Reverse flow....if that's what they are called...

[Doug Crann]

Firebox on the side, plate inside of the cooking chamber, exhaust on the same side as the firebox.
Can you fine folks educate me on them please. Been doing some reading, seems like the lower $ ones, the stuff that the box stores sell, have more than there fair share of problems, but it also seems like there are fixes for some of them. Have noticed that a lot of folks use small logs for fuel. Living in an area that has nothing but pines don't see that much "mini logs" for sale. Can chunks, say the infamous Royal Oak, be used as fuel? Have also noticed that some folks mention there hunger for fuel, do these style of cookers burn a lot of fuel?
So please, school me some...

[BurntOffering]

Welcome Doug,
There is a tremendous amount of information you can research in the archives, this issue could take hours to cover. For the most part COS (cheap offset smokers) will burn food near the fire box and leave food raw at the opposite end. There are many strategies to help with this but I prefer to start with a quality smoker.

[Ron_L]

Just like anything, you pretty much get what you pay for. The less expensive offsets, reverse flow or not, are typically thin metal and will not hold the heat very well. As you go up in price you get thicker metal, insulated fireboxes, etc, and all of there make the cooker more efficient.

These cookers are typically designed to burn sticks, but it is possible to use charcoal like Royal Oak if you want to. If you do use sticks plan on feeding the fire about every 45 minutes with a good quality smoker, and probably more with an inexpensive one.

Look around QTalk for posts about Shirley or Lang smokers. That will give you an idea of what a quality reverse flow is like.

[Shagdog]

I'm not sure about who sells a cheap reverse flow... You described it correctly (exhaust on fire box side) but I can't say I can think of any cheap ones in this style. Most cheap off sets are just regular flow, firebox on one side, heat and smoke move across the chamber to the exhaust on the other side. As Ron said, thin metal, finicky, very difficult to maintain a temp. You can use charcoal in these, but you will use a LOT. they run much better on wood splits. If wood splits are hard to come by in your area, a WSM (Weber Smokey Mountain) or UDS would make a lot more sense for you. They run on a combination of wood chunks and charcoal, and are much much more efficient and user friendly. And when I say efficient, a wsm would easily use 1/2 as much charcoal in a 10 hour cook. And instead of messing with it every 30 minutes, you may have to check it twice. I had a cheap offset for many years, and even with the mods its a pain. If I had it to do again, I would not buy one.