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Pellet smoker?

I haven't pulled the trigger on one yet. You guys gave me a lot to think about.

We're just going to start on a 12x20 screened in gazebo where the pellet grill and gridle stuff is going to live (stupid mosquitoes :shaking:) , with a firepit area off to the side. Once I get a better idea of the space I have for cooking/counter area layout I will get something coming.

The double walled Traegers have my eye as they are readily available local, but I do like the look of these ones. Look well built.

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I need to save up a bunch of money. :laughing:
 
Stuck said:
You are the perfect example of someone who needs a pellet smoker. Im not being derisive. Its the perfect type of smoker for someone who doesnt know shit about smoking meat.
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Hey, that’s me! I’m a self proclaimed meat-atard. Bought a pellet cuz charcoal is a pain and gas is gay.

I like the ease of pellet, and gets me enough flavor.
 
After a couple life snags I finally ended with something. Got a brand new scratch n dent floor model Traeger 780 pro for $500 with a cover. Either got tipped over backwards or tied down on its back and put two little flat spots on the trim pieces on the ends. Seasoning it now while I watch YouTube vids on what not to do.

Going to smoke some chicken first because it’s cheap and if I mess it up, not the end of the world to throw away.

I don’t have any delusions of a pellet smoker making me a pro bbq master. Just want decent tasting food since I only eat meat n veggies anyway.
 
JR4X said:
After a couple life snags I finally ended with something. Got a brand new scratch n dent floor model Traeger 780 pro for $500 with a cover. Either got tipped over backwards or tied down on its back and put two little flat spots on the trim pieces on the ends. Seasoning it now while I watch YouTube vids on what not to do.

Going to smoke some chicken first because it’s cheap and if I mess it up, not the end of the world to throw away.

I don’t have any delusions of a pellet smoker making me a pro bbq master. Just want decent tasting food since I only eat meat n veggies anyway.
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It’ll do that!
 
I haven't bought one yet, but I just got finished building the new deck and gazebo where one will be living. Hoping soon. I have been using my blackstone grill a lot. love that thing for big group cooking.
 
JR4X said:
After a couple life snags I finally ended with something. Got a brand new scratch n dent floor model Traeger 780 pro for $500 with a cover. Either got tipped over backwards or tied down on its back and put two little flat spots on the trim pieces on the ends. Seasoning it now while I watch YouTube vids on what not to do.

Going to smoke some chicken first because it’s cheap and if I mess it up, not the end of the world to throw away.

I don’t have any delusions of a pellet smoker making me a pro bbq master. Just want decent tasting food since I only eat meat n veggies anyway.
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Just make sure you clean out the burn pot every now and then
 
JR4X said:
After a couple life snags I finally ended with something. Got a brand new scratch n dent floor model Traeger 780 pro for $500 with a cover. Either got tipped over backwards or tied down on its back and put two little flat spots on the trim pieces on the ends. Seasoning it now while I watch YouTube vids on what not to do.

Going to smoke some chicken first because it’s cheap and if I mess it up, not the end of the world to throw away.

I don’t have any delusions of a pellet smoker making me a pro bbq master. Just want decent tasting food since I only eat meat n veggies anyway.
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I would start with pork.

Poultry is harder to smoke well than pork and beef because it has less fat.

You don't need to constrain yourself to proper cuts of meat. You can smoke ground meat. Throw it in a little cast iron skillet, oven safe glass pan, whatever.

Heck, you can smoke a meatloaf if you want.:laughing:

Spam and canned ham come out real good (for what they are) too.
 
arse_sidewards said:
I would start with pork.

Poultry is harder to smoke well than pork and beef because it has less fat.

You don't need to constrain yourself to proper cuts of meat. You can smoke ground meat. Throw it in a little cast iron skillet, oven safe glass pan, whatever.

Heck, you can smoke a meatloaf if you want.:laughing:

Spam and canned ham come out real good (for what they are) too.
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I did a meatloaf on the pellet smoker. It was yummy.
 
I find whole chickens very easy to smoke on a pellet smoker. Just don’t do the beer can chicken thing, and buy a decent digital net thermometer (thermopen, thermopop, or similar).

Season the shit out of the whole bird, run it as low temp as you can for an hour or so (at these ambient temps, maybe 200 is as low as you can go, maybe 210). Then turn it up to 225 or so. At 140 degrees meat temp, turn it to 350 to crisp up the skin a bit, and pull the chicken at 165 meat temp. Overall time should be 3 or 4 hours.
 
