Customer Reviews for Dyna-Glo Vertical Wide Body Propane Gas Smoker

I am extremely happy with the Dyna-Glo wide body smoker. It was well packed and easily assembled. It is well designed and built with solid materials. With the included door seals and dual burners it heats up quickly and retains the heat. I use the both burners to get it smoking then turn one off and set the other low to maintain at 225 degrees. The box size and the number of racks is a plus when smoking large items or a number of different meats at the same time.

This is the best grill for beginners. I had no clue how to grill. I wanted to learn so I thought I’d start with a smoker. I purchased this grill from Home Depot one morning and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. The grill itself took about 45 minutes to put together. We made sure the propane tank was filled to the top with gas. We cooked over the weekend for Memorial Day. It was an amazing time. Thanks for the efficiency and ease of a great smoker for a beginner. I feel like I can cook anything now.

The Dyna-Glo 1235 smoker was well packed, easy to assemble and has done a great in the month that I've had it (I've done chicken, brisket flat, baby backs and a chuck roast and love to see that smoke ring!). I checked the the thermometer and it's pretty accurate, about 5-10 degrees high. The smoker has been able to maintain a steady temperature for a couple hours at a time without any adjustments, and when I did have to control the heat the dampers and individual burner controls gave me all I needed. The dual burners have enabled me to get to my 225-250 range easily even on a cool (mid-50's) day with a steady wind as well as manage the heat when it popped up into the upper 80's. The dual doors are good for adding wood chips/chunks, but the water pan is not an easy reach from the bottom door. As someone else noted, a small watering can with a long spout solves the problem, and the water pan is has a large capacity, so I only needed to refill on the longest smoking adventures. We have a small family, so I've only used one of the racks at a time, but the capacity is excellent and the removable grates add a lot of flexibility. It's not a pro model, but considering the features and quality of the smoker I expected to pay a lot more. Oh, I also highly recommend the cover.

The smoker was very well packaged arrived without any damage and was very easy to assemble. I season the grill by spraying cooking oil on everything on the inside filled the wood chip box and let it smoke for two hours. The smoker holds the temperature well.

Easy assembly, smokes well, seals very well with door gasket. Plenty of room for smoking.

As someone who previously used a wood side burner smoker, this smoker is a serious upgrade and gives you great control over the temperature of the smoker box and the amount of smoke with the propane burners to the point where you can literally produce pro BBQ results with very little prior experience. The product is shipped in solid packaging and assembly is straightforward and takes about 45 minutes with the only tools required being a 10mm wrench and a screwdriver. There were a couple of minor dents in the smoker body, but nothing that stopped it working properly. In our case, we did adjust the clasps that hold the doors closed so that they didn't compress the door seals so tightly (as the door seals get older, this means we should be able to gradually tighten the clasps and still get a good smoke seal in the future). Once assembled, just attach a propane tank, fire it up with some wood in the smoker box and water in the drip tray and let it run for 45 minutes or so to season the interior. There is a good array of hanging hooks and racks and I really liked that the smoker came with a rib rack. There is ample interior shelving space and it made the 5lb pork butt shoulder we smoked look positively small so there is plenty of room for larger items like turkeys and also the option to stack multiple shelves to cook bone in steak joints, ribs and pork shoulders simultaneously if you have a lot of people to cook for. There is a lot of smoking area in this smoker and there are multiple levels that the four shelves can be adjusted to. The shelves also slide out which makes adding and removing the meat easier. Perhaps the most useful aspect of the smoker are the propane burners. With one lit, you can get a gentle smoke (so it doesn't overpower the flavor of the meat) and the smoker will happily sit at 225 with one burner set on its lowest setting. With both burners lit, the smoker will easily reach 350 for getting something like a pork butt up to 165 internal temperature before wrapping it. There are side dampers and a chimney damper to control the air flow in addition to the rotary dial controls for the burner flame. There is a large, easy to read thermometer mounted on the door which has a grey colored area in the 200-250 degree range to help you figure out the ideal zone for smoking temperature. We use bags of Brinkmann wood chunks from HD and there are plenty of smaller chips at the bottom of the bag, so we just soak the smaller chips in water and drop them in the smoker box. All you need to do is make sure that the unburned wood is located over the top of the burner to keep the smoke going, which means checking it every half hour or so and moving the wood around the smoker box with a pair of tongs. When the smoker is in use, the door clasps have rubber covers to keep them cool to the touch and the door handles didn't get too hot to the touch either. When the smoker isn't in use, two large handles allow you to move it for storage and it is light enough for one person to move quite easily. When the propane tank is disconnected, a small wire 'S' hook by the propane regulator allows the propane line to be hung on the side handle so it isn't dragging on the floor when being moved or stored. While I don't have a meter on our propane tank, my guess is that we used about 1-2 gallons of propane on a 5 hour smoke judging by the weight of the tank when we'd finished. First time out, we got amazing results on a 5lb pork shoulder (even if I say so myself!). We injected it with apple juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and water and let it sit overnight in the fridge. We then coated it in Kansas City rub with a little brown sugar on the fat cap and sat it in the smoker at 225 for four hours. It got an occasional spritz with the injection mix during smoking. For the final hour of smoking, we lit the second burner to get the smoker temperature to 350 and the meat to 165 internal temperature (measured using a digital meat thermometer) with a nice mahogany brown color. After 5 hours in the smoker, we wrapped the meat in foil and put it in the kitchen oven at 325 for another hour and a half until the meat temperature got to 195 (you could use the smoker for this but we decided to use the oven). We then switched the oven off and the meat temperature continued to rise to around 205. After letting the meat sit for about an hour or so, we got a beautiful moist BBQ pulled pork with a nice mild apple smoke flavor and a sweet bark with a hint of spice. I've only been smoking for about a year and this was by far the best results we've achieved and I put a lot of it down to the control you get with this smoker. Unlike the wood side burner smoker we own, during the cooking process, I didn't get overwhelmed by so much smoke that my eyes watered, and I didn't smell like I'd sat in a bonfire all afternoon by the end of it all. It would be helpful if there was a cover available for this smoker so you can keep it in decent shape when not in use. The other modification I'm planning to make it to add a set of 3" locking caster wheels to the bottom of each leg to make it easier to move around as since there isn't a cover, we have to store it under the eaves of our home to protect it from rain etc. and the wheels will make it easier to move.

