foreign hey guys welcome to mad scientist barbecue I'm Jeremy Yoder and today we're doing a review of this gorgeous pit behind me here it is the TMG volunteer I've used it quite a bit and I know how it works pretty well and I'm gonna give you guys all the pros and cons exactly how I see it let's get some things out of the way from the beginning this pit was given to me by TMG to review provide feedback and then ultimately give away to one of my patrons over on patreon every month I do a contest and I judge the contest and if you win you get sometimes a smoker sometimes leather aprons thermapens gift cards something to do with barbecue and they're all good prizes like a Yeti 250 quart cooler this smoker for the month of September and most of the smokers that come through here end up being given to a patron and if you get on patreon make sure you check out Discord it's kind of a private messaging app and you get to chat with other people who love barbecue just as much as you do I'm on there chatting uh depending on what tier you are you can send me direct messages and ask me questions directly on there but it's a great resource for anybody who loves barbecue or chatting barbecue all the time so the contest on patreon is where this thing's going and I didn't pay anything for this pit so make sure you get that clear right from the beginning but rather than me trying to sell this thing I wanted to it to go to somebody who's supporting the channel somebody on patreon somebody who really loves barbecue who might not have an Offset Smoker like this so that's where this thing is headed so you can check out the rules for the contest if you're interested in winning this volunteer but stay tuned for the rest of the review so you know what you're getting yourself into and then lastly whether they sell zero volunteers or 1 million volunteers I make zero dollars from any of that so I have no Financial incentive to really putt this thing up and make it seem better than it is or to make it seem worse these are my honest opinions from having used this thing a lot over the last couple months right let's talk about this pit itself and how it Cooks first of all this is made in Knoxville Tennessee it is called the volunteer because of Tennessee they like to say that they are rescuing Texas barbecue the same way that the Tennessee Volunteers went down to defend the Alamo I'm not sure uh how Texans would feel about that but I think it's pretty funny I've met the owners of TMG I really like those guys they're really really cool and they they do incredibly good work so in terms of fabrication I put their stuff up there with anybody I mean it's just beautifully put together the welds are gorgeous the thing is going to last forever and then they do some really cool stuff like these wheels and tires that I'll show you here in a second but let's talk about some of the main things that you need to know about this pit the pit is 27 inches in diameter which means you got quite a bit of space more so than obviously 24 inches in diameter which is pretty popular so you can think of something like the fat stack 120 or the Workhorse 1975 or the mil scale 94 those are all 24 inch diameter tanks or pipes in this case we have a 27 inch diameter pipe and I think that extra diameter really allows a great cooking environment to be present when you're trying to make awesome barbecue now the stack is pretty big I think it's maybe five and a half inches internal diameter don't quote me on that there's a damper for the stack there's a door to the Firebox and as you may know offset smokers are generally just two pipes that you weld together put a stack on one end build a fire in the other hand and your cooking barbec key but there are a lot of nuances that go into making some better than others so let's start on the stack end we'll move toward the Firebox and we'll talk about all the features and I'll give you my subjective impressions of how the thing cooks and whether or not I think it's a good choice for you to purchase before we can actually get to the stack we have to talk about this right here the handle so this handle is how you actually move this thing around and once you guys see the wheels and tires you're going to understand that they took off-road seriously when they built this thing so with this handle you can pretty easily move this thing around even though it probably weighs a thousand pounds and it's got this Rare Earth magnet that kind of holds it to The Collector now let's talk about the collector it's kind of a Franklin style collector it's nice and big it's going to draw the air really well and then we have the stack which is nice and Tall it's not too big around so that it kind of fights Against the Wind basically the way Stacks work generally speaking is that the narrower the stack the more it resists wind interference with the draw and the bigger the stack is the more susceptible it is to kind of being disrupted by the wind so here it's kind of a happy medium draws really well you can use the damper anytime you want to reduce the airflow and kind of have slow gentle airflow in the chamber as much as you want that's something that's completely up to you based on your needs whether you're trying to render fat or whether you're trying to lay on bark all those decisions go into it but you have that option available also it's important to note that this stack can be folded here we have a nut that's welded into place so you just unscrew this you lay the stack down there's another place to screw this in to lock it in place in the folded position that was a really brilliant simple move that they did and it just makes it really really great anytime I want to move this thing I load it up on a trailer put the stack down lock it in place I need to put the Stack Up Lift It Up and lock it in place right here a brilliant way to do something very simply and it's super effective next we need to talk about these wheels and tires because the guys at TMG are I think tire nuts I don't know I haven't spoken to them about this but this seems excessive but awesome so I I kind of view this as one of those things I have a lot of things in my life that I kind of categorize this way as stupid but awesome like I bought a big cabinet humidor it was kind of stupid but it's awesome and I kind of viewed these wheels the same way totally unnecessary but it looks like a million bucks and I just appreciate that that they made it look awesome and it makes it really easy to move these things around