BBQ hardos are the worst. They are right up there with IPA drinking douche bags and wine snobs. That being said anyone that thinks a pellet smoker will replace an offset stick burner is an idiot. There's a reason why you don't see serious competition guys smoking on pellet. But there's a huge time commitment. All the guys I know that are stick burner only guys I'm convinced it is just a reason to spend an entire day in the yard drinking away from the wife and kids.

I used to think the pellet grills were lame until I cooked on a buddy's. Set up the cook and went and hit the lake and came back to perfectly cooked meat. It doesn't replace an offset but it's good enough and it's just another bullet in your BBQ gun. Also don't be one of those morons that tries to sear on one. Anytime a brand markets itself as the grill to replace all your other grills avoid it. If you want to sear do it on something else. Tons of other options. I am in the market to purchase a pellet for myself, until now just cooked on my friend's so I'll continue to follow this thread.
 
One more thing on the chicken—leftover smoked chicken is possibly the best meat you can add to scrambled eggs. A bit of chopped bacon, then start the eggs once the bacon is done, start the scrambled eggs, and the chicken goes in once the eggs begin cooking.
 
Jr4x, just use it as a grill for a while if you want to build up "seasoning". A couple of high heat cycles should take off all the manufacturing grease-nasties before cooking anything.
It is important to buy decent quality pellets and avoid loose sawdust in the hopper - auger.
Are pellet grills the best at any one thing, not really, but they do all things pretty well. I don't have the time to f around with an offset smoker all day and I don't want 4 different bbqs sitting on my porch for just the right task.
A friend has the big oval big green egg and he does everything on it with great results. The only bad I have had from my reqtec is from a lousy cut of meet.
 
OHV Wildcat said:
One more thing on the chicken—leftover smoked chicken is possibly the best meat you can add to scrambled eggs.
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Smoke a canned ham (or low sodium spam if you want a little more seasoning) and see if you still feel that way.
 
redneckengineered said:
BBQ hardos are the worst. They are right up there with IPA drinking douche bags and wine snobs. That being said anyone that thinks a pellet smoker will replace an offset stick burner is an idiot. There's a reason why you don't see serious competition guys smoking on pellet. But there's a huge time commitment. All the guys I know that are stick burner only guys I'm convinced it is just a reason to spend an entire day in the yard drinking away from the wife and kids.

I used to think the pellet grills were lame until I cooked on a buddy's. Set up the cook and went and hit the lake and came back to perfectly cooked meat. It doesn't replace an offset but it's good enough and it's just another bullet in your BBQ gun. Also don't be one of those morons that tries to sear on one. Anytime a brand markets itself as the grill to replace all your other grills avoid it. If you want to sear do it on something else. Tons of other options. I am in the market to purchase a pellet for myself, until now just cooked on my friend's so I'll continue to follow this thread.
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Recteq for a pellet. They seem to work fine, all of them make heat and are unable to control amount of smoke without adding another gizmo to make more smoke. But for an outdoor oven that tastes a little smokey and won't heat your house up they are the way to go.

I'll pull the pin and toss in the grenade that the Big Green Egg is set it and forget it also and truly is versatile enough to do it all. But there's no way an electric pellet pooper will get hot enough to make a pizza or sear a steak. It's just not capable.

There are two things with the egg that take more time, getting it going and changing gears. It takes about 10 minutes to get lit up and that's more than flipping a switch or pushing a button on an app. Changing gears meaning going from smoke to sear. You have to remove a hot diffuser plate under the grill grate which means the grill grate has to come off with the food. You can just open the vents and make it go from smoke to 7th level of hell in about 10 minutes though.

It's all in what you like, I've had some truly awful traeger stuff and some truly awful stick burner and charcoal stuff. Just take you meat, mix up some Bobby Flay's rib rub, or just salt and pepper, shake that shit on, with a shaker and cook it until it jiggles. It's good then.
 
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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Pellet smoking is not “real” bbq. Is it convenient, simple, and produces great food, yes.

I have an OKJ Highland. It works, but it’s a lot of work, I’ve made some awesome food and some shit food, but I think that’s what makes the experience. I have to check on it every 45-hour. I get jealous when my neighbor walks away for 8 hours and produces awesome ribs.
 
Some of you guys talk out of your ass.
If you know what you are doing pellet grills are fantastic.

I’ve done 10ish pizzas, plenty of steaks,
Tons of Butts, 2 briskets, burgers, hot dogs.


Grills are all different. It’s like arguing ford vs Chevy. Blah blah blah.


edit: I’ve put 168hrs on my recteq this year. Zero on any of my BGE‘s.
 

