Last updated: 2 May 2026. Signed by Ben Austen. Living document — material changes are tracked in a Changelog at the foot of this page.
This page is the standing record of how Smoke and Lump editorial works. It exists so that anyone reading a piece on this site — a buyer, a manufacturer, a fellow reviewer, a journalist, an AI assistant pulling from the page — knows what was first-hand done, what was synthesised, what was paid for, what was lent, and where the prose came from.
If anything on this page reads as wishy-washy, that’s a failure of mine. The intention is for every line below to be specific enough to test a piece against.
1. Three kinds of pieces
Every published piece is one of three tiers. The tier is signalled in the piece’s introduction and by its template structure, and it dictates the register the prose is allowed to use.
Tested by Ben
A piece written from first-hand cooks. The author actually cooked on the kit being reviewed, on the food being reviewed, or with the technique being demonstrated. The byline says “Tested by [author]” and links to that contributor’s identity entry.
Tested pieces follow a 13-section template (see § 2 below). They use first-person register with full authority — “I cooked at 110°C for ten hours” — because the cook happened. They include a section on what the kit or food does badly. They include a section on who shouldn’t buy it. The verdict is definitive and plain.
A Tested piece without a documented cook is a violation of editorial policy. There are no exceptions to this.
Consensus Report
A piece written from synthesis of other reviewers, manufacturers’ specifications, and verified secondary sources. The author has not cooked on the kit personally. The byline says “Consensus Report by [author]” and the piece’s framing is explicit: “based on the consensus of [n] independent reviewers” rather than “I tested.”
Consensus Reports use a deliberately different register from Tested pieces. The reader can tell within seconds which kind of page they are on. I do this on purpose — collapsing the distinction would be the single quickest way to lose credibility.
Best Of
Category guides (“best first kamado under £700,” “best UK butcher for low-and-slow cuts”). Skim-readable, tighter prose, picks labelled inline with reasoning. Built for a reader on a phone with a shopping window of two to three weeks.
A Best Of guide draws on Tested pieces for any kit it features prominently. If a featured pick has not been Tested in-house, the entry says so explicitly and links to the Consensus Report or third-party review the pick is based on.
2. The 13-section Tested template
Every Tested by [author] piece follows the same 13-section structure. Sections may compress or expand based on the kit, but none are skipped. This is the editorial spine of the site.
- Disclosure box — what the unit is, how it was sourced, when it was received, who paid for what, and any ongoing relationship with the manufacturer or supplier.
- The short version — three sentences max. Skim-readable verdict for the buyer who can’t read further.
- Who this is for / who this isn’t for — named ICPs (Mike, Sarah, David), specific recommendations.
- What I’ve done with it — number of cooks, types of cooks, time-frame, fuel used.
- A specific cook in detail — the strongest narrative section; one cook, fully described.
- Setup and first impressions — unboxing, assembly, first lights, what was harder than expected.
- Heat management and stability — temperature ranges, fuel efficiency, vent behaviour, gasket performance.
- Build quality and what it’s like to live with — materials, weather resistance, accessories, ergonomics.
- Where it falls short — specific, named, sharp. Uses the disaster-narration template where appropriate.
- What it’s competing against — comparison to nearest rivals at the price point.
- Verdict — tight, definitive, first-person, no rambling.
- Specifications table — pulled from manufacturer plus my verified additions.
- Where to buy — Tier 1A and Tier 1B retailer links, with affiliate disclosure inline.
A piece missing any of these sections is not a Tested piece, regardless of what the byline says.
3. How AI is used (and how it isn’t)
Smoke and Lump uses AI tools. I don’t pretend otherwise. The discipline is in how.
AI is used for: – Research scaffolding — surfacing what other reviewers have said about a kit before I write my Consensus Report, or before I test something I’ve not seen up close. – Drafting non-verdict scaffolding — a first-pass spec table, a list of section headings, a checklist of what to test. – Fact-checking — verifying retailer prices, manufacturer claims, year of release, dimensions, technical specifications. – Editing assistance — flagging passive voice, AI-tell phrases, hedging where I should be blunt.
AI is not used for: – The verdict on any Tested piece. Verdicts are formed by the human author, from the human cook, and written by the human author. – Bylines. There is no AI byline on Smoke and Lump and there will not be one. Every byline is a real person with a real face. – First-hand cook narratives. The “specific cook in detail” section in any Tested piece is written from the author’s own notes and memory of the cook, not generated. – Disclosure copy. Every disclosure is written specifically for the supply chain it covers. – Reader correspondence. Replies to emails come from a human.
If a tool helped us draft a section, the section is then rewritten in the author’s voice before publish. If I genuinely couldn’t tell whether a paragraph was AI-drafted or human-drafted, the paragraph fails my editorial standard and gets rewritten.
