Aside from being able to hold & cook a good amount of meat, ribs and chicken for example, the charcoal baskets in our vertical barrel smokers are designed to hold more charcoal and will run longer with no adjustments. The drums seal very tight, and that’s what helps them run as long as they do.  Fuel burning times have been reported at 20+ hours before.  You won’t really ever need to go that long for any type of meat, but it’s possible if necessary.  They hold temps real steady throughout cooks.  This means no wild temperature swings.  Wild temperature swings will ruin the meat being cooked.  When that happens it usually results in meat that is dry and overdone.  Once you get the air intakes dialed in it’s pretty much set and forget.  Meat cooks so good and much faster than with other types of equipment.  The meat is so amazingly juicy and tender.  Another cool feature of drums as smokers is the flavor infusion from the drippings dropping onto the coals.  Their fat and juices drip onto the hot coals and evaporate causing that steam to come back up and infuse added flavor.  Also, if you hang cook, your meat self-bastes first as it’s hanging before those juices hit the coals or baffle, then re-infuses the meat!  You don’t get this type of tastiness with non-direct heat cookers.  They’re lightweight enough to pick up, portable, versatile, and are an eye catcher!  More on the awesome vertical smokers