especially on concrete the way the handle turns you can turn this thing into tight spaces because how much you turn that handle isn't limited so you can really get this thing in tight spaces it rolls super easily on concrete and it rolls well on as long as you don't have big divots because if you hit a big hole or something there's going to be a lot of torque that gets put on the handle there because these tires are relatively far from that Center axis so just be aware of that but in terms of how this thing moves compared to other smokers on casters or little wheels big big fan love this design it's something I never would have thought of but now that I have it here I really appreciate it next up let's talk about the shelf so here we have an expanded metal shelf I'm not myself a big fan of shelves at all this is extremely sturdy though I mean I could sit on this thing and it won't break off I wouldn't recommend that but I you know I test things so that's that's something I would do you can also get it stainless steel if you want to use it as a prep surface you can get I think a butcher block even as the front shelf for me I just prefer Simplicity and I'd actually prefer no shelf but a lot of people really like to work on the shelf and as I say that I don't like shelves and I wish it would be removed I'm currently using it for this thermoworks Pro but they have their use it's just not my preference but if you like it this is very well built very sturdy Now we move up to tell truth reminders we have two tell truth reminders that don't interfere with where the meat is placed so for instance on the fat stack backyard pits that thermometer is right where you would have meat which is a huge pain I'm not a fan of that thermometer placement at all here we have a thermometer on either end and they usually read almost dead even even though in the middle it's a little bit hotter but you have a good quality thermometer and you have two of them so you can compare kind of how the air is moving where the Heat's traveling within the cook chamber and then we have the handle to the Cook chamber door itself this is not a light door but it's totally manageable so if you compare this to say the Workhorse 1975 it's a lot lighter this is I believe quarter inch thick steel all the way around I think everything's made out of quarter inch thick steel but it's possible to lift it without too much effort in the say Workhorse 1975 which is another great pit but that door is really heavy it's something you need to know about so if you're going to have struggles lifting a really heavy door that might not be the right answer for you this one's not light but it's not nearly that heavy also you can see that they over build everything at TMG so I don't think that this door is going to warp from heat but they have these welded in place to make sure that there's zero percent chance that these doors warp and one thing I should say about just the quality of their manufacturing my thousand gallon smoker I paid for somebody in California to put it on a trailer I built a body of the smoker but I had somebody build it on a trailer for me because I thought I need a professional to do that because if something goes wrong it goes really wrong when you're towing you know a big smoke around a trailer I have had nothing but problems with that trailer since and as a matter of fact I talked to the guys over at TMG they're going to build me a new trailer I'm paying for it by the way it's not for free they're going to build me a new trailer because I've seen the work that they've done and it has been absolutely mind-blowing how good it is uh those trailers are overbuilt in the best way and they're just they're beautiful to see my buddy Chris Stafford in California just ordered a pit from them he had it delivered if you look at the photos of this thing it looks incredible but to see it in person is even more impressive it is gorgeous now let's get back to the volunteer so once this door is open you see that you have a lot of space in here you could probably fit six seven briskets you could go one two three four five six seven eight briskets probably I mean you might even be able to squeeze in nine but the point is you have a lot of potential space whether you want to use the top rack or not generally speaking I prefer not to use the top rack but it's there available to you if you want it it's not that it Cooks hotter it's just that it makes it a little more difficult to get in there and read stuff even though this is a pull out rack so this rack you can pull out and get to anything in there that you need to and I think it's just a really good design you know it's very user friendly and so if you know what you're doing you can make a lot of great food without having to have a humongous smoker now the smoker is big but it's not unwieldy in any way and one thing you guys should know is that I've used this pit on multiple occasions to cook for catering events that I had I've used it to cook ribs when I had a 500 gallon pit full of briskets I've used it to cook brisket of course I've used it for beef ribs I've used it for all kinds of things and I've been really really pleased with it when we get to the Firebox we're going to talk about how to run this pit and some pitfalls you might encounter no pun intended on that one actually amazingly enough but we'll get there lots of space there's no baffle and we just kind of have a straight shot into the cook chamber which is something I'm usually a big fan of moving further back here we have the spot on top where you can lock in the stack when it's folded and then on this shelf in the front we have a paper towel holder right here and then we have a couple spots where you can hang barbecue tools we have another set of awesome wheels and tires and then we have the Firebox let's take a look at that all right here we are at the Firebox and this is really the heart of how a smoker works I struggled with this pit actually for a while because I was trying to run it like a big offset would run because it's a larger diameter cook chamber and the Firebox is nice and big and so I thought I'll build a huge coal bed and then have some base logs and run it like I would a big offset well the issue is this smoker doesn't like to run that way whereas the Franklin pit is kind of like a large offset in miniature and how it likes to run the fire and just kind of how the air moves this is like a backyard offset but larger and what I mean by that is the way this thing likes