Quote:
Originally Posted by cooper barrett
Depends,
Not a fan of pellet cooked meat over being cooked over real wood. Some pellet smokers are taking all the love out of smoked meats and letting simi trained circus animals to put out decent butt roasts and briskets.
On a pellet unit you burn pellets for heat so you are putting smoke to the food 100% of the unless you wrap it. (steam it) and I don't do that. With a stick burner, you can add, pull, or reduce the wood to get the smoke, the sweetness or bitterness. you prefer and let the charcoal or gas provide clean heat.
Pellet smokers have a place but I'm old school when it comes to putting out some great BBQ, pellet smokers IMHO take the love of mopping and maintaining a fire with the best mix of heat and flavor that's real BBQ. Pellet smokers are technologies way of saying "**** you"to the pitmasters of hundreds of years of BBQ history.
I own a tailgate smoker unit that runs on wifi controls and yes it's a pellet burner. It is like the only option for an RV as I fire it off as a main method of cooking as rv overs suck ass. It is used as an oven as much or more than a smoker.
It is lightweight, has a small footprint (stores under the bus) and can be set on a tailgate, table, or can use its handles as legs and be set up anywhere. My granddaughter (11) can move it and set it up herself, and the power usage is very little which is very important to RV'ers. I don't have to deal with what to do with hot coals and ashes as there are almost none from the Davy Crocket. I don't have to empty it to store it I can pull the food, fold up the grill and store it immediately after cooking.
Pros burn logs fired off with propane for heat, after the logs burn out the food cooks using just the gas for heat. This allows them to get great smoke flavor, of their liking, followed by consistent heat and being able to sleep through the night.
My friends and family have been BTT (blind taste tested) and they choose real wood followed by charcoal over pellet smoked every time. Sometimes my local craft BBQ/ smoked meat emporium cooks on one of their pellet pits and not only I buy many other catch it right away.
I am not a pussy, I learned how to control fire, smoke, and heat, and consider it a call of duty to get up twice during the night to check on my smoker. If I had a bad ass 1/4 plate smoker, I could make it overnight or a one tripper but my $1300 stick burner and I have a unique relationship where I get a nice Bourbon for checking on the fire at 3 am and my SO rewards me for coming back to bed. If I used a pellet smoker overnight I'd check on it just for the benefits 
That tell you where I stand? |
Pros do that with gas fired logs then just run gas huh? Yeah, NO! See, by pros you mean guys that make money doing it generally. Competition guys will be disqualified if you use gas for anything other than starting your fire. If you let the logs burn and keep propane on, you are disqualified. Also, people don't wrap to stop getting smoke generally. They wrap to speed up the cook time. Yes, it is because of steaming, and for that reason I never wrap anything. I've been a competition bbq guy for over 20 years. Charcoal is what most of the guys end up cooking the comp meat with, and now pellets have been on the scene for about 10 years in comps and they do VERY well, even with old school guys. The big rigs with logs on them during the cook are all for show and generally for feeding the party that shows up. The real pit pros cook the logs off on another unit or barrel then transfer the hot coals to the smoker. Otherwise you will get too much smoke and not the right kind. Or, they use natural charcoal, which is made of wood and gives the same effect and then they just add a couple of small blocks of wood for flavor.
I've got a Weber Smokey Mountain, which is what most of the comp guys cook their turn in food on unless they are using a pellet grill. I've also used a side by side (horizontal) stick burner, and now I have a Grilla OG pellet grill. I did a large cook last weekend, and the wings were the best I've ever made, and my wife and several others said the same about the ribs, and I did them all on the pellet grill with Hickory pellets.
Also, yes, the pellet grill heats pellets (compressed wood if you use the right kind) for heat and smoke. I have news for you, that's the same way a stick burner works. It burns wood for heat and smoke.
So, to sum up, get off the high horse. Some of us "pitmaster" are using pellets and getting great results. I was a purist for years until I tried a pellet grill and realized that I can come home from work and use it just like a charcoal grill with the same taste but the ease of gas.