The Official Pellet Grill Smoker thread.

[EyeBurnEverything]

Originally Posted by smoke ninja

weird......all your pics show up for me candice.


looks good, is the timberline the cooker you wanted it to be?

As far as keeping a steady stable temp yes. I think its going to be a learning curve to get the amount of smoke i want dialed in. I chose a really mild wood flavor (Alder) and it wasn't quite clear on what temp to set to start, it just said to use the smoke setting, but you can't use the smoke setting unless you set a temp. Its was confusing, so i initially started at 225 and thenpressed the smoke button, but there wasnt very much smoke at that temp, so i dialed it down to 175 and then pressed the smoke button and that seemed to work better, but again, i used a very mild wood flavor so for the hour in smoke mode it wasn;t very smoke flavored, but it was delishious regardless. And was perfectly cooked, both the sausage and the chicken. Probably one of the juiciest beer can chickens i have ever done.

[KevinJ]

MAKtion - Blackened Amberjack.

[rwalters]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

MAKtion - Blackened Amberjack.

Perfectly done!!!! :)

[dubob]

Store bought 2.5 pound corned beef brisket flat after soaking for 24 hours with 3 water changes, applying About.com pastrami rub recipe and sitting for 2 days in the fridge.





Just placed on the grill and starting the cook.





It reached an IT of 150*F about 10 minutes ago and I double wrapped it in HD Foil with a 1/2 cup of beef stock. Will check for tenderness when the it reaches 190*F.


Life is good!

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by EyeBurnEverything

I think its going to be a learning curve to get the amount of smoke i want dialed in.

I tried to make every smoker I had work like a pellet smoker without using pellets as heat source. Now that I have a pellet smoker I apreciate the control and want to make it's heat source do somehitng besides heat, like smoke.

It would be swell if a pellet machine had two hoppers/augers/fireboxes, one for heat fuel which would be the cheapest we could find and one to smolder the flavor wood, which is expensive to use for heat.

Lower temperatures give better but inconsistent smoke. Higher temperatures smoke a lot less and you realize that hard to find flavor wood in the hopper is sinking pretty quickly. I am experiementing with my kludge smoke tube and it really does seem to answer this question, at least for me. When I developed my tube, they were new and pretty expensive. Now they are very inexpensive. The advantage of DIY is you can make them longer and of a larger diameter. Plus it's fun.

[EyeBurnEverything]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

I tried to make every smoker I had work like a pellet smoker without using pellets as heat source. Now that I have a pellet smoker I apreciate the control and want to make it's heat source do somehitng besides heat, like smoke.

It would be swell if a pellet machine had two hoppers/augers/fireboxes, one for heat fuel which would be the cheapest we could find and one to smolder the flavor wood, which is expensive to use for heat.

Lower temperatures give better but inconsistent smoke. Higher temperatures smoke a lot less and you realize that hard to find flavor wood in the hopper is sinking pretty quickly. I am experiementing with my kludge smoke tube and it really does seem to answer this question, at least for me. When I developed my tube, they were new and pretty expensive. Now they are very inexpensive. The advantage of DIY is you can make them longer and of a larger diameter. Plus it's fun.

I am about to blow your mind, there is this thing called a AMNPS (short for Amaze N Pellet Smoker) Its this tray that is like a "Maze" go figure. Yu fill it with pellets and light one (or both) ends and it will smolder pellets for up to (8 hours?) i could be wrong but i asure you, it will solve your problem.

Disclaimer, I have owned one of these contraptions, and they do work, but in my experience, they didn't last more then 6 months due to cheap metal. Maybe i got unlucking and they uses a cheap sopurce of metal for my build. But they do work well while they last.

[electron_si]

I’ own 2 different styles of AMNPS and have had no issues with quality. They are both more than 3 years old and used often.

[EyeBurnEverything]

Originally Posted by electron_si

I’ own 2 different styles of AMNPS and have had no issues with quality. They are both more than 3 years old and used often.

I bought mine more then 5 years ago. I would like to believe at some point, they tried to cut corners and sold a $hit product and must have had enough backlash to change production quality. I guess i just got unlucky? Do you think if i send them an email with my amazon order# they will send me a new one?

