Pellet Grill Smoke Flavor

[ttkt57]

Flavor can't be quantified "scientifically" no matter how much you think it can.

Flavor can be quantified scientifically no matter how much you think it can't.

Qualified, no. Quantified, absolutely. Science can't say anything about ought; it can say a lot about what is and isn't.

Science can't say anything about which flavors you should prefer; it can say a lot about which flavors are and aren't there.

 

[Bob C Cue]

Science says build a UDS!

 

[SmittyJonz]

Oh Ya - Lumberjack and Bear Mountain pellets - Hickory , Mesquite, and 2 Blends that I like

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bear-Mount...Craft-Blends-Pellets-174-20-Lb-Bag/5002072273

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bear-Mount...Craft-Blends-174-Pellets-20-Lb-Bag/5002069689

 

[SmokyDick]

Flavor seems to follow cost, its all mind games. You want to believe your $5k burner somehow burns pellets in a magical fashion.

 

[Headgear]

Flavor seems to follow cost, its all mind games. You want to believe your $5k burner somehow burns pellets in a magical fashion.

I'm not sure if you were directing that to me or one of the others. If it was to me, I say, not really! I even said in an earlier reply that I do not believe there is a magic smoker out there. And I am confident that there never will be. But I do not see any harm in investigating to see if there has been one developed that does have an advantage of better smoke flavor whether in quantity or quality. For instance, back in the day, I graduated through quite a few pellet smokers. As I did, I finally came across and then could afford a MAC. It has by far, better smoke quantity and quality. But even then, there are some things that I do that give me the best smoke that I can get from it.

Now I think that some of the newer smokers have advantages over the ones I have had. Adding wood chips may or may not help for instance. I was curious if an insulated chamber or a better controller could change the smoke profile.

I definitely do not think that by simply throwing more money out there you will get a better flavor. Maybe some other benefits, but no guarantee of better flavor. My wife and I have worked our butts off and have been fortunate enough to be able to spend more for a better smoker than we did earlier in our lives. Even so, I am not going to go what I would consider overboard or I would be asking questions about smokers many times as expensive. I do believe in diminishing returns also.

If that was not intended for me, never mind. :grin:

Regardless, Have a Happy New Year.

 

[jham0077]

Any controller that can adjust feed rate will give you the most smoke flavor. Pit boss has a pretty good feed rate pushing smoke every 5 minutes. That's default with the old non pid controller on their vertical smokers. Recteq in my opinion has the most user friendly adjustable feed rate but only goes down to 180F where the pit boss goes down to 150F, so it just produces more smoke then recteq, but not as clean. Recteq used to allow you to adjust feed rate through the app, but idiots ruined that feature by causing flame outs so recteq removed it from the app. They also had a calibration feature on the app they had to remove due to idiots. The calibration feature allowed you to run as low as 160F by going negative 20 degrees.

That figures....I had messed with mine. And now it's updated and I haven't really paid alot of attention to the app. I forget what I had it set at. I never had a problem with flame outs, and never could get it colder than 180.

Just checked the app. There is still an option to adjust on my grill. They must have changed something in the grill itself.

 

[buckhorn_cortez]

Flavor can be quantified scientifically no matter how much you think it can't.

Qualified, no. Quantified, absolutely. Science can't say anything about ought; it can say a lot about what is and isn't.

Science can't say anything about which flavors you should prefer; it can say a lot about which flavors are and aren't there.

Well, you can do a lot of that by simply looking at the food, can't you? If I see a pumpkin pie, I don't think it's going to taste like chocolate cake.

You can certainly use mass spectrometry to define every chemical in a piece of food - that doesn't tell you how it tastes. So technically, you can quantify food components but you can't quantify how the food tastes.

That's my point - a person's il taste and preferences cannot be quantified. But, it's the Internet and I understand that some people are here simply to argue about minutiae...

 

[ttkt57]

I understand that some people are here simply to argue about minutiae...

I'll leave it to others to say who came here to argue.

 

[4ever3]

You can certainly use mass spectrometry to define every chemical in a piece of food - that doesn't tell you how it tastes. So technically, you can quantify food components but you can't quantify how the food tastes.

That's my point - a person's il taste and preferences cannot be quantified.

This ^

 

[PGarSD]

I have an electric smoker (Cookshack smokette), an FEC-100 pellet smoker, and an huge Klose BYC offset. Each have their strengths/weaknesses and I love them all. I prefer the results from any of them more than what I find at most BBQ joints.



But, if I could only have one, I'd keep the smokette. The FEC-100 has bigger capacity but the amount of smoke on the meat is a little on the light side for my taste. The Klose offset produces the best results but, also takes the most work, both during the cook and clean-up afterwards (and you have to have someplace to store/season all of the wood).



The electric is as easy to cook on as the FEC-100 but I can adjust the amount of the smoke on the meat by simply using more (or less) wood. And, as very little wood is needed on a smoke (~2-4oz/smoke), a 10lb bag of wood lasts me a long time. Clean-up is easy and the electric smoker footprint is very small (~2 feet by 2 feet wide, ~3 feet tall with the storage cabinet underneath). I find it to be the most flexible solution.



That said, I REALLY like playing with fire on the Klose when I have the time. The Smokette and FEC are both so darn easy to use there's almost no challenge to cooking on them to produce great results. Offsets have a greater margin of error so you earn your dinner

 

[rm41400]

A non-insulated smoker will require more btus/smoke to maintain the same temp compared to an insulated smoker. FEC will have a lighter smoke profile over other non insulated PGs. That’s my simple beer-in-hand science contribution for this Friday night.

 

[Headgear]

I have an electric smoker (Cookshack smokette), an FEC-100 pellet smoker, and an huge Klose BYC offset. Each have their strengths/weaknesses and I love them all. I prefer the results from any of them more than what I find at most BBQ joints.



But, if I could only have one, I'd keep the smokette. The FEC-100 has bigger capacity but the amount of smoke on the meat is a little on the light side for my taste. The Klose offset produces the best results but, also takes the most work, both during the cook and clean-up afterwards (and you have to have someplace to store/season all of the wood).



The electric is as easy to cook on as the FEC-100 but I can adjust the amount of the smoke on the meat by simply using more (or less) wood. And, as very little wood is needed on a smoke (~2-4oz/smoke), a 10lb bag of wood lasts me a long time. Clean-up is easy and the electric smoker footprint is very small (~2 feet by 2 feet wide, ~3 feet tall with the storage cabinet underneath). I find it to be the most flexible solution.



That said, I REALLY like playing with fire on the Klose when I have the time. The Smokette and FEC are both so darn easy to use there's almost no challenge to cooking on them to produce great results. Offsets have a greater margin of error so you earn your dinner

I'm with you Patrick, the offset is my go-to pit when I have time to cook. But when I don't I like to have a pellet grill that allows me to set it and get away for several hours to do other things.

Perfect example. I had 14 very large spruce trees that died. Yesterday my neighbor came over with his mini-excavator and we cut the trees up and dug out the stumps, while I had a pork shoulder going in the pellet grill.

I am always busy with something and cannot sit with the stick burner any given day. But I always make room for a day or two a week for it. There is something very relaxing to me sitting there tending to the fire and just watching the birds at the feeders or whatever. It slows me down a little and I love it. But I love BBQ too so on busy days, I like to find ways to squeeze in some kind of a cook at the same time if I can. I am very grateful to be able to do both. It is kind of the best of both worlds.

Thanks and have a great day