Welcome to the site. I live in Des Moines and have cooked through this entire winter so don't let the weather deter you. For that price range I would go with a 18" weber smokey mountain smoker. These things are cheap but produce consistanly good food. We have owned a bunch of different smokers and choose to use 2 22.5" WSMs and a xl BGE for comeptitions.
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Albino Rhino BBQ
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