There is nothing wrong with a little smoker from the local retail department store. You can chuck a chicken into one of them and enjoy a great supper hours later. With a little work, you can learn to create great ribs and brisket in one, too.

There is no reason to ignore the benefits of the larger barrel models, either. Those smokers are capable of creating some of the best BBQ in the world and are used by both top competition teams and restaurants from Memphis to Waco. They do a very good job and they are probably more than enough for most people.

Still, there is nothing like a brick smoker. Sure, a brick smoker represents a serious investment, but it also pays huge dividends. Here are three reasons why it is so easy to love those big brick smokers. This list is not comprehensive, but it will provide you with three very strong justifications for the use of a brick unit.

First, you simply must love any "Q" apparatus that will allow you to deal with a whole hog at one time without even taking up half of the available cooking area! If you want to make a lot of BBQ at once, there is no better way to do it than by using an oversized, custom smoker. You can feed a village off of one, if you so desire.

Second, a brick smoker will allow you to make standard slow cooking look like an all-out sprint to the finish line. A good brick unit can maintain a nice, low heat for an extended period. If you thought ribs from your barrel smoker were tender, you are not going to believe what you can do with a nice brick smoker. Those bricks retain heat like nothing else, allowing you to produce succulent masterpieces over extraordinarily long cooking times.

Third, once you have a brick smoker, you will never need to revisit your BBQ apparatus again. A brick unit is part of your property's permanent landscape. It is not an appliance, it is a fixture. Once you have built or installed a great smoker, you will have a place to BBQ for the rest of your life. You will not be worrying about replacing a rusty unit or graduating to a larger device ever again.

People have been using brick smokers for over a century and there are a number of reasons for their longevity. Size, the ability to maintain the perfect temperature for hours and hours, and permanence are three of them. Those three marks in favor of the brick smoker may very well convince you that it is time to say goodbye to the barrel and to welcome the bricks and mortar to your backyard!

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