Any horizon smoker users out there?

[JR Smokin it up]

Yoder is looking good too the Cheyenne is priced at 899 let's call it 1k with the heat management plate. That definatly has appeal. They claim a cubic foot of wood will keep it cooking for 10 hours. I go through that in just a few hours on my cos.

 

[Durangutan]

I have a 30" Horizon on order as I write this and cannot attest to its quality/function until it arrives. I do have two Yoders, however. One is a Durango 24; very similar to the Ranger you're looking at. I purchased it for its ostensible versatility but have found it's generally not consistent with the kind of cooking I do as I'm typically cooking like product and prefer a more even temperature across the entire pit. As noted, the vertical chamber would be quite functional for smoking at low temperatures but you could set up a regular offset to do the same if that's all you are doing at the time. The build quality of the Yoder is excellent. The one bit of advice I would offer on any unit you decide on is to get the largest your budget will permit. Taller foods on the 24" require removal of the top rack substantially reducing the available cooking area and I've found that even my 30" Yoder gets challenged when doing large cooks. It's no problem doing a small cook in a large cooker but the reverse is a little tricky. Coincidentally, my Durango is for sale over in the classifieds -I'd link to it but as a troglodyte, I don't know how. I don't mention it to try to peddle it as distance & freight would be prohibitive for the OP but there are a couple of photos.

 

[rober]

you can see the horizons in person & kick the tires at bass pro shops. i also have a shop near me that sells yoders. there is no appreciable difference between the 2. if I saw them together without knowing the builder i'd have thought they were fabbed in the same shop. they do have a edge in fit & finish over my older heavy O.K. Joe Longhorn but nothing that would make them function better. that said they are both beyond my budget. it took awhile but I patiently & regularly watched craigslist & got my OK Joe for less that the price of a new O.K. Joe Longhorn.

 

[McSpazatron]

you can see the horizons in person & kick the tires at bass pro shops.

This. Even if one is relatively far away, it might be worth looking. Sizewise, 20 inches is smallish. A 16 inch is fine for... um, well, I'm not sure really.

Unfortunately my bass pro shop only had 16inchers, but if you have one around your place you can check their stock. Unless you have seen a 20 incher in person and found it acceptable, you might be surprised by how small it is. When cooking you may not be able to easily use all the space because of hotspots, so keep that in mind. If you do fill it up to capacity, you just have to accept that you will be rotating meat. However, Id think that you could easily do a packer and a butt at the same time on a 20 incher without having to constantly rotate.

Another good reason to put eyes on one, is to make sure you are ok with the quality. My bass pro shop had a pretty ragged floor model with lots of weld spatter and big door gaps. That is not to say they are all like that, though. Their bigger models may be of higher quality, or the one i saw might have been a bad one. If they have stock, you could maybe look through for a clean one.

Like others have said, think carefully about how you would use the vertical section. That horizon model is on the expensive side. If you can play at this pricepoint, there are some other real decent manufactures to consider. If it were me, I'd put my money on more horizontal surface, which can be used for more capacity, or for doing something real low and slow when the occassion arises. Keeping in mind that there are other cheaper options to keep food warm, besides using the vertical as a warmer.