irishboy209
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2016
- Location
- California
here is a post from a different member on a different form that had some of the best description on pellet smokers I came across.
Phil, In time your pallet will adjust to the smoke flavor of pellets. I assume you are a prior stick or charcoal burner. You can try using several of the methods found in various sections of this forum like a Smoke Daddy, Strainer Method, Smoke Stix, the Amazing Smoker, reduce the fan speed to name a few.
But you have to consider pellets are a manufactured biofuel produced from wood materials, usually sawdust, which has been dried, then passed through a hammer mill where the wood fibers are broken down to provide a uniform dough-like mass. This mass is fed to a press where it is squeezed through a die. The high pressure of the press raises the temperature of the wood causing the wood pitch (lignin) to separate and act as a binder forming a natural 'glue' that holds the pellet together as it cools.
With that said, Pellets are compressed wood, they are not “mini-wood Sticks; yes Margret there is a difference; they have less moisture, produce less ash (3-4%), less creosote and other voc’s.
In a nutshell: Pellets burn differently than wood sticks. Hold a match to a pellet and you’ll see it is difficult to light and to keep it burning. Pellets require a forced air burner system. In this system the flame produced is concentrated and intense in the small area of the burn pot as a combustion blower introduces air into the bottom of the burn-pot, while also forcing exhaust gases (smoke) up and out the chimney. This controlled system is much more efficient than stick burners; it just doesn’t produce much smoke.
Joe Traeger, a pellet stove manufacturer an inventor of the pellet grill, was faced with this challenge. He’s solution was to take the very efficient pellet stove burner system and make it inefficient. On high the system is still very efficient and produces very little smoke and on low it is inefficient and produces a lot more smoke but still not as much as a stick burner.
The other part of this is one’s perception or expectations of what a good smoke flavor is. Most food cooked on a stick burner in the backyard is over smoked and we have proclaimed this as “a good smoky flavor”, and “charcoal flavor” is mostly from coal dust, borax and other additives. Did you know that Canada law requires charcoal briquettes to be labeled under the Hazardous Products Act. Living in eastern North Carolina where whole hogs are cooked over hardwood coals the smoke flavor is very subtle and accents the flavor of the meat, never pronounced or overpowering. With my Traeger I can reproduce this.
I end here. If you have read this far you too will appreciate this quote from a fellow pellethead. “I have found the "smoke" flavor to be almost subliminal with the Traegers. It doesn't grab your collar and slap you around. It hits the nostrils like a sexy woman's perfume, and is part of the whole package rather than the main event... that hasn't bothered me in the least, which I'm surprised about...”
Phil, In time your pallet will adjust to the smoke flavor of pellets. I assume you are a prior stick or charcoal burner. You can try using several of the methods found in various sections of this forum like a Smoke Daddy, Strainer Method, Smoke Stix, the Amazing Smoker, reduce the fan speed to name a few.
But you have to consider pellets are a manufactured biofuel produced from wood materials, usually sawdust, which has been dried, then passed through a hammer mill where the wood fibers are broken down to provide a uniform dough-like mass. This mass is fed to a press where it is squeezed through a die. The high pressure of the press raises the temperature of the wood causing the wood pitch (lignin) to separate and act as a binder forming a natural 'glue' that holds the pellet together as it cools.
With that said, Pellets are compressed wood, they are not “mini-wood Sticks; yes Margret there is a difference; they have less moisture, produce less ash (3-4%), less creosote and other voc’s.
In a nutshell: Pellets burn differently than wood sticks. Hold a match to a pellet and you’ll see it is difficult to light and to keep it burning. Pellets require a forced air burner system. In this system the flame produced is concentrated and intense in the small area of the burn pot as a combustion blower introduces air into the bottom of the burn-pot, while also forcing exhaust gases (smoke) up and out the chimney. This controlled system is much more efficient than stick burners; it just doesn’t produce much smoke.
Joe Traeger, a pellet stove manufacturer an inventor of the pellet grill, was faced with this challenge. He’s solution was to take the very efficient pellet stove burner system and make it inefficient. On high the system is still very efficient and produces very little smoke and on low it is inefficient and produces a lot more smoke but still not as much as a stick burner.
The other part of this is one’s perception or expectations of what a good smoke flavor is. Most food cooked on a stick burner in the backyard is over smoked and we have proclaimed this as “a good smoky flavor”, and “charcoal flavor” is mostly from coal dust, borax and other additives. Did you know that Canada law requires charcoal briquettes to be labeled under the Hazardous Products Act. Living in eastern North Carolina where whole hogs are cooked over hardwood coals the smoke flavor is very subtle and accents the flavor of the meat, never pronounced or overpowering. With my Traeger I can reproduce this.
I end here. If you have read this far you too will appreciate this quote from a fellow pellethead. “I have found the "smoke" flavor to be almost subliminal with the Traegers. It doesn't grab your collar and slap you around. It hits the nostrils like a sexy woman's perfume, and is part of the whole package rather than the main event... that hasn't bothered me in the least, which I'm surprised about...”
