RAUCHBOY SMOKER

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today I'm going to review my brand new Rouch Boy smoker. So in this video, I'll give you loads of close-ups, I'll give you a full product review for the Rouch Boy smoker, I'll show you how it works, I'll get it lit, I'll get it smoking, and I'll let you know what I think about it. So I bought this Rouch Boy smoker from Becky's Bees. I'll stick the website link up there. I paid the full price for it, and as always, I'm going to give you my honest review and recommendation for the product. So I've always wanted one of these Bee smokers. I've seen a few people online who use them, and I really like the look of them. It's got a couple of really nice design tweaks in here that other smokers don't have, and having set it up and lit it for the first time, I can see why they really do like the product. It's very very different from any of the other smokers on the market due to the way that the fire chamber sits elevated above the bottom of the box. No other smokers that I know of do that. It's a really nice design and it means that the smoker will keep on going for ages and ages, and it means that the smoker is highly unlikely to go out whilst you're using it. So the first thing to say is when I bought this smoker, it came with a free Hive tool, and I love that. I love a freebie. Anything that comes as an added extra is good in my books, and it's a really nice quality hive tool. What's amazing about it though is that it slots just in the front like that, and it means that you can carry it around whilst you've got your smoker on the go. Really nice piece of design. It just slots in there. They've just kind of allowed a little bit of extra space in there just to pop that hive tool in. I'll still keep my retractable hive tool on me whenever I'm doing my beekeeping operations, but to have an extra one that just sits in there, okay, it rattles around. It's a bit of a rattle. around a little bit, but I can live with that. It means that I've always got a spare hive tool with me, and you never know when you're gonna need your hive tool. So I really like that. I'm not sure how long the promotion's gonna last or if it's something that they do all the time with this smoker. All I know, when I bought this one, it came with a free hive tool that slots in the front of the smoker. Right, so let's get on with the review then. So the first thing I noticed when I picked up the Rouchboy smoker was it feels really, really well made. Similar to the Daydent, and dare I say it, maybe a slightly better fit and finish than the Daydent, but everything's really nice and it feels well put together. Lovely action on the bellows, really, really nice smooth wide action on the bellows, and you can feel the air going through it. Really do like the bellows. Now, what normally comes as like a leather material on a lot of the other bellows, this one comes as more of a suede material. Now I've had some reports of bees attacking that suede a little bit, and I can see maybe why they do that, because it's kind of black and a bit furry, and maybe they think it's a bear or something. Um, I'm not overly fussed about that, and I will report back later on in the year if there is a major issue with that. But in terms of a feel, in terms of a look, it looks fine, it feels really nice, and it's a really solid, durable material. Now the rest of the bellows, very, very similar to the Deidon. So you've got stainless steel construction all over with this, and then it's pinned to the leather material to give you a nice solid seal. Then the connection from the bellows onto the smoker is actually a nut and screw connection, which is really nice, which means that you can quite easily take the bellows off and replace the bellows if required. They're quite expensive, these smokers. I paid just under £50 for this one. If the bellow goes or you damage it, It means that you can replace the bellows on their own. So I like to see that a nice nut and screw connection means you can just replace those bellows nice and simple. Then the connection from the connecting piece onto the firebox is tack welded, and I don't think there's any other way of doing this, but it is the point at where my other smoker failed. Now I'm sure this smoker here is going to have considerably better welding than the cheap £15 one that I bought. Just pointing it out though, that is where my previous smoker failed, and it's potentially a weak point on smokers. So if there's any other way of connecting that, I'm not sure. All I'm pointing out here is that is how it's connected. It's just connected with a simple tack weld. Now the connection here where you've got the lid onto the main smoker body, it is the cheaper connection. It's not the pinned connection that you see on the Dadant smoker. It's just 2 bent pieces of metal and they connect together. Just to allow you to open and close, but it really does feel absolutely solid. I've got no concerns over that whatsoever. It's a thick piece of metal, and I think that that will last for years open and closing like that. Now it's got