bbq: My father in law is really into bbqing and he mentioned he wants to get a smoker bbq grill. I would like to get him one from christmas, but don't know what they are. What are smokers, where can you get them, and what's the price range I should expect? thanks|||That's a bigger question than you think, as there's all kinds. First, there's two kinds of smoking - cold and hot. Cold smoking is what they do with commercially smoked salmon, for instance. They put the fish in a room and fill it with smoke, and the temperature doesn't really rise much - not to cooking temperatures, that is. That method takes 12-24 hours. You can buy smokers that do that - one used to be out there called "Lil Smokey", I don't know if they still offer it. The other way, hot smoking, can be done on any BBQ. You get your grill hot, put chips on the coals or the gas burners, and you just BBQ like usual but it smokes at the same time. You need to soak the chips in water for 1/2 hour before you do it, so they don't just start on fire. Then your food is truly cooked, but it's also smoked pretty well. I used to do that all the time on my charcoal Weber BBQ. I did salmon, chicken, turkey, ribs. It's easy and turns out real good. I've since gone to gas and haven't tried it much on the gas grill. I think it's better and easier on charcoal. If you just want to have smokey food sometimes, I'd suggest just doing the hot smoke. If the man is a hunter or fisherman and you want to be more serious, then there are dedicated smokers out there - just Google it - meat smokers or something like that. I made some fine things on my Weber. Just the standard grill, charcoal and some wet wood chips spread on the coals. It's indirect heat - make two piles of coals on either side and put the meat in the middle of the grill. Put on the chips, put on the lid, and off it goes.|||A smoker is a thing that uses hot smoke to cook the food slowly. It's got a grill to place your food and a place underneath or to the side where the wood burns. A quick google search for "smoker" should show you where you might be able to get one in your area. And remember that like a lot of things in life an expensive model might not always be the best but the cheapest model you can find is usually the worst.|||My parents have a smoker. To me, it's really just a grill that the fire is next to the meat and the smoke is what cooks it. They're pretty popular summer things. If you can't find them in the store, I think you can get them online at Sears or something. Costco or Sam's might have them too.