About Gabriel Brangers
I started Smoke Insider in 2022, and started this journey with a cheap offset smoker from Walmart And just like that, Smoke – Eat – Repeat was born. That smoker didn’t last long, but the habit did — I’ve since upgraded to a Traeger Pro 34, and I also cook on vertical and stick smokers when I want more hands-on control over the fire.
Cooking wasn’t new to me when I started. Preparing and sharing meals has been at the center of my life since my childhood. As a teen and young adult, I racked up 20+ years of experience in food service, including time with Texas Outlaw, a competitive BBQ team that won back-to-back championships at the Best of the West cookoff in Sparks, Nevada. That’s where I learned what actually separates a good BBQ from great. It wasn’t a secret ingredient, it was repetition, and paying attention to what went wrong the time before.
Food isn’t the only thing I’ve written about professionally. For years, wrote about Chromebooks and the Google ecosystem, working as a writer, SEO specialist, reviewer, and affiliate manager. I’m not with that company anymore, but the habits stuck — writing clearly, being straight about what a product actually does, and disclosing affiliate relationships instead of burying them. That’s the same standard I hold this site to.
These days, I’m the marketing director at Rhino Metals — a day job with nothing to do with smoke or thermometers, which is honestly part of why this site stays fun instead of feeling like work.
Smoke Insider is where both halves come together: the cooking, and the discipline of writing it down honestly. Recipes, technique, and gear notes from real cooks, not recycled advice. If you want the specifics on how that plays out with gear reviews, there’s how I test.