These two turn up on the same shortlist constantly, and it is easy to see why: both are charcoal, both cost roughly the same, both are round, and both promise a brisket without a thermostat or a stack of split logs. They are, in fact, almost opposites. One is a temperature-holding machine that asks you to learn its vents. The other is a fire in a barrel with meat hanging over it, and it asks you for almost nothing.
At a glance
Weber Smokey Mountain 22-inch versus Pit Barrel Cooker Premier 18.5-inch for brisket| | Weber Smokey Mountain 22″ | Pit Barrel Cooker Premier 18.5″ |
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| Format | Bullet: two grates above a water pan | Drum: meat hangs from hooks over the coals |
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| Total cooking area | 726 sq in (two grates) | Not published |
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| Stated brisket capacity | A full packer flat on a 22″ grate, plus a second grate below | Two full packer briskets, 14-16 lb each |
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| Temperature control | Manual vents + water pan | Single intake vent; runs hot by design |
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| Typical cook style | Low and slow at 225-250°F | Hotter and faster |
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| Body | Porcelain-enameled steel | Painted steel drum |
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| In the box | Cooker, two grates, water pan, thermometer in the lid | 8 hooks, 2 rods, charcoal basket, grate, ash pan |
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| Learning curve | Real, and worth it — vent control is a transferable skill | Minimal — there is little to get wrong |
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Every figure above that is a manufacturer specification comes from the listings recorded in the product cards further down, with the date each was read. Where a maker does not publish a number — Pit Barrel does not state a cooking area, because on a hanging cooker the figure would be close to meaningless — we say “Not published” rather than estimating one.
Grate versus hook: the difference everything else follows from
A WSM is a vertical stack. Charcoal at the bottom, a pan of water above it, then two cooking grates. The water pan is the trick that makes the whole design work: it absorbs heat, buffers swings, and keeps the chamber humid, which is why a bullet smoker holds 225-250°F with so little drama. Set the vents, and the pan does much of the stabilizing for you.
A Pit Barrel has no pan. The charcoal basket sits at the bottom and the brisket hangs from a hook on a rod near the top, directly above the fire. Heat rises straight onto the meat, and rendering fat drips straight onto the coals, where it flares and smokes. That is the drum’s signature and the reason its cooks are so loyal to it — and it is also why it runs hot: there is nothing between the fire and the food to slow the transfer down.
So the shape of the cook differs before you have made a single decision. On the WSM you run a long, humid, low-temperature cook and the stall behaves the way every guide describes it. On the drum you are effectively cooking hot and fast, with all the trade-offs that carries: less time in smoke, a faster finish, and less margin between tender and dry on the lean flat.
Capacity: the specification that is easiest to misread
The WSM 22 publishes 726 sq in (two grates)and a 22-inch grate diameter. A trimmed packer is somewhere near twenty inches long, which is exactly why the 22 exists and the 18-inch model is a compromise for brisket — a packer that has to be curled to fit cooks unevenly, because the folded section behaves like a much thicker piece of meat.
Pit Barrel does not publish a cooking area at all, and states capacity in a more useful way for a hanging cooker: Two full packer briskets, 14-16 lb each. Hanging is a genuinely clever answer to the round-cooker capacity problem, because vertical space is cheap and grate space is not. If you cook for a crowd, that is a real advantage that a square-inch figure would hide.
The catch is structural. A hanging brisket is supported by whatever the hook is through, and fifteen pounds of meat softening over several hours puts a genuine load on that point. Most drum cooks move the brisket down onto the grate later in the cook for exactly this reason, which the Pit Barrel supports — a grate is in the box.
Effort, and what you learn
The WSM asks more of you and gives more back. Vent control on a bullet is the fundamental charcoal skill: bottom vents meter the air that feeds the fire, the top vent stays open, and the fire is brought up to temperature slowly rather than hauled back down from too hot. Learn it and you can run any charcoal cooker. It takes a couple of cooks, and it is the single most transferable thing in this comparison.
The Pit Barrel deliberately removes that skill from the equation. There is one intake vent, set roughly by altitude, and after that the cooker does what it does. For a lot of people that is precisely the appeal: light it, hang the meat, come back later. It is close to the least demanding charcoal cooker you can buy, and fire management stops being something you have to think about.
Neither needs the hourly attention an offset does, and neither has a controller that can fail or a power cord that can be unplugged — which is the underrated advantage both hold over a pellet grill.
Where each one is genuinely weak
The WSM: access, and the learning curve. Getting to the charcoal mid-cook means lifting the whole center section with hot meat in it, which is the design’s one real awkwardness. It has no wheels. And if you want to set a number and walk away, the vents will frustrate you for the first cook or two.
The Pit Barrel: control, and low-temperature work. If your goal is a twelve-hour 225°F cook, this is the wrong tool — the adjustment simply is not there. It is also less suited to a long unattended overnight run, though that matters less than it sounds, because the cook finishes sooner anyway.
Which should you buy?
Buy the Weber Smokey Mountain if you want classic low-and-slow brisket, you are willing to spend two cooks learning vent control, and you like the idea of a cooker that will still be working in fifteen years. It is the safer choice for a first real smoker, and it is our top charcoal pick for brisket for that reason.
Buy the Pit Barrel Cooker if capacity and simplicity matter more than control — you are feeding a crowd, you want two packers on at once, and the idea of adjusting vents every hour holds no appeal whatsoever. Accept that you are cooking hot and fast, and it will reward you.
Buy neither if you want to set a temperature on a dial. That is a pellet grill or a gravity-fed cabinet, and pretending otherwise leads to a charcoal cooker you resent.