Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
SloppyQ said:
Pecan is on my list to try for sure. The Oak that I have is OHP - Ozark Hardwood Products.
Pecan is on my list to try for sure. The Oak that I have is OHP - Ozark Hardwood Products.
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
SloppyQ said:
The best deal is to buy an entire pallet. Of course, that's a lot of pellets. But if you go in on a group buy, then you save some $$.
Solidkick
somebody shut me the fark up.
Nice job guys.......very informative....and I'm sure the thread will continue to grow.....
Q
Q_Egg
Guest
.... raises an early question for me about starting with fruit (or a mix) and then switching to oak for the longer cook time. That means more 'manual intervention', but maybe it is worth it. May also depend on my access to Ozark Oak tt's. Looks like Wyoming is the closest source.SloppyQ said:
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
I don't have the timing down on how long a hopper full of turds will last. For long cooks on a 075, you are going to have to refill at some point. Start with the fruit, hickory, and pecan turds then top it off with Oak on the back end of your long cook.Q_Egg said:
I'm cooking some thighs for lunch and a pork butt for the teachers at my sons' school. They go to an English-Spanish speaking preschool. I'm trading some BBQ for tamales. :tongue: I've loaded it up with 50% apple and 50% hickory. Once my hopper drops down toward the bottom, I'll start putting Oak in to finish the pork butt.
I took some pictures of my pellets both seperate and mixed. You'll see that you can only tell a difference in the oak... a different vendor. I'll post in a bit.
Q you can get them from Traeger also. They suggest you use theirs anyway.
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
Q_Egg said:
Why not sign up as an OHP distributor? If you have the space, you could buy a partial pallet and share or sell with others in your area.
DeanC
Full Fledged Farker
I have been using Branch Creek pellets, the hickory and cherry blend, and love them.
W
Wine & Swine
Guest
Great thread guys, I am learning alot. Thanks.
kcpellethead
Full Fledged Farker
Wow . . .glad to see there is so much talk about pellets and pellet cookers. I have not read the entire thread, but I will tomorrow. To answer the questions about pellet blends and types of wood. I started out using a Pennington pellet that Fast Eddy sells. They are 60% hickory, 40% oak. Since, I've tried just about everything under the sun. Blends, straight fruit woods, Osage Orange (hedge), you name it. I always go back to that original blend for two reasons. One, you need a wood with high btu output. Oak is excellent for that. Hickory is pretty good too. When I cook with 100% fruit wood, my cooker burned significantly more fuel without noticeable different in taste. Which is my second reason. Pellet cookers burn fuel more efficiently than most other pits. So, the different woods just don't change my flavors enough to warrant cooking with them. In fact, they pretty much smell the same. So, dance with the one that brung you, and for me, it's that original 60% hickory, 40% oak blend. Plus, they're cheap!
Good question Todd. Hope this helps answer it.
Rod
Good question Todd. Hope this helps answer it.
Rod
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
kcpellethead said:
That pretty well represents what we've heard from long time pellet cooks: fruit turds just don't change the flavor much.
Rod, do you notice a flavor difference between straight hickory and straight oak? I'm just getting into different pellets, but I can't tell a difference... or it is really subtle at best.
Thanks, Todd.
kcpellethead
Full Fledged Farker
Todd,
I can't recall if I've cooked with straight hickory or not. If I did, the pellets came from Branch Creek. I've cooked with 100% apple, 100% cherry, and 100% pecan for sure. Oh, and Osage Orange. My meat was darker with the cherry, but the flavor change was so minor. Plus, it took a lot more pellets to achieve the same results.
You folks are mostly cooking with 075's, while I'm using FE-100's. I'd think there might even be a little difference in our cookers, but wouldn't know exactly what.
One thing about pellets, be careful about heating fuel pellets. They are very inexpensive but use a petroleum lubricant when extruded. Supposedly food safe pellets are extruded with vegetable based lubricants. It might all be bunk, but I can purchase my pellets cheap enough that it's not worth the risk of burning any petroleum products in my pit no matter how minor.
Some folks swear by different wood pellets. It's not that I don't believe they make a difference. However, for me, I just don't see enough of a difference to warranty the expense or effort of using those products.
