Just got my first pellet smoker. Any tips?
 

Honestly, I wasn't even looking for one, but I was at Sam's Club on Saturday and their demo company was selling the Z-grill700-2F. The guy pitched it to me and I was sold. The fact that he had one left in the box, and 2 already built displays left, one which I was able to buy, closed the deal. The price was great too. It was only $399. They have the same model on the company website, on sale, for $529.
Anyway. I brought it home and immediately burned it in and grilled some steaks and pork chops on it, which turned out great. I plan to smoke a brisket or rubs on it this weekend. I watched some videos on YouTube. One guy smoked his ribs using the 4--1-1 method. Smoke 4 hours at 225, wrap in foil and add water. Cook for another hour, remove the foil, add BBQ sauce and smoke for another hour. I've never tried that method. Sounds like a short cut to get them tender in half the time. Do any of you like that method?
I know that you guys are the kings of all things BBQ, so any pointers would be greatly appreciated. It sounds like this is going to make smoking a breeze. Fill the hopper, set the PID, and go. Is it really that easy with pellet smokers?

Don't burn the house down.

That's all I got.

Should have picked up an Air Fryer while you were at it.

For practice, smoke a shit load of Chex Party mix, add some nuts, you can even add peanut M&Ms. After eating several pounds of that in a few days, you are ready for steak. Thick cuts work best...it will be the most tender, flavorful steak you've ever had.

I normally use Bar S hot dogs on my pellet smoker, although my co-worker swears by Oscar Mayer.

They’re pretty easy. Just make sure the pellets don’t get wet and if there is a shutdown procedure follow it.

cooper will be along shortly to criticize your purchase.

Low and slow prime rib is excellent... buy good pellets.

Don't tell the purists, but if you add enough liquid smoke to your BBQ sauce nobody knows whether you smoked your ribs or only grilled them.

















Unless you are the one doing the grilling and since I don't have a pellet smoker, I mess around with smoker boxes...

https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/show...t=grill+inside


Don't do this...






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Don’t do the entire cook on the smoker. Once you got enough smoke on the meat finish cooking in the oven. Saves pellets. If you need pointers go to howtobbqright.com

Not into the pellet smokers. Prefer and use stick burners.

Not understanding how a 4-1-1 method cut the time in half. It's 6 hrs either way. Just like a 3-2-1. Maybe I just don't get it.

Get a good remote reading thermometer to keep an eye on the internal meat temps.

Sounds like what a cafeteria's like Furr's would do. I'll have to just trust you on it.

Still any Furr's around?

Just your childish post.

Glad to see you're posting like the Bar S "Weiner" you really are.

Pellets take all the fun out of locating/ smoking with exotic or fruit woods.

it's like burning MDF boards just with liquid smoke and/ or apple juice in the mixture. I'm with Sponge on using stick burners.

Leave the pellets to the ladies.

I'm with sponge

I like stick burners with a selection of fruit and hardwoods. Pecan and apple with a little red oak can't be bought in a bag.

But then again, your wifey can now smoke meat just as good or better than you.

Sounds like my concerns are shared by several of you. That the flavor won't be as good with the pellets. I may just use it for grilling and stick with my wood smoker for smoking.

It actually comes with 2 temp probes that monitor the meat temp through the PID

I mean do what you want, but honestly, sometimes it’s nice to turn out Q that is maybe a notch down from your best cook on the stick burner, but turn it out while you’re busy and don’t have to babysit.

Besides there are pellet rigs in competitions, so don’t let the naysayers dissuade you without trying.

Throw a butt on there and see what happens.

Malcom Reed from the link above and Meat Church BBQ YouTube channels smoke a lot of stuff on pellets. I’m sure there are a million other channels as well.

Give it a try, if you don’t like it no harm no foul, but definitely try it. It’s super easy. And I fully acknowledge that for some dudes the joy is in the process, but convenience has value.

pellet smokers are like automatic trannys. Just because most people buy the automatic doesn't make them better.

Check the BBQ thread. Lots of advice in there.

Oh, I'm definitely going to give it a try. You make good points. I don't smoke nearly as often as I would like for the simple reason that I don't have 8-10 hours to babysit it and keep the temperature right.

I thought about that. But I assumed that there wouldn't be much about pellet smokers in there. I'll check it. Thanks.

Get a tube of Pillsbury biscuits and cook them in the smoker. It will help you figure out what spots on your grill are hotter than other spots.

The earth was very hot when it was first formed

Make sure to season the grill for 600 years before it’s first use. Professionals call it the Age of the Earth method.

