Most offset cookers ask you to tend a fire in a box you never cook in. The Broil King Regal 400 Charcoal Offset, SKU 955050, declines that bargain.
Its smaller chamber has a cast iron grid. It has a charcoal tray, an ash tray, a door and a damper of its own. Broil King counts that chamber inside the total cook space. The sales copy calls the pair “both cooking chambers”.
Which retires the usual offset question. You are not asking how well heat crosses from a firebox into a barrel. You are asking which of the two chambers you cook in tonight. And what the other one is doing meanwhile.
865 sq. in.Total cook space, counting both chambers and the warming rack
52.5 x 32 x 26 in.Assembled size, as Broil King publishes it
365 sq. in.Derived: what is left once the primary surface is subtracted
186.0 lbsPublished mass, on four legs and two wheels
First Impressions of the Broil King Regal 400 Charcoal Offset
It arrives flat, in a carton measuring 22.5 by 47.3 by 22.25 inches. Assembled, the cooker stands 52.5 inches tall and runs 32 inches wide by 26 deep. Broil King prints 186.0 lbs beneath those two size sets and labels the mass neither.
Set up, it reads as one long black cylinder with a smaller one bolted alongside. Four steel legs. Two wheels under one pair of them. A steel shelf underneath, and a fold-down steel shelf across the front carrying tool hooks.
The badge on the end of the main chamber does not say Regal. It says Broil King Smoke. That is the family this cooker actually belongs to. The maker’s own sales copy calls it the Offset Smoker 400.
Lift the main lid and the layout explains itself quickly. Cast iron bars run across the bottom, with a porcelain-coated warming rack above them. Under the grid sits a perforated charcoal tray. Under that, a stainless ash tray pulls straight out.
Now open the smaller chamber. You find the same idea again, smaller.
Key Features of the Broil King Regal 400 Charcoal Offset
The feature list reads like any offset until you notice how much of it is doubled. Grids, charcoal trays and ash trays all arrive in pairs. Only the chimney and the warming rack are singles.
- Two dual-purpose smoke-diffusing charcoal trays. One per chamber. They spread fuel across a perforated bed rather than piling it in a basket. Broil King’s own wording says they diffuse smoke as much as carry coals.
- Cast-iron cooking grids in both chambers. Heavy-duty cast bar, front and offset. Cast iron takes longer to come up to heat than thin rod. Then it stays there.
- Multiple dampers, not one vent. A large diameter steel chimney carries a cast aluminium Roto-Draft damper. A second damper sits inside the cooker and is fully adjustable.
- Coal-door access on the side. Steel access doors with stainless handles let you reach either chamber. Fuel goes in without lifting a lid over the food. On a cooker with two fires to feed, that matters more than usual.
- Removable stainless steel ash trays. One under each chamber. They slide out cold and go back without tools. Nobody has to scrape a barrel floor.
- Stainless steel at every hand point. The lid handles, the door handles and the ash trays are stainless. Painted steel carries everything that does not get gripped. The parts you grip while it is hot are the parts that will not rust.
- A removable front shelf with integrated tool hooks. It folds down for working and lifts off for washing. Tongs hang from it while the lid is up.
- A premium thermometer in the main lid. Broil King names it and publishes no range or accuracy for it anywhere.
- Four durable steel legs with two leg levelers. The levelers sit under the pair without wheels. A durable steel bottom shelf ties all four legs together.
- A chrome-plated steel bottle opener. Bolted to the chamber end, at roughly the height your hand already is.
Start with the two figures Broil King does publish. Primary cook space is 500 square inches. Total cook space is 865 square inches. That larger figure counts the warming rack and the offset chamber together.
The remainder, once one figure comes off the other, is about 365 square inches. That space lies outside the main barrel, and the subtraction is ours. Broil King never divides that remainder between rack and second chamber. Those two are not interchangeable.
The trays are what actually change how this cooks. Burn a small load in the offset chamber alone and the barrel becomes a smoky oven. Load both trays instead and you get a long bench of live coals. Nothing on the page prescribes which of the two you should light.
Air control is honest rather than clever. The chimney damper sets the pull for the whole cooker. The internal damper trims what happens inside it. Two chambers drawing on one stack means that stack setting is always a compromise.
Build, handling and durability
The steel figure Broil King states is 2 mm, or 14 gauge. It applies to the construction, not to any single panel. At 186.0 lbs this does not feel like a barrel grill with a box welded on. Both chambers are the same kind of object.
The finish is high-heat paint. That is normal at this price. Here it is worth more thought than usual. This design asks paint to sit over two chambers that can each hold fire.
A conventional offset only ever heats one of its two chambers hard.
The stand settles any doubt about how Broil King expects this to live. Two 8-in crack-proof wheels ride under one pair of legs. The other pair gets levelers instead. Broil King is saying plainly that this cooker is meant to be parked.
Running costs, upkeep and value
Around $799 buys it on Amazon. Broil King’s own store lists $799.00 CAD. Where an add-to-cart button belongs, it shows “Available soon” instead. Identical numerals, different money, and the maker is not the one selling you one.
The warranty deserves a careful read, because you cannot read it as words. Broil King publishes the schedule for this cooker as a single piece of artwork. Its badge says five years on the body and two years on parts and paint. The table printed directly beneath that badge says three years.
Inside the table, the body and the stainless grids get five years. Cast iron gets three. Cast iron is the surface your food touches. It is covered for less time than the shell around it.
The same table lists a term for Burners. This cooker has none. One schedule covers Broil King’s Smoke Offset, Grill and Cabinet series alike.
Upkeep is genuinely light for an offset. Two stainless ash trays pull out, one per chamber. The front shelf lifts off for washing, and cast iron grids want oiling rather than scrubbing.
Set against that, 865 square inches is a lot of cooker for the money. Cast iron in both chambers is more unusual still. Without the second chamber, that price would read very differently.
Possible Broil King Regal 400 Charcoal Offset Complaints
- The warranty is published as a picture, and the picture disagrees with itself. The badge says two years on parts and paint. The table beneath it says three. You feel that only at claim time, so get the term in writing first.
- The offset chamber has no published area of its own. The 865 and 500 figures are both stated; the split behind them never is. So you cannot size a cook in the offset chamber before the cooker arrives.