I've now read this whole thread. Great discussion.
Rod
I can't recall if I've cooked with straight hickory or not. If I did, the pellets came from Branch Creek. I've cooked with 100% apple, 100% cherry, and 100% pecan for sure. Oh, and Osage Orange. My meat was darker with the cherry, but the flavor change was so minor. Plus, it took a lot more pellets to achieve the same results.
You folks are mostly cooking with 075's, while I'm using FE-100's. I'd think there might even be a little difference in our cookers, but wouldn't know exactly what.
One thing about pellets, be careful about heating fuel pellets. They are very inexpensive but use a petroleum lubricant when extruded. Supposedly food safe pellets are extruded with vegetable based lubricants. It might all be bunk, but I can purchase my pellets cheap enough that it's not worth the risk of burning any petroleum products in my pit no matter how minor.
Some folks swear by different wood pellets. It's not that I don't believe they make a difference. However, for me, I just don't see enough of a difference to warranty the expense or effort of using those products.
I've now read this whole thread. Great discussion.
Rod
Q
Q_Egg
Guest
------------------------------------------------------kcpellethead said:
This is exactly the type of Reply I was hoping for !! Man .... it saves so much time, money, and wasted effort repeating mixes that have already been tried. Some other Replies also gave another comment on this and will help me a bunch! Many thanks Brethren ........
Regards,
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
kcpellethead said:
Cool. We are hoping to sell our stick burner and invest in a FE-100 as well.
Plowboy
somebody shut me the fark up.
After Rod's post, I think I'll try a Cherry/Oak mix and see how I like that. I like the idea of the darker color, but 100% cherry sounds excessive.
kcpellethead
Full Fledged Farker
Plowboy said:
That sounds like a pretty good idea. I'd say 2:1 oak to cherry or 1:1 maybe. Pellet cookers just burn their fuel so efficiently, it's hard to get distinct flavor differences from the different pellets in my opinion.
Rod
Solidkick
somebody shut me the fark up.
kcpellethead said:
So let me ask this....if the difference in the make up of the pellets (hickory, oak etc...) isn't giving you distinct flavor differences, then are you saying that your winning ways are coming strictly from your rub and sauce combinations? I would think you'd have to have some flavor from the pellets, maybe not the fruit woods per sec, but the hickory, maple, etc....
kcpellethead
Full Fledged Farker
Solidkick said:
Well, ummmmmmmm, I guess the short answer is "no." However there is way more to it. I think a combination of things, including luck, have contributed to our success this year. After all, no matter how well you cook, you still have to find four tables of six judge (five really) that like your product on that day.
Honestly, having your product perfectly cooked and not giving the judges something to ding you for, is probably what works best for us. Hopefully, nothing we do is offensive to a judge, whether that be smoke, spice, sauce, etc. When it comes to doneness, overs usually beat unders, but when it comes to seasoning, sauce and smoke, unders usually beat overs. If anything, no matter how hard you try, you won't over smoke your product with pellets. That eliminates one variable in the equation, allowing the cook to concentrate on other things.
I'm rambling here, but not on purpose. It's hard to get it all out in print this way. Hopefully I'm sort of clear. If not, ask questions.
Rod
P.S. - As I read this, I sort of confuse myself because I'm always trying to put myself in someone else's shoes. Someone might respond that we had some success with a stick burner this year as well. EVERY contest we cooked, somebody walked up to my pit on Saturday morning to comment that I wasn't cooking. Every one of them. It was a huge compliment to me each and every time. They couldn't see the smoke coming out of my stack. That's exactly how I want my pit to burn.
Q
Q_Egg
Guest
This statement is one I can read over and over and smile each time!
I acknowledge my relative newness to this enjoyable pursuit, but I work hard at it and take it very seriously. This post says far more than its words and it makes a strong impact. Maybe it's just me and my particular point in the learning curve, but I feel like printing it and putting it on the wall.
-------------------------------------------------------kcpellethead said:
I acknowledge my relative newness to this enjoyable pursuit, but I work hard at it and take it very seriously. This post says far more than its words and it makes a strong impact. Maybe it's just me and my particular point in the learning curve, but I feel like printing it and putting it on the wall.
