Blowing $85 on a fancy smoke box, my foil packet did it better

Last weekend I got all fancy and bought one of those stainless smoke boxes at a kitchen store, $85 gone because I thought it would make my burgers taste like a BBQ joint. Followed the directions exactly, soaked the wood chips for an hour, threw it on the gas grill, and got zero smoke flavor, just warm metal. My buddy laughed and told me to wrap chips in foil with holes poked and throw it right on the burner grate, that cost me nothing and worked perfect on the first try. Now I'm split on if the tool is for people with different grill setups or if it's just a straight scam for idiots like me. Has anyone else wasted serious cash on a gadget that ended up losing to a 10 cent DIY hack? Is it worth giving the smoke box another shot with a different heat setting or should I just donate it? I need to know if I'm the only one who fell for the shiny packaging trap.

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1 Comment

the_faith5d ago

$85 for a smoke box? That's wild. You could've bought like 8lbs of decent brisket for that. But honestly the foil packet is just as legit, you basically paid for the learning experience. The real question is why you're getting stressed over a box when the end result was already good food. Donate it to your buddy or sell it for $20 and call it a day. Either way you're spending more time worried about the tool than actually grilling, which kinda defeats the whole point.