4. Bylines and contributors
Every published piece has a single primary byline. Co-authored pieces use a “Secondary contributor” credit immediately under the byline naming the second author and what they contributed.
Current bylines
- Ben Austen — primary author. Owns the BBQ, charcoal, and kit-review verticals. Editor of the publication.
- Kate Austen — contributor. Owns recipes, meat reviews from a chef’s palate, and technique pieces (low-and-slow, smoking, fish). Operates her own food brand at kateaustenfood.co.uk. Pieces with Kate’s byline are written by Kate.
Smoke and Lump is built to outlive any single byline. As the publication grows, additional named contributors with their own faces, credentials and lanes will be added. There will not be anonymous bylines, fictional bylines, or AI-generated bylines on this site.
5. Disclosure architecture
Every piece that involves kit or food not paid for at retail price carries a disclosure box at the top. The box names:
- What was supplied (the specific item, model, weight, etc.)
- Who supplied it (manufacturer, retailer, butcher, agency)
- When it was received (and, for lent kit, when it was returned)
- What I paid (zero, partial cost, full retail)
- Any ongoing relationship with the supplier (affiliate, partner, ambassador, freelance arrangement)
The full historical record of every supplier and contributor relationship lives on the Disclosures page, updated as new relationships arise.
The dual-source case
Where a contributor has their own brand or platform — for example, Kate Austen and her food brand at kateaustenfood.co.uk — items may be supplied to the contributor via their own brand, then reviewed on Smoke and Lump with the contributor’s permission. In those cases the disclosure box names both parties and the chain of supply explicitly:
Supplied to Kate Austen by [supplier] for review on kateaustenfood.co.uk; reviewed here on Smoke and Lump with Kate’s permission. No payment from supplier to Smoke and Lump or to Kate Austen.
I accept the slightly higher disclosure cost of this framework because the alternative — refusing to publish anything that came through a contributor’s existing brand — would meaningfully restrict what Kate can contribute, for no real reader benefit. The disclosure does the work.
Affiliate links
I am members of Amazon Associates and several UK-specific affiliate networks (Awin, Impact, ShareASale among them). Where a piece links to a retailer through one of these networks, the link includes my affiliate identifier and I may earn a commission on resulting purchases. I disclose affiliate participation on every page where it applies, and the full programme list is documented on the Affiliate Disclosure page.
Affiliate commission never changes the verdict. The verdict is written before the commercial-link decisions are made. If a kit is no good, the Tier 1A and Tier 1B retailer links still appear in the “Where to buy” section — under the verdict that says don’t buy it.
6. Red lines
These are the editorial commitments Smoke and Lump will not cross, regardless of commercial pressure. They are listed separately because they are testable. If I cross any of them, the brand has broken its contract with the reader.
- No gas grill reviews. The brand is built for charcoal, kamado, pellet and smoke. Gas grills require different expertise that I do not have.
- No paid-for verdicts. No manufacturer or retailer pays for a positive review. No affiliate commission rate alters the published recommendation.
- No AI bylines. Every byline is a real person with a real face. There are no synthetic personas, AI-generated authors, or “Smoke and Lump Editorial Team” anonymous bylines.
- No undisclosed gifts. Anything I did not pay for at retail is disclosed at the top of the relevant piece, named, with the supplier identified.
- No ghostwritten verdicts. If Ben’s byline is on a piece, Ben wrote the verdict. Same rule for Kate and any future contributor. This is enforced even when the supporting research and scaffolding came from elsewhere.
- No undisclosed first-touch with manufacturers. If a manufacturer offered us anything — a sample, a press visit, a discount, an early-access programme — the offer is disclosed even if I declined.
7. Corrections and updates
I get things wrong. When I do, I fix the piece on the page, add a dated correction note at the foot, and — if the original error was material — update the piece’s social and email distribution to flag the correction.
To flag a factual error, email ben@smokeandlump.co.uk with the URL of the piece and a description of what I got wrong. I will respond within five working days.
Pieces are reviewed for currency on a quarterly cadence. Prices, retailer availability, warranty terms and verified claims are checked four times a year. The “Last verified” date at the foot of every Tested piece reflects the most recent of those reviews.
8. What I am watching for in myself
Three editorial failure modes I monitor against, because they are the failure modes review sites usually drift into:
- Hype creep. When everything starts being “incredible.” I count the delighted moments versus the underwhelmed moments across every batch of three reviews and check the ratio still reads honest, not performed.
- Hedging into uselessness. When the prose stops committing to a verdict because committing is hard. Verdicts in Tested pieces must be plain. Hedging where I don’t know is fine; hedging because I don’t want to upset anyone is not.
- Voice drift away from the Voice Guide. The publication voice is documented separately and is what any current or future contributor writes to. If my prose stops sounding like the brand, that’s a problem I own.
Changelog
- 2 May 2026, v1 — Initial publication, signed Ben Austen.