Practice smoker, competitive smokers use Rec Tec

Cooper the tranny expert

This is sound advice. I left pellets in the auger once over the off-season. Bad mistake. The pellets absorbed moisture from the air, and set up like concrete.

Pellet Grills/Smokers are just that, a combo. They do a great job of grilling meat. I put a seer on my steaks first in a cast iron pan... They smoke OK, actually pretty good, for little work, but it's obviously not as good as an actual stick smoker...

I wouldn't eat the pellets if I were you.

:doh!: Seems like you're getting quality advice here

I've always looked at it as each smoker/grill is different.

Each persons taste/preference is different.

There are a ton of ways you can smoke or grill meat and someone will disagree.

My favorite part of grilling and smoking is the actual act of standing next to the grill while poking around trying to come up with ideas.

If I did have one opinion to offer would be to buy cheap meat at first. Grab you a cold ones(s) and spend a weekend messing with it. You can change so much when smoking meats. Everything from prep to cooking times and temps. Don't waste a lot of money on an expensive piece of meat until you get YOUR recipe and time/temps down.

Just my 2 cents

THis might be worth a watch. I've always found this guy to give honest and good advice.

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I have a Yoder YS640 Pellet Grill Smoker. I absolutely love it. Smoking has as much, if not more, to do with prepping the meat as it does smoking it. So, I scoff at all the “traditionalists” that say pellet grills can’t provide the same smoke and flavor as stick burners. It’s a load of BS

Enjoy the pellet grill. They are fun and easy to use.

You can get plenty of smoke in your meat from a pellet smoker. I just did two pork butts and a brisket in my pellet smoker and they turned out great. I also have a stick burner. One thing you can do with a pellet smoker that you can’t do with a stick burner is to cook food over night. Throw your meat on the smoker at a temp of around 200 degrees and let it cook low and slow while you sleep. Turn the temp up when you wake up and the food is ready sooner. There’s fun in managing a fire then there are times you just want the food because you have other things to do also.

Yep, that's the exact model I have. The beast weighs about as much as a small bus and does a fantastic job of smoking. The thickness of the steel really helps me out when it gets colder around here as well. I have had stick burners in the past and as you stated, you can't tell the difference in the end product.

You know I suffer from PTSD right? Thanks for starting my Monday with a bang.

And then you did exactly what I said you would.

ROFL

Should have never said any thing about a stick burner. Just not into pellet.

For those those that like their pellet smokers. I have no issue there. You do you, boo boo.

But a traeger box store knockoff isn't going to perform as well like a yoder.

What did the yoder run, $2500 without the competition cart? Big difference in the $300-500 smokers in the OP than the professional 2+ thousand dollar Yoder smokers.

https://www.yodersmokers.com/pellet/...-pellet-grill/

For best results, pre-soak your pellets in liquid smoke.

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I've always been a bbq purest, would only smoke over wood and grill over charcoal. Then last year my buddy wanted me to make some ribs on his new RecTeq pellet smoker for his daughter's graduation party. I offered to make them at home on my offset then bring them over but he insisted so after warning him they wouldn't be as good as they normally are I said fine.

As much as I hate to admit it, they were nearly identical to what I've made for years on my WSM and offset. So I bought a RecTeq Stampede for myself and haven't regretted it at all. The only thing I don't like about it is it's making me lazy and I've been finding myself using it more than my stick burners.

Do you really?

A good friend took first in ribs at the Jacks Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue contest a few years ago with a pellet smoker.

As usual, you don't know what the **** you are talking about.

I had an island built and bought the drop in version of the YS640. You are correct, colder temps don't bother the smoker with the thickness of that unit. Hell, it's so heavy, my wife can hardly open the hood :)

I just bought a ZGrill (ZPG-7002B) a couple of months ago. Lowes had them on sale. They said they had purchased a bunch more than they intended so they had to mark them down. They were originally $500 and they had them marked down to $200. I figured why not get into pellet grilling for a small price. So far, I love it.

I would recommend you get yourself a wireless temp probe for your meat.

This thing makes smoking/grilling easy. It's hard to over cook food and easy to cook it just right if you have a temp probe.

I smoked my first pork butt on there on the Saturday night before Easter for all my relatives who were coming the next day. I started smoking a 10lb butt at about 4pm but I only did it for about an hour. Needless to say, I was up at 3-3:30am taking the thing off the grill because it was done cooking. Lesson learned. Next time, I will do like you suggest and smoke for several hours and not actually start the cooking temp until right before bed.

Ok, first off, nice buy. I have a pellet smoker (Grilla) and a WSM. By comparison, you won't get quite the smoke from a pellet so if you like more smoke flavor, use a smoke tube or box in the smoker. I prefer a lighter smoke so I don't use one.