to run is a relatively small cool bed a log or two just like that right above the the coals burning an open flame and then you add another log it doesn't like multiple base logs and a huge coal bed that you then try to rein in and you get lots of radiant heat and it doesn't really like to run that way but if you run it like this it works like a charm and Cooks great great food now is this my favorite way to run a flyer no not particularly but is it really easy is it like a direct transfer from somebody who had a kind of a junky backyard offset and they want something really nice the transition to this is going to be a piece of cake they're going to be doing the same thing but a little bit bigger and instead of fighting against the smoker it's just going to work it's just going to do its thing and it's going to cook great barbecue so I suggest being aware of that before you decide if this is the right pit for you or if something else is it wants to have small coal bed a log maybe two not too big around not too long but you can fit some decent sized pieces in there that's something that wouldn't go in most backyard smokers but on here it just works it does everything it needs to one other note if you upgrade to these wheels and tires they can get hot if you're burning a raging Inferno in the Firebox so if you're trying to build a big coal bed and run this thing like a big offset would run then you're going to run into some issues with those tires getting hot especially on the top top side here so if you're running regular barbecue temps the tires will get warm but they won't be super super hot if you're trying to go 600 Degrees in the cook chamber then the tires will get really hot and actually I'll test them with an infrared thermometer right now and see what temperature they are I don't think it's anything to worry about as long as you're not trying to melt down your neighborhood with you know a nuclear High fire all right let's see so if anybody wanted to know 160 degrees so it's warm I don't think it's anything to worry about I could be wrong on that I haven't experienced any issues with it so far uh when I built a really big coal bed I noticed the tires were getting pretty hot but this is at least in my opinion not a huge deal let me show you guys how I usually like to run this thing what's giving me the best result so I take the Firebox door I don't close it down too too much but most of the way closed something like that because it reflects that heat back in there and keeps the fire hot and you aren't losing smoke and heat out of the backside of the smoker now let's go over to the stack and I'll show you how I like to use that for the stack I found what works best is to either leave it completely open and control airflow with the door to the Firebox or if necessary if I really need to slow the air down in there I can take this down to about maybe halfway and it still works well the stack is tall enough that it still draws air but kind of slows the whole process down if your temps are getting a little too high you might consider doing this but I found that somewhere between here and wide open gives me exactly the kind of airflow and smoke that I want and just think and the last thing you need to know is that these thermometers are a good guide and they're consistent but they're not going to give you exactly the temperature at the great in the middle so these are reading 230 235 on either end but in the middle it's reading somewhere around 275 278 so it's a 40 or 50 degree difference is is pretty normal and these react more slowly and the reason why they're not reading quite the same temperature is because these are kind of in dead spots here it's in a dead spot because all the hot casters are coming out right here and this dead spot is going to read a little bit lower of a temperature here the hot gases get pulled down just in front of it and this one I think is also in kind of a little bit of a dead spot but they are consistent they don't react super quickly but as long as you know that going in you can run these at temperatures that are going to give you what you want with your barbecue so if these are reading 225 great I assume that it's reading 250 to 275 if it's reading 200 I'm assuming that it's going to be around 250 degrees maybe as low as 225 if it's in the 180s I know I'm probably really close to 200 but if you know that going in you can just subtract from the target temperature that you hear say somebody says 275 and then you say ah well I'm going to run this thing at maybe 230 and you're going to get exactly the results that you want and they're consistent end to end and what you get inside is a whole lot of barbecue weather to cook a ton of great barbecue and if you guys are curious about the precise placement of where I put that digital thermometer I'll show you right here it's pretty much in the middle maybe slightly to the Firebox side of the middle but it's pretty consistent from here all the way to the end so just for your information and to make good choices the first time you fire one of these things up so let's break down the pros and cons of this pit let's start off with the cons it's big so it's going to take up a fair amount of space it's not going to be easily tucked away in some corner of your garage and you're not going to notice it that's not this pit also it's pretty heavy to move it around even though it's got these big wheels probably going to require a little bit of effort on flat ground not so much but if you're moving around the yard definitely you're going to want somebody pretty strong to kind of muscle the thing where it needs to go and then really I think the last con that I have is that those thermometers are going to read a little bit differently than what's happening on the majority of the grate but like I said if you know that going in you can compensate for that and get really consistent results now let's talk about some of the pros also it's big right so it's a con and a pro if you want something you can cook a lot of barbecue you want to invite all your friends and family over for you know like a huge barbecue you can feed them all with this thing like I said I've used this for catering events uh some of them for very important people that I wanted to make sure all the food is good if I trust this to cook that food I really trust it and it's made really excellent food another Pro is that the wait time is a big one the wait time is relatively short so instead of signing up and you're going