the smooth Etna-style top, which I actually think looks really nice. I know a few people not keen on that top, and they prefer the pointed one of the Deidant. I quite like that top. I think it looks nice. And it's got a nice brushed finish to it as well. I think overall the RatchBoy smoker looks really, really nice. You've got your hook here for hanging it anywhere you like. It's a really nice wide hook, which means you can hook it onto various surfaces. I never find myself hooking it on, but obviously most smokers come with that now. But nice to have a big wide one if you're hooking it onto the side of your hive, if you've got wooden hives that is. Most smokers come with that and it's nice to have a big wide one. Then the stainless steel cage that protects you from burning yourself on the, the firebox is really, really well built and well designed. It's considerably better than the Deiden, and I'll tell you why. So at the bottom of the smoker here, they've taken that cage and they've bent it around the firebox, so you've actually got protection underneath as well. So whereas on the Deiden I would need to put something on there if I wanted to put it on the top of a poly hive. I think I might just about get away with not doing that on here as long as I don't leave it on for forever, because you've got the cage coming underneath the firebox like this. It means that you're elevating the smoker away from that heat source. So if you've got— if you're putting it down on a poly hive like that, the fire is only coming down to this level here. It means that it's more than likely not going to melt it. Now, I wouldn't suggest getting these absolutely blaring and going and leaving them on your poly hives for a long time, but I find I only really leave it on the roof for maybe 10 or 15 seconds. I don't think I'm going to have the issue with this, and it's really nice, simple design that allows me to put the smoker onto a polystyrene hive. So that's all of the exterior of the smoker. And you might think all of that is pretty standard and you would find that on any single smoker that you'd buy on the market. Maybe barring the point where the cage comes down underneath, because I do think that is unique to this smoker. But where the Rouchboy comes into its own is the interior of the product. It's completely different, and I'll show you why I think it's a market-leading product. So when you open the Rouchboy, you immediately see that things are different inside. And instead of having a stainless steel mesh or trivet at the bottom that keeps the that source of fuel above where the air comes in. The way that Ranch Boy have done it is they have a dedicated cage. So inside the smoker it's empty, and then you've got this cage, and this is where you put your fuel, this is where you light your fire. Now if you look at the difference between the height of the cage and the height of the smoker, you've got about a 40mm height difference. So this is 40mm smaller. And then if you look inside the Rouchboy smoker, you've got a ridge all the way on the inside. So that means when I put this in, it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom. It sits about 40 to 45 millimeters above the bottom, and this is where the air is being fired in. A lot of log burners have a similar design to this. They keep the bottom space clear, they suck the air in from underneath And then they pull it up through the fuel source and get the smoke to go out the top. The Rouch Boy smoker is pretty much identical to that, and it's such a good mechanism for lighting your smoker, a really quick light, and it means that it's never ever going to go out. So I really, really like this design of smoker. I've seen lots of videos of it online and it works really well. I can't really pick Any negatives up from this smoker from having had it for a couple of days now. The only one negative that there may be, and I still don't know this yet, is that it might burn through the fuel a little bit quicker than the Daden. And the only reason I say that is for 2 reasons. So one, it's considerably smaller than the Daden, especially when you take into consideration that you've only got that firebox worth of material. So you're probably around 60% of the volume of the Deiden in terms of the actual amount of fuel that you can put in it. But then also the fact that you've got a constant airflow, which is a good thing, but it also means you're going to be constantly burning that fuel. So what you don't want to use in here is a quick-burning fuel like a hay or a cardboard, anything like that. You're going to burn through it really, really quickly. And more importantly than that, you're going to burn through it while you're not pressing down on the bellows. The Dejant one, you need to keep things going to keep that airflow moving through the base of the fuel so it doesn't go out. I think the Rouchboy, you're going to have a very different problem, which is if you don't use the correct fuel, it's going to burn through whatever you put in there too quickly and you're going to be constantly filling it up. Now, we've done