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aron82 said:
Jr4x, just use it as a grill for a while if you want to build up "seasoning". A couple of high heat cycles should take off all the manufacturing grease-nasties before cooking anything.
It is important to buy decent quality pellets and avoid loose sawdust in the hopper - auger.
Are pellet grills the best at any one thing, not really, but they do all things pretty well.
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I followed the instructions on that last night. Plus full blast for 1 hour + the 25 minute shutdown.

I’ve been a year with no grill. Good enough is going to be just that, good enough. What pellets do you like?
 
FWIW - i started off with chicken thighs. Roughly an hour around 225* and they were awesome.

dried out some pork "nuggets" we tried cutting up a shoulder. Left em on too long, they were OK but that was a learning lesson
 
JR4X said:
PitBoss people.

I’m just one guy, a bachelor not really cooking for anyone but me. I don’t need a huge smoker. What model is gonna be a good steak smoker? I like tender red meat, rarer steaks are my favorite. My little brother smoked meatloaf for 9 hours a while back and it was good stuff.
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I recently got this when Target closed them out. It’s mostly for my GF and myself. It will do 2 racks of ribs or 2 pork butts (maybe 3). It has 2 temp probes and wifi and it takes up much less space than the offset we were given.

Have done chicken legs, ribs and butts.
 

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JR4X said:
What pellets do you like?
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Bear Mountain and LumberJack burn the cleanest and have the least amount of ash that I have encountered.

For long cooks I also run a smoke tube with a mixture of pellets and wood chips.

As others mentioned, start with a pork butt. Very forgiving cut of meat to cook and will season the grill nicely. Bonus if you can find a whole shoulder bone in. I have been doing those lately and they taste more like a whole pig roast when completed.
 
Gotta say, I’ve never done a pork butt with absolutely zero sugar. As long as that’s the requirement, you don’t have infinite options. My dry rub ribs even have a very small amount of brown sugar. On the order of a couple tablespoons spread across 6 racks, but it’s in there. Pork butt is forgiving, but starting on a 16 hour cook or whatever seems kinda unnecessary to me. Chicken is cheap to screw up from both a cost and time input standpoint, and I’ve never smoked a bad one.

On the pellets, I use Pit Boss competition blend. They’re cheap, available at every Walmart, and come in 40 pound bags, so there’s less sawdust. The only pellets that I have strong opinions on are traeger. Screw those oil-flavored, overpriced things.
 
OHV Wildcat said:
Gotta say, I’ve never done a pork butt with absolutely zero sugar. As long as that’s the requirement, you don’t have infinite options. My dry rub ribs even have a very small amount of brown sugar. On the order of a couple tablespoons spread across 6 racks, but it’s in there. Pork butt is forgiving, but starting on a 16 hour cook or whatever seems kinda unnecessary to me. Chicken is cheap to screw up from both a cost and time input standpoint, and I’ve never smoked a bad one.

On the pellets, I use Pit Boss competition blend. They’re cheap, available at every Walmart, and come in 40 pound bags, so there’s less sawdust. The only pellets that I have strong opinions on are traeger. Screw those oil-flavored, overpriced things.
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I’d grab lumberjack pellets but once I used Pit Boss comp blend I didn’t see a need to use anything else. The trick is not getting a bag that’s beat to fuck in the store so you have less dust to deal with.
 
surpip said:
I dig the Costco brand pellets, really good flavor and they’re like close to half as much as the other brands.
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Last time I bought them Costco was the winner for $/lb. They run good in my junk and taste pretty good too. I don't think I can taste the difference between pellets tbh
 
Went ahead with the chicken because I got 4 quarters for $9 bucks on sale and stuck with the thought of throwing it out if I trashed it. Did Lawry’s dry rub then finished with buffalo sauce. Turned out very edible for a first run although it took at least an hour longer than I thought it would to hit “done” temp. Only making the post to show off my follow through. Not world class but better than deli shit. Pork loin next task.
 

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JR4X said:
Went ahead with the chicken because I got 4 quarters for $9 bucks on sale and stuck with the thought of throwing it out if I trashed it. Did Lawry’s dry rub then finished with buffalo sauce. Turned out very edible for a first run although it took at least an hour longer than I thought it would to hit “done” temp. Only making the post to show off my follow through. Not world class but better than deli shit. Pork loin next task.
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That’s exactly why our first cook was chicken legs and jalapeño poppers. It didn’t take very long and if we screwed up could order pizza..
 

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