbrand 120 itself is built specifically as a premium backyard smoker for BBQ enthusiasts, hand built in Great Britain to Texas-style standards. Andy’s is fully custom, not a stock model off the line.
The steel and construction
8mm thick steel throughout, machine rolled from S275 British steel, giving strong heat retention and helping avoid the temperature spikes you get on thinner-walled, cheaper smokers. The firebox is fully insulated on top of that, which matters for holding a consistent temperature over a long cook rather than fighting constant swings.
The custom touches
A few specific changes were made to this build:
- Flange and bolt off smoke stack
- Heavy duty D rings and eyelets
- Warming rack removed
The thermometers
Temperature monitoring is handled by Tel-Tru thermometers, sourced from Chuds Shop and branded with the Chuds logo. Tel-Tru is a well respected name in dial thermometers, known for accuracy that holds up over the sort of long, hard use a smoker like this gets. Mounted via half inch NPT collars welded into the smoker body, giving a proper threaded, leak-free seal for the probes rather than relying on a crude drilled hole.
That is the rig. Every brisket, rib, and burnt end you see on this site comes off this smoker, so it felt right to give it its own introduction before diving into the cooks themselves.