This is what you should look for when buying a smoker
Paul Mata, owner and builder at HDM Smokers, on how to pick the best pit for you
What started as a high school hobby back in the late 1990s has blossomed into a career for Paul Mata.
Back then, Mata spent his days fabricating smokers during welding class. Some 20 years later, Mata is the owner of HDM Smokers in Brookshire, Texas, not far from his former high school, and builds custom offset smokers for barbecue businesses across the U.S. [Brookshire, a rural town of 5,000, sits about 45 minutes to the west of Houston.]
Recently this August, he built a 500-gallon offset for a company in California that feeds cast and crews of TV shows and movie productions.
While offsets are his bread and butter, he says, he also specializes in crafting live fire planchas [what he dubs the #livefiremovement], and custom-made chimneys he says are built with the highest quality to withstand the hottest fires.
Mata was kind enough to share his expertise about what to look for when shopping for a smoker and successfully chasing your dreams.
Matt Keyser: For the people who are buying their first smoker or seeking to upgrade, what should they be looking for?
Paul Mata: What I tell people when they’re looking into a smoker pit is you want to find something that has a thick steel wall, because there’s a lot of good heat retention there that helps the cooking process. It also helps combat the outside elements.
Also, the size of the firebox is important. A lot of times builders will have fireboxes that are too small and you can’t build enough fire. I have this theory: if you don’t have a big enough firebox then the flame doesn’t gain enough velocity so that it flows through into the cook chamber. With everything, for things to speed up, it needs distance. The same is true for airflow. I’m not a scientist, but there’s just general things that we see when we’re cooking.
Last thing is you need to determine how big of a smoker you want. Are you just cooking for yourself or your family? Are you going to invite people and want to entertain? Do you have future plans on cooking for larger groups? It goes back to buying more than you think you need because if you find that you need it and you don’t have it, that’s a big deal, right?
So stay away from the thinner wall smokers. If you can find anything that’s a little more substantial and robust, it’s going to last you longer. The amount of money you’re going to put into it, you want it to last and not have to buy it over and over again.
MK: Makes sense. Rather than paying to replace your smoker every couple of years, make the investment upfront knowing it’s going to last.
PM: Absolutely. Like with smoker pits you buy from actual smoker builders, you’re gonna get a quality smoker compared to if you buy from a big box store. Those smokers are built with the intention of mass-producing. There are a lot of sacrifices that are made to supply the demand at a big box store.
MK: That’s one thing I love about barbecue, and it sounds like it’s similar to your business. If you’re selling a quality product — whether it’s brisket or a heavy-duty offset smoker — people notice the quality and are okay paying for that higher quality. It’s like if you go to a chain barbecue restaurant for lunch compared to, say, Truth BBQ. You might have an okay lunch at the chain, but the food at Truth is going to be lightyears better, because you have a crew that is passionate about what they’re doing and striving to be the best each day. Not to knock the chain crews by any means. It’s the same for us at Bourbon Brothers BBQ. And I’d imagine it’s comparable to if you buy a smoker from HDM Smokers compared to Academy.
PM: That’s the biggest difference between buying from a box store and a personal custom-built smoker. A lot of us may already have our set designs and how we do things, but we can customize them to add an additional rack or more thermometers — things like that. Those are things smoker builders can do as opposed to buying a cookie-cutter smoker from the store.
MK: In your opinion, what’s the best style smoker to cook on: an offset, pellet, vertical, or drum smoker?
PM: Man, I’ll tell you I’m not one of those people that say one way is better than the other. I’ll be very honest with you, I have two pellet grills, I have a Blackstone, I have a direct grill, I have an offset smoker, and they all have different purposes. But I feel that if you want to get that really natural wood fire Texas barbecue, the stick burner is it.
MK: I’ve seen your Instagram videos of you cooking on your live fire plancha. That thing looks badass.
PM: It’s fun to cook on. I like the challenge of trying to find different things to cook on. I’ve smoked some pork belly burnt ends on it. I’ve made sweet potato fries. I’ve done skewers. I’ve done chargrilled oysters. I’ve baked a cake on it. I’ve done a woodfire pizza. It’s just endless what you can do with it.
MK: You’re making my mouth water.
PM: I had a lady tell me she could put it in the ground and light a fire during the winter months and hang around the fire. There you go, it also serves as a bonfire.
MK: Even though y’all are a relatively new company, y’all are doing some really cool things.
PM: I’m telling everybody right now that our lead times are low, because we’re the new kids on the block. I’m encouraging people to take advantage of that. Always aim high, and I want to aim to the point where a lot of other smoker builders are — they’re out eight or 10 months. But I want to try to negate that time and make it faster for everybody. But definitely for people who are looking for smokers and are tired of leaving money on the table because they have to wait up to a year. Give us the opportunity. We can build them a lot faster.
MK: Any final words for the backyard barbecue cook before you go?
PM: The biggest thing I would say is to just start cooking. I don’t care what you use, just start cooking, because you start gaining experience, you start learning how to control the fire, how to manage your fire. That’s going to make a world of difference. You don’t have to be stuck to some super expensive grill that’s not going to make them better than anybody else. If you take a pitmaster and you have them cook on the cheapest grill or whatever, he’ll still blow you out of the water. That’s why they’re called pitmasters, because they’ve taken the time to learn the characteristics of cooking and smoking.
I live by this quote in the shop: “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” If anyone wants to get into the cooking game and you’re waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect grill, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.