As for the ribs, do NOT foil them at all. That essentially steams them and while it does speed the process, you lose quite a bit of the bark and meat juice to steam. Put the smoker on 225 and smoke for 5 hours for baby backs and 6 for spares. Use the bend test to make sure they are done, or check with a fork and done when fork tender. Those times should pretty much get you there though. You will have a great bark and flavor. If you want to add sauce, add it the last 45 minutes or so.

Get one of these to use exclusively for cleaning out the ash in the firebox.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bucket-H...0100/202017218

That's the one I got, except that I got the 2F, which is this year's model. It has a PID and 2 probes. I got it at Sam's, but this link at Amazon has the best pictures and description.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pd_rd_wg=4cwbZ

1,000,000% truth. I finally got one and the thing is simply amazing...

Damn modern conveniences. Why the other day the grandkid was asking me why didn’t I buy ribs from a grocery store instead of butchering hogs in the backyard and making my suburban neighbors mad at me.

I just started smoking cheese with my A-MAZE-N cold smoker tube. Love it.

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Thank you. Great input. I didn't think that the foil steaming sounded like a great idea. As for the smoke tube, I'm going to look into that. I like plenty of smoke flavor.

Great advice. First time I cleaned mine out I forgot to put the filter back on (used it for water previously) and completely doused my neighbor's yard in ash. It rained a few hours later though so I dont think he noticed.

I've also put a chunk or two of non soaked wood right on top of my heat deflector of my pellet grill and it'll add tons of smoke also. I don't like a heavy smoke flavor though so unless I'm doing a real short cook like chicken wings, I don't use a smoke tube

Love my pellet smoker. The key for me is to marinade everything first. Ribs and steaks I do overnight, salmon the day of. It's the best salmon I've ever had. With ribs I do the 3-2-1 method. They are incredible.

No lol

Yeah, I like the smoke flavor, but you can absolutely get too much smoke on the meat. I want the smoke to be an additive to what I've got on the smoker, but I want the marinade, rub, etc of the meat to be the main event.

I wouldn't do a brisket right away. Things like pork butt are almost can't screw up. Brisket is one of the most difficult and expensive cuts to get right. Make sure you've got temp measurement and meat prep right on cheaper cuts first I would say.

People think they can taste a big difference between pellets and sticks?

LMAO

Pellets melt in your mouth, sticks are more tough.

A friend of mine roasted his vacuum by cleaning too soon.

What about a bundle of sticks?

They need Jesus.

This.

Go with pork butts or whole chickens to start with.

Work your way up to ribs and brisket.

Too much smoke leads to creosote buildup which will make everything taste bitter.

Not the first time I've read this, but I have a ton of buildup in my WSM and it has never put out any meat with even a hint of bitterness.

:shrug:

Yeah if not for the counter weight on top, it would be a bicep abuser.

I've cooked baby back pork ribs a few times using this method you mentioned on my Traeger and they turned out great. I used apple juice instead of water. After smoking them added a mixture of seasonings, honey, yellow mustard etc. Here's the link of the recipe.

https://www.traegergrills.com/recipe...baby-back-ribs

Everyone at the family BBQ loved them.


Last night I cooked a 2lbs tri-tip on my Traeger. First I rubbed some dry seasoning on then smoked the meat for 2 hrs. Then I put it in some foil after basting it with Mustard, Korean hot sauce, Worchester sauce, and Mmmm BBQs sauce. I cooked it at 275 for about 40min. Came out great. This was me just experimenting with different sauces.

Have some fun with it and try to experiment with what you may like.

Feel the thick dirty gray smoke produces the off flavors, at least in wood burners.

People tend to put their meat on too early when its billowing like a campfire instead of waiting for the wood to burn clean.

Buildup on the smoke isn't the issue. Too much smoke will actually deposit creosote on the meat itself.

Absolutely true.

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I prefer 3-2-1 or 3-1-1 (babybacks) but I use chicken broth or applejuice instead of water.

I prefer 275F for pork anything but like all things BBQ related YMMV depending on your setup and your personal preferences. Obviously there's some best practices, but you can use the same cut of meat at the same temp for the same duration on 2 different cookers and the results will vary.

Just tinker around with yours to find what works best to your liking and enjoy the process.

You are really reaching...

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You are younger than me.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/10...g?v=1492720278

This is great so that the rib meat doesn't get caught in your dentures

Meat, fire, salt and pepper = Burp

Does it matter what it’s cooked on?

All kidding aside....I love learning from Malcom Reed “How to BBQ right” website.