to have your pit built in a year and a half or two years they do them in batches so they'll fill a batch and I think it's every 16 weeks they do a run of volunteers they just crank them out I don't know for sure I'll put their contact info you can call them talk to them and they'll set you straight on on all that so in as little as I think 16 weeks they can crank you out a pit and the people I know who've cooked on it have also really liked it so I'm not alone in this and another big Pro is that in terms of fabrication and quality I would put this up against any other pit Builder even though I'm really great friends with a lot of pit Builders I think this is as good as the fabrication gets on any pit that I've seen there are others that are in the same category but this is top-notch quality fabrication I'm by no means expert I just know what I see and this thing is extremely well built so much so that I'm trusting them to take thousands of my dollars to build me a new trailer and they have a little utility trailer that I've been using and that thing is awesome like awesome awesome I'm gonna buy that I don't know if I've told them that yet but I'm buying that but yeah just top-notch stuff from them another Pro is that this thing looks so freaking cool especially with those Wheels like I get wood delivered here uh pretty frequently as you may be able to guess and the wood guy shows up and he's like what about this one this one's really cool and currently I have probably a dozen smokers and grills back here uh I see a Franklin pit I see a tagwood Argentine Grill I see a Goldie smoker I see some other smokers in the corner I've had my 500 here but the one that was the most impressive to somebody who just walked up and was looking at the smokers was this one I think it's the awesome wheels and tires I'm not suggesting you should pay for that upgrade but but if you do it's going to draw some attention in a very good way then another con is the philosophy behind how they like to move the air and how they like to run the fire in this pit is a little different than the way I would prefer I prefer to build a really big coal bed and have some base logs and then kind of restrict airflow to adjust everything with this it doesn't want to run that way it wants to run with a smaller coal bed and a log or two and just gently putter along and it's extremely efficient but it's just not my preferred way to run the fire so I have to say that can you turn out top quality barbecue with this thing a hundred percent but it's just not my preferred way it may be your preferred way I know that for Lone Mountain barbecue out in California this is actually his favorite pit even though he's owned a 500 he currently owns a thousand gallon pit I think he has a reverse flow this is his favorite lastly we have to talk about price now the base model for the volunteer is 4 500 that means it's coming on casters and if you have concrete and you're going to put it in one place and it's never going to move then casters might be the way to go the off-road pack package I don't think it has these precise wheels and tires but the off-road package is according to my phone 5800 so it's gonna cost you more but you'll be able to move it over something that's not concrete because trust me if you got this thing with casters into your yard you're going to need like a forklift or like a football team to get that thing out of there so with these I can move it by myself in my uneven backyard to put that in perspective for you so those two options are very good but the option that I would choose not 99 of the time but 100 of the time is to put this thing on a little trailer talk about convenient it'll be easy to move the thing around you know on concrete any place you can move it on grass and wherever you need to but you can also hook it up to your truck and take it wherever you want to go say you want to go to the lake for the weekend you hook it up to your truck you drive it there you cook awesome barbecue everybody loves it you bring it back home you park it wherever you want to and it just does its thing and the way these guys build trailers I guarantee you that is going to be a sturdy extremely robust trailer that's what I would do but the downside is the cost for the trailer package is seven thousand dollars it's a lot of money we're getting a lot of pit and a really cool trailer so I don't know if this is the right decision for you I've given you my opinion on exactly how it works and the options that are available to you and just my experience with it I think of all the pits that we're just kind of passing through my backyard I've cooked on this one more than any of the others and uh it's just it really really works and cooks really good food apart from the choice of airflow and kind of fire management style I love everything about this pit it just does its job I think this would be a Bill Belichick pit and it's like do your job this bit's like yes sir and it just it just works so I'm a big fan of this pit big fan of the craftsmanship so I think the big question for you is does it make sense for you so does it fit in your budget does it suit your needs etc etc but if you want to win one of these this one right here behind me is going to be given to a patron you can go sign up for that if you are interested in your own volunteer but those are my thoughts that's honest thoughts I'm going to do a head-to-head with this the goalies Pit and the Franklin pit we're going to cook on all three of them side by side by side and you guys can check out those results in a future video but I cooked on this thing a whole lot I don't think my opinion of the volunteer is going to change but it will be a good Baseline to judge the other two pits all right guys thank you so much for watching I put a lot of time into testing these things out try to run them hot try to run them cool try to fill them up with a lot of food try to put one piece of food on there and I hope it's been helpful to you because I've spent hundreds of hours running the smoker at this point and I'm distilled down for you what I think are the most Salient details if you enjoyed it hit the like button down below and don't forget to subscribe to the channel you can also follow me on Instagram Facebook and Twitter at well actually you can follow me on X at mad scientists barbecue and lastly you can follow me on patreon and if you do you can enter the contest to win this thing I'll see you guys next time thank you foreign foreign foreign