previous videos showing you what's a good fuel and what's not a good fuel. Like we've shown before, I love hessian sacking. I love the new log briquettes that I use, and I love wood chips. I think if you pack this smoker out with those, you're going to get at least 2 to 3 hours good burn time, and the smoke is going to be available when you need it. Realistically, you don't need much more smoke time than that, and you can stop, and you probably should stop every 2 or 3 hours and have a break from your beekeeping anyway, fill the smoker back up, get it going, and then you can move on. So I'm just preempting that, that there may be a slight disadvantage compared to the Dadant. just down to the length of burn that you're gonna get. And that's about it. So all I'm gonna do now, I'm gonna quickly get the smoker lit, gonna give it a few puffs, and I'm just gonna run you through how quickly it is to light and how long that smoke lasts. Now I really do need to get this one fixed. Again, I'm still using 2 of them to get it lit. Get your blower on. And just puff to get it going. So it lights really nice and quick, just like any smoker. That design there, although it's designed to give you a nice long constant burn, doesn't detract from really easy lighting of the smoker as well. So that's lit now, just keep it puffing. It's really nice to feel, it's such a good quality bellows, really like it. You get the full width expansion, really nice light motion as well. Really do like the, the motion of this bellows. Now, if I was lighting this and doing a long burn, I'll send up a link there. What I would do is I would start to add my hessian sacking now, get that burning nice and hot, and then I'd use some wood chip or I'd use some log burner briquette, break it all up, get a real super hot fire going, and then I'd stick a nice big chunk of log burner briquette on there, close the lid up, and then I'm good for a couple of hours. I'm not going to do that in this video because I've done it in previous videos. I'm just going to close the lid and show you how nice the smoke comes out of this smoker. Where I showed you previously on the Dedent video, it had an excellent seal around there and very little smoke ever came out anywhere except the front of the smoker. On this one, you can see there you do get a little bit of leakage out the back. It's not the end of the world, it really isn't too bad, but it will decrease the amount of time that it takes for that fuel to burn through, especially considering that you've got the significant airflow going through this smoker anyway, it's going to take that time and it's just going to reduce it down a little bit. What I'd really like to be seeing there is all of the smoke just firing out the front and a very limited amount around here. Now, as you use this smoker, it will coke up anyway, and you probably will improve that seal a little bit. This is the first burn that I've got on this smoker, so it's a bit harsh to, to judge it fully on the amount of smoke that's leaking out there. I'm just pointing out, when you do that on the Deiden, it doesn't leak out straight away. Now what's really interesting with this smoker is look how I can hold it. If I touch the top there, it, it's really, really hot. Probably shouldn't have done that, burnt my fingers. But if I touch the bottom, it's not hot. And that is so different from the Daydent smoker. Once you get the Daydent smoker up and running, that bottom of the box there isn't protected by a cage. But also, if you were to put your hand on it, it is so hot. It's probably the hottest part of the smoker. Because the firebox only goes down to around here, it keeps the bottom of that side cool. So I'm really confident that I could just go and place this on a poly hive and I'm not going to burn through it, especially at the early stages of a burn, which is where I'm more likely to put the smoker down. So as always, I'm not going to dwell too long on doing a product review for a smoker. It's effectively a box that burns stuff and you fire out the smoke onto your bees. All I will say with this though is it's a bit different from some of the other smokers on the market. If you've got poly hives and you want a smoker that you can put down on your poly hives, this is a really good one for you. If you want something that's going to burn through fuel really well and efficiently and isn't going to go out, this is a good smoker for you as well. It's not quite as big as the Dadant, it's not got quite as good a seal as the Dadant, and I think it'll probably burn through the fuel a little bit quicker than the Dadant. So I'll do a separate video review showing you the difference between the two. I'll do a smoke test where I fill them up with the same amount of fuel and we'll see how long they can run for. But in the meantime, I can highly recommend this smoker. It's really well put together, it's a good quality stainless steel construction, nice action on the bellows, and I think it will last for years and years to come. So I hope you've enjoyed the video. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.