Breville Smoking Gun Pro review

We have not used a Smoking Gun Pro. What follows is drawn from Breville's published specification, from the mechanism the product uses, and from what owners consistently report. Where a judgment rests on one of those rather than our own hands, the page says so.

That matters in this category because a lot of coverage is written as first-person testing without any documented method. How we pick sets out ours.

Both models do the same fundamental thing: burn a pinch of wood chips in a chamber, drive the smoke through a hose with a fan, and deliver cold smoke into a covered vessel. The drink never sees a flame and never warms.

• Variable flow speed. The headline upgrade. At low speed you can introduce a small amount of smoke slowly, which is how you get a veil rather than a fog. This is the single feature that most changes results.
• Extra-large burn chamber. A longer smoke without stopping to refill, which matters for a decanter or a bag rather than a glass.
• Removable die-cast stainless barrel, dishwasher safe. Smoke leaves resin, and resin carries flavor. A barrel you can actually wash is what keeps apple tasting like apple.
• Commercial build. Heavier and larger than the standard model, designed for a professional kitchen.

None of those is a gimmick. The question is whether a home bar that smokes one drink a week will notice any of them enough to justify the difference.

• Someone who smokes several drinks in an evening. Cross-contamination between woods and mid-session refills are both real irritations at volume.
• Someone who uses several woods and cares about keeping them distinct. The washable barrel is the whole argument here.
• Someone who smokes food as well as drinks. The large chamber and flow control suit a covered plate or a bag of ingredients better than a glass.
• Someone who has used a standard gun and found the smoke too heavy. Variable flow is exactly the fix for that complaint.

If none of those applies, the standard Smoking Gun is the honest recommendation and the difference is better spent on glassware or ice.

It is a commercial-priced tool being asked to live in a home kitchen, and it is bigger and heavier than the standard model. For a drawer that is already full, that is a real consideration.

It is also still fiddlier than a lid for a single drink. Load chips, cover the glass, insert the hose, ignite, run the fan, wait, remove. A smoke lid does the equivalent in about forty seconds with a torch and no setup, which is why smoke top vs smoking gun is the more useful comparison for most buyers.

And like any smoker, it needs consumables and cleaning. Owners consistently report that the maintenance is what determines whether a smoking gun stays in service - resin in the hose is the failure mode, and it is entirely preventable.

The standard Breville Smoking Gun is the direct alternative and the one most home bars should buy. A Crafthouse smoking box pairs a handheld smoker with a sealed glass box, which produces the most even smoke of anything here and takes the most storage.

And if the appeal is the smoked old fashioned specifically, a lid kit does that faster and more watchably for a fraction of the cost - best cocktail smoker kits with torch.