Prior to this we had a small smoker in our grill, we loved it, but when we got this smoker, we quickly realized we were missing out. This is the real deal. You can fit a ton of meat in it. It went together easily and comes with good directions, which even has smoking times included. It cooks meat great and the flavor is so much better than our other smoker. The temperature control is flawless and we kept checking it but it maintained the temperature with little adjustment. My only issue was with shipping. When we received it the temperature gauge was broken and I could not find a direct replacement. I was able to get a universal temperature gauge for now, and I will continue to look for the factory replacement. There is also a dent in the front cover which can be seen in the photos, it does not affect the use of the unit- but it doesn't look great. Overall I am happy with the smoker and would buy again for sure.

Not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it'll work. The Smoker arrived safely and well packaged in a very stout, heavy duty cardboard carton reinforced with nylon strapping. The shipping container is just over 39” long, 26” deep and 17” high. It weighs 96.1 pounds. The Smoker Box itself was heavily braced at the corners with Styrofoam and wrapped in protective plastic. The smoker box contained 4 additional boxes + the rib rack and manual. There is even one “AA” battery included for the ignitor. As I unpacked and unwrapped all the contents, I used a Shop-Vac to keep the myriad loose Styrofoam flakes from creating one heck-of-a-mess in my shop. I don’t recommend unpacking this inside your home. Once unpacked, I checked carefully and found that all parts listed in the manual were present and most did not appear damaged. Assembly was straightforward and simple, though I discovered that the faceplate with the control knobs and ignitor was bent a bit. It had shifted in transit and had broken through the side of its box during shipping. Some careful un-bending was required to get it to align with the legs for mounting. The powder-coating or paint had chipped at the bend, and required a shot of some high heat paint to help it not rust too quickly. The outside of the box had several rub marks and the doors had rubbed the finish off the box just above each hinge. That high heat paint comes in handy sometimes… All the parts fit pretty much as advertised, though I am sorely disappointed in the quality and fitment of the door latches. Cutting corners seems to have gone a little extreme here. The latches are very cheaply made and I had to adjust them very, very carefully. The material is just “way” too thin. In addition, the upper door lower latch mounting screws both stripped out immediately and they were not even tight at that point! The screws were too short to seat deeply into the installed threaded sleeves… Again, cost cutting to the extreme… The shelves and rib rack seem extremely heavy duty and I think will do well, supporting safely any large sized piece of meat. The many height adjustments for the shelves allow just about infinite adaptation for this smoker to accept just about anything… I like that part a lot, as sometimes I’ll smoke an entire 20 pound shoulder clod whole. The pre-installed hangars for sausage in the top is a very nice touch as well… This smoker will do it all... However, the water pan, wood chip box and its lid are made very cheaply and of very thin material. Though advertised as heavy gauge, all were warped to one degree or another and required some slight bending to get them to rest evenly on the shelf supports. The definition of “heavy gauge” is subject to interpretation, I think… Again, I am disappointed in the quality here. I understand cost effectiveness, but this over-cutting of corners should not be the case with a smoker in this price range. I’m pleased with the double propane burner set up, and the ignitor works very well. Both burners fired up and set on low keep the smoker right at 275 degrees. The door seals work well, and the unit holds its heat well. I do like the little chimney and the damper set-up is simple to use. I’ll play a bit with one burner to find that magic 225 mark. Overall, I guess that I’m relatively satisfied with this smoker, and I think that care taken with the initial set-up should allow it to last a long time. With my wife and I both at it, it took a full two hours to unpack it, set it up and adjust it to where I think it’s ready to just rock n’ roll. An hour or two to season it and then comes the best part… Smoking!!!

Very nice built. Dual burners are nice addition. The wood tray is a little close to the fire, but does work very nicely as long as you soak the wood for a few hours or more. Lots of rack room for all meats. Definitely a great purchase.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser