About

smokin.gs is a buyer's research publication covering grills, smokers, and backyard cooking gear.

Every guide on this site is built on the same process I use when I'm spending my own money: read everything credible, find out what owners actually say after living with the product, understand where the manufacturer marketing diverges from real-world performance, and figure out what's genuinely worth buying at each price point.

I'm a software developer and technology consultant by trade, with a decade as CTO of a large e-commerce platform and several years working inside the programmatic advertising industry. That background shapes how I approach this. I've seen how online product marketing is constructed from the inside: how products get positioned, how reviews get gamed, how pricing creates the illusion of value. I built smokin.gs to apply a more systematic lens to a category I actually care about.

This site doesn't do firsthand testing. What it does is rigorous aggregation: synthesizing expert sources, owner feedback, and market context into clear, honest guidance. The methodology behind every recommendation is documented at /about/methodology.