Treager Question

I have a treager and haven never seen a difference I've tried a couple hours on smoke and then turned up to 250 and another time just cooked the butt at 250 and got the same smoke ring and flavor. So that's how I do it just cook straight through at 250-275 hope this helps.

I just put a Boston Butt on the Traeger 075 a couple of hours ago. It was a 6 lb butt.

First I washed it after I got it out of the package and patted it down dry with paper towels. I rubbed it with yellow mustard and then put a Weber seasoning on it, I think its called Cajon something. I expect it to go for about 7 hours at about 250 degrees.

I did a 4.5 lb one last week and everyone loved it so I will be taking this home for christmas to share with the rest of my family.

After you pull it off wrap it in foil and a towel and set it in a cooler for one hour. I know its hard to wait but its well worth it. Once your hour is up I just pulled the meat with forks and it turned out excellent.

Good Luck!

The "smoke" setting is just another temp setting on the grill. If you are using a digital thermostat, the temp you set it to will be maintained by the grill. When you set it at "smoke" it is purely based on time. In the summer, smoke might give you temps around 180-225, in the winter, smoke might only give you temps around 140.

For me, I never use the smoke setting. I set the digital at 225 and do not switch it, especially for pork butts, brisket and ribs. Chicken I do at 275.

Pete

I'm still playing with, and learning about, my new-to-me 075. On the Traeger forum someone suggested begining & ending your cook on the smoke setting. Like I said, I'm still trying to figure this thing out .

I have started with the smoke setting and then increased the temp after a few hours and I've just put it to temp and let it go till finished and we have noticed any difference either way. The only difference was with the flavor from different types of pellets. We have settled on Apple pellets as our go to pellets.

I experienced huge temp differences between my dome therm. and my digital therm. When I put a thermometer at grate level I found it to be different temp than the other two readings. So I plugged dome thermometer hole and added at tru-tel in the center of lid at grate level. Now I can read a thermometer and know what temp. my pit is where my meat is cooking. With this all being said, like what fireman pete said, smoke is just another temp setting. If 225* is cooking at an average hotter than what I'm wanting that day I switch to smoke.

I've owned a traeger for five years and I still haven't got it figured out. Last night I tried 'grilling' some fish on setting 'high'. Because if you set it on high - it should cook hot with very little smoke. Well I go outside to check on them and the traeger io at 450 degrees and there is gobs and gobs of white smoke billowing out of my traeger. Like I said, I just can't figure it out. Sadly to say, the fish was over-smoked and not many of the family enjoyed it.
But to answer your question - there isn't any reason why i use the 'smoke' button anymore. I cooked pork spareribs last week at 225 for 1.5 hours and they were some of the best I have had. Even though there is a Traeger recipe that requires 4-6 hours of cooking on 'smoke'. It's your smoker, you'll have to play with it a little to get the desirable outcome. God, that's why I love smokin', it's about the process and the figuring it out.