United Kingdom
Thesmokinelk is a United Kingdom-based outdoor cooking creator whose output revolves entirely around live-fire cookery — from midweek burgers to whole-animal roasts.
Total Followers +2.2%
464K
Across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok
Primary Platform
YouTube
29K followers · 6% of audience
Engagement
2.5%
vs. 1.5% category median
Sponsorship Tier
Mid
Est. $4.5K–$10K / IG post
The BBQ Magazine featured Elky (Dan Whittaker) in a profile noting he made the decision to leave his IT sales career to cook and teach live-fire BBQ full time, running The Smokin' Elk BBQ School.
The Smokin' Elk BBQ School now operates in partnership with Ember & Iron BBQ, with a dedicated school page on their platform — a notable brand and business expansion beyond his content channels.
| Window | YouTube | TikTok | Combined | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last 7 days | +0 +0.0% | +1K +0.4% | +2K +1.3% | +3K |
| Last 30 days | +202 +0.7% | +5K +1.8% | +5K +3.5% | +10K |
| Last 90 days | +1K +4.0% | +8K +2.8% | +6K +4.2% | +15K |
| Last 365 days | +1K +4.0% | +8K +2.8% | +6K +4.2% | +15K |
Daily follower snapshots from CreatorDB's longitudinal index.
| Brand | Type | Platform | Date | Performance vs. baseline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kamado Joe UK BBQ / Grills | Brand ambassador | Long-term | — | |
| Thermapen (ETI Ltd) Cooking Equipment / Thermometers | Brand ambassador | Long-term | — | |
| Ember & Iron BBQ BBQ / Grills | Long-term partnership | Long-term | — | |
| The Smokin' Elk BBQ School Culinary Education / Live Events | Founder / owned brand | Long-term | — |
Thesmokinelk is a United Kingdom-based outdoor cooking creator whose output revolves entirely around live-fire cookery — from midweek burgers to whole-animal roasts. Content spans a notably wide cultural range, best illustrated by the channel's signature "Around the World Outdoor Cook Challenge," in which the creator cooked a dish from every country on earth, all prepared outdoors over flame, within a single year. That project cemented genuine credibility within the fire-cooking community and reflects a content philosophy grounded in craft and sustained obsession rather than trend-chasing.
The audience skews heavily male and mature, with viewers aged 35 and older forming the largest cohort — a demographic well suited to premium equipment and specialty food brands. Despite a British base, the majority of followers are US-based, signaling reach across the broader Anglophone BBQ community rather than a purely domestic following. Ambassador partnerships with Kamado Joe UK and Thermapen confirm positioning at the higher end of the outdoor-cooking market, while an independently operated BBQ school adds a live events revenue layer that distinguishes the operation from purely digital creators. With TikTok delivering the strongest recent audience growth, Thesmokinelk appears well-placed to deepen its footprint among global fire-cooking enthusiasts.
Thesmokinelk reaches an audience concentrated in United Kingdom primarily through YouTube, and is best activated via long-form YouTube integrations, Instagram Reels and Stories, TikTok branded content. Their sponsorship history skews toward BBQ / Grills, Cooking Equipment / Thermometers, Culinary Education / Live Events, a clear signal of fit for brands in those categories. Demonstrated partners include Kamado Joe UK and Thermapen (ETI Ltd). Engagement on YouTube runs around 2.5%, which points to an audience better suited to category-relevant, mid-funnel campaigns than to pure-reach buys. The channel's mix of long-form YouTube integrations and Instagram Reels and Stories lets a sponsor choose between short awareness placements and longer, more detailed integrations. Because the audience follows food content rather than arriving through untargeted reach, sponsorships that match the channel's subject matter tend to convert more efficiently than broad placements. A consistent, on-topic posting focus gives sponsors a predictable, brand-safe environment, lowering placement risk compared with broad, general-interest channels. Campaigns here are best measured on qualified engagement and consideration within the niche rather than on raw impression volume. For United Kingdom-focused brands in BBQ / Grills and related categories, Thesmokinelk offers a defined, creative-fit audience rather than broad, low-intent impressions.
Benchmark estimates for a creator at Thesmokinelk's tier (Mid, 464K combined followers, United Kingdom). Pulled from CreatorDB's category benchmarks.
The CreatorDB Agency runs end-to-end influencer campaigns globally — shortlisting, outreach, contracting, and performance reporting. Talk to our team about building a campaign around creators in this niche.
Thesmokinelk set himself the challenge of cooking a dish representing every country in the world — all prepared outdoors over live fire — and completed it within a single year. The series became a defining body of work on his channel, spanning everything from British classics to obscure international recipes, all cooked without ever setting foot in a kitchen.
Thesmokinelk is an official ambassador for Kamado Joe UK, one of the most respected ceramic grill brands in the market. He also points his audience toward Ember and Iron BBQ for anyone looking to buy a new grill, with that recommendation featured directly in his Instagram bio.
Thesmokinelk's own venture, The Smokin Elk BBQ School, bills itself as the number one rated BBQ school in the UK. Beyond online content, he runs in-person live events and hands-on classes designed to help people sharpen their outdoor cooking and fire-grilling skills.
Burganuary is a burger-focused January theme that Thesmokinelk runs, riffing on the Veganuary format but dedicated entirely to fire-cooked burgers. It shows up as one of his top recurring hashtags alongside #ukbbq and #firecooking, and is clearly a high-engagement content event for his audience each January.
Thesmokinelk is a Thermapen ambassador, partnering with the brand behind professional-grade instant-read meat thermometers. Accurate temperature readings are especially critical in live-fire cooking where heat is far less predictable than a conventional oven, making Thermapen a natural fit for his content and teaching.
Ember and Iron BBQ is a grill brand that Thesmokinelk actively endorses, directing followers toward it in his Instagram bio when they are shopping for a new BBQ. It sits alongside his Kamado Joe UK and Thermapen partnerships as one of the named brands connected to his name.
Thesmokinelk's range is wide — he cooks everything from Sunday roasts and cottage pie to Texas-style brisket, Barbacoa tacos, and curries, with all of it prepared outdoors over fire. His completed Around the World challenge, covering a dish from every country on earth, is the clearest proof that his cooking goes far beyond UK comfort food.
Yes — whole-animal fire cooking is specifically mentioned in his own description of what he does, sitting alongside everyday meals like midweek burgers as part of his broader live-fire cooking identity. It's a recurring theme that sets him apart from typical backyard BBQ content creators.
Thesmokinelk is based in the United Kingdom, though the majority of his audience actually comes from the United States, reflecting how strong the appetite for BBQ and fire-cooking content is among American viewers. He covers both traditional British dishes and internationally inspired outdoor recipes.
Thesmokinelk is active on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, with Instagram being his largest platform by follower count and TikTok showing the fastest audience growth and highest engagement of the three. He posts regularly across all three, with Instagram and TikTok seeing the most frequent uploads.
Stats (followers, engagement, audience demographics, growth) are pulled live from the CreatorDB API covering YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Bio and FAQ content is AI-assisted; news items are sourced from cited public press at generation time. Read the full methodology →
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