Description
Do you want to cook tonight, or do you want to cook all day?
Most people who own both a gas grill and a smoker end up using the gas grill and feeling guilty about the smoker. The gas grill answers hunger. The smoker answers a Saturday. Trying to solve both with one machine is the reason combination cookers exist, and the Oklahoma Joe’s Canyon Combo is unusually literal about it: a genuine offset charcoal smoker on one side, a three burner propane grill on the other, sharing a frame.
That honesty about the split is what makes it worth considering. It is not a pellet grill pretending to be both, or a gas grill with a smoker box. The smoker is a horizontal cooking chamber with a firebox on the side, fueled by charcoal and flavored with hardwood splits and chunks that Oklahoma Joe’s notes are sold separately. The grill is a separate propane unit rated at 36,000 BTU running from a 20 pound tank that is also not included.
Now the space. Oklahoma Joe’s gives the dimensions as 68.9 inches wide, 35.6 inches deep and 50.8 inches high, weighing 196 pounds. That is nearly six feet of patio, permanently. Two rubber treaded steel wagon wheels mean it can be moved across a lawn or a rough patio rather than lifted, but 196 pounds is a machine that finds a spot and stays there. Plan clearance from the house, from fencing and from anything overhanging, because an offset smoker throws heat and smoke from the firebox as well as the chimney.
The cooking area and how the two halves divide it
Oklahoma Joe’s gives 750 square inches on the primary grates, which it translates usefully into two pork shoulders when smoking or twelve burgers when grilling. There is a further 281 square inches on the firebox grate itself, good for fifteen wings or six burgers, which is the detail people miss: the firebox on an offset smoker is a small direct heat grill in its own right, and it is where you sear.
The company describes the intended workflow directly and it is the best argument for the format. Cook a steak low and slow in the smoke chamber, then finish it with a fast reverse sear on the gas grill. That is a technique that normally requires two appliances and a lot of shuttling, and here it is two steps on the same frame.
The controls that make offset smoking possible
Adjustable dampers on both the firebox and the smokestack are the entire temperature control system on an offset smoker. There is no thermostat and no algorithm. You manage airflow: the firebox damper controls how much oxygen reaches the fire, and the stack damper controls how fast heat and smoke leave the chamber. Learning that relationship is the skill an offset smoker demands, and it is why some cooks love the format and others sell it after a season.
That is the honest comparison against a pellet grill, which holds a set temperature automatically. This one asks you to tend the fire. In exchange you get real wood smoke and no electronics to fail.
Living with a 196 pound combination cooker
The design details all point at a cooker meant to be used often rather than admired. Three tool hooks keep tongs and spatulas off the shelves. Front and side shelves give you somewhere to put sauces and a basting bowl. A flat bottom shelf with an integrated raised section holds wood splits and a spare fuel supply. Pivoting cool touch handles on both the lid and the firebox move with your hand as the lid opens, which is a genuine improvement over fixed handles that force an awkward wrist angle.
The removable ash pan on the side of the firebox is the maintenance feature that matters most. Ash accumulation chokes airflow, and on a charcoal offset you are clearing it after every long cook. An ash pan that pulls out from the side rather than requiring you to reach into the firebox is the difference between a five minute job and a twenty minute one.
Safety items belong in the plan rather than in the manual you will not read. Propane connections should be leak checked with soapy water when the tank is changed. The tank itself is stored outdoors and upright, never in a garage or a shed. Ash stays hot for far longer than it looks and belongs in a metal container, not a plastic bin. And nothing about this cooker is suitable for use indoors or under an enclosed porch.
Oklahoma Joe’s covers it with a two year warranty on all parts. Two things on the listing do not line up. The outer material field says stainless steel while the inner material says painted steel, and the product is sold in black; on a cooker at this weight and price, painted steel with stainless components is the more likely construction, so confirm which parts are actually stainless if corrosion resistance is the reason you are buying. The listing shows only 18 ratings at 4.2 stars, alongside a rank of fifth in combination grill smokers, which is a small review base in a small category.
What would send you elsewhere
If you want smoke without tending a fire, a pellet cooker automates the temperature control this one asks you to do by hand. The recteq Flagship 1100 and the Pit Boss 11091 both hold a set temperature with a controller, at the cost of needing an outdoor outlet.
If you only want to smoke and the gas half is wasted on you, a dedicated unit costs far less and takes up a fraction of the space. The Char Broil bullet smoker is the compact version, with more options in the smoker category.
If it is the opposite, and the smoker will never get used, the Cuisinart Grillster gas grill covers weeknight cooking in a fraction of the footprint, and the Weber Performer in the charcoal grill category is the classic answer for live fire without the offset chamber.
Who it fits and who should skip it
Buy it if you genuinely want both a real offset smoker and a fast gas grill, if you have six feet of permanent patio for it, and if managing dampers and a live fire is something you would enjoy rather than endure.
Skip it if you want set and forget temperature control, if the patio is small, or if you know you will only ever use one half. Remember the propane tank and the hardwood are both separate purchases.