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by EyeBurnEverything

Disclaimer, I have owned one of these contraptions, and they do work, but in my experience, they didn't last more then 6 months due to cheap metal.

Yes, when I made my tube the A-MAZE-N tubes existed and if I recall they were about $49+ if you could find them. At that time, the mazes were dust only and had a poor reception. I knew I had the perforated stock and I tinker with metal. It might eventually cost me more today but I like making stuff and I can whip one out in a hour or so. If a guy is not a metal worker, the $15 upfront cost on over-the-counter units is trivial.

I can make it as heavy duty as I want however the real upside to DIY is diameter. A-MAZE-N made the diameter choice for you and probably sized it for a regular Webber. Lets assume the over the counter tube is upright, like a candle. Lets assume the only thing smoldering is the narrow char zone at the surface, probably a surface area of 3 inches on a 2" diameter tube. The area on my 4" tube is 12.5 inches. Pellet smokers move a lot of air volume and this helps.

It really made my vertical smoker easier to control and still get great flavor. One of the zen things here on the forum is to learn your smoker and let it do it's thing; less force, more reliability. Once I started to let my smokers find their set-point zone they behaved better and the smoke tube solved a lot of issues that created.

Consider my mind blown.

[EyeBurnEverything]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Yes, when I made my tube the A-MAZE-N tubes existed and if I recall they were about $49+ if you could find them. At that time, the mazes were dust only and had a poor reception. I knew I had the perforated stock and I tinker with metal. It might eventually cost me more today but I like making stuff and I can whip one out in a hour or so. If a guy is not a metal worker, the $15 upfront cost on over-the-counter units is trivial.

I can make it as heavy duty as I want however the real upside to DIY is diameter. A-MAZE-N made the diameter choice for you and probably sized it for a regular Webber. Lets assume the over the counter tube is upright, like a candle. Lets assume the only thing smoldering is the narrow char zone at the surface, probably a surface area of 3 inches on a 2" diameter tube. The area on my 4" tube is 12.5 inches. Pellet smokers move a lot of air volume and this helps.

It really made my vertical smoker easier to control and still get great flavor. One of the zen things here on the forum is to learn your smoker and let it do it's thing; less force, more reliability. Once I started to let my smokers find their set-point zone they behaved better and the smoke tube solved a lot of issues that created.

Consider my mind blown.

Stay clear of the pellet tube. As much as i hate the quality of the tray i bought, the Tube is just way too much smoldering smoke at once. The tray is steady subtle smoke.

[Joshw]

Originally Posted by EyeBurnEverything

Stay clear of the pellet tube. As much as i hate the quality of the tray i bought, the Tube is just way too much smoldering smoke at once. The tray is steady subtle smoke.

I have 2 tubes and a tray, and can't say I notice any difference in smoke, from any of them. I use them all, depending on how many hours of smoke I want.

[electron_si]

Originally Posted by Joshw

I have 2 tubes and a tray, and can't say I notice any difference in smoke, from any of them. I use them all, depending on how many hours of smoke I want.

Yeah I used both and they both work great. The tube takes up way less space

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by electron_si

Yeah I used both and they both work great. The tube takes up way less space

A significant benefit to the tube/tray is better control and resultant flexibility. I like beef heavy, chicken less and I hope to do one of those yard-long salmon with lighter smoke. With a tube you can dial it in with the same wood variety.

One of my 2" tubes is 24" long and I thought I might load it and start the char in the middle, create two burn fronts that work their way to the ends. I never tried it though, however it might be justified due to the pellet smoker process. Were it a true recycling convection process, a little smoke would go along way. Since my unit regularly exchanges 100% of the environment frequently a strong, steady volume of smoke may be better initially.

My next one might be a U instead of an O cross section. Fun to tinker.

[WBDubya]

2019 MAK 2 Star grills are only a week or two away from shipping. Who's in with me?

[stan5677]

Originally Posted by WBDubya

2019 MAK 2 Star grills are only a week or two away from shipping. Who's in with me?

I'll test it out for you if you route it to Frederick first. You know quality control.