Had an old chum who used to have one which he hauled around to cookoffs on a special basket looking deal affixed to the bumper of his 5th Wheeler travel trailer. They will bust a gut trying to load and unload it. In fact think I'm still down in the back on that deal. Wouldn't recommend it real highly. Suffers from the same set of problemos as most other small storebought offsets such as no baffling twixt the firebox and cookchamber..just a big hole which tend to grill the meat sideways with the radiant heat..got to keep swapping the meat around to make it cook evenly blah blah blah. The man tole you the best pit to get which is a Weber Smokey Mountain. Now if it was me I would make Dad start out with an ECB (El Cheapo Brinkmann water smoker). Everybody should pay their dues by learning to cook on one of them thangs first. Commonly available at Wally World for under 50 bucks. If you really want to get fancy get the Gourmet model. Much easier to use. Use the money you save to buy meat and copious amounts of the devil's urine. A person can't make good bbq unless they are real drunk.
bigwheel
bigwheel