More smoke flavor with a Yoder?

[-Chris-]

I like to buy and use many different kinds of smokers. Right now, my main smokers are a Primo XL Oval and BGE XL.

I recently picked up a YS640 since I love the set it and forget it convenience. In the past, I have owned a YS1500 and a YS480.

I just cooked a 10-pound brisket with Lowes "competition blend" pellets at 250 degrees for around 10 hours. I placed a water pan above the firebox. I tightly wrapped in foil at 170 degrees. I also injected the brisket with beef broth and Worcestershire powder since it was a thin choice brisket. I only rubbed it with salt and pepper. Due to the water pan, I did not see any need to spritz it during the cook.

The brisket was tender, had around a 1/4" smoke ring, but has nearly zero smoke flavor. My guests loved it. I had it the next day, after a shower, allow my nose/tastebuds to relax, whatever and it is still bland from a smoke perspective.

I don't buy the "clean smoke" story that Yoder tells. I had a Myron Mixon 36 for a while that burned really clean and still provided more smoke flavor. Is it an issue with how efficient the smoker is? It just doesn't burn enough pellets to create enough smoke?

What are some things you guys have tried? My ideas are:
1. Use a stronger wood like mesquite
2. Lower my smoker to 225 or even 200 until the meat heats 140 degrees
3. a-mazn-tube? I have tried this before and did not notice much difference
4. Spritz with water/Worcestershire sauce mix to make the brisket "stickier" and absorb more smoke?

I would love to get to the "tastes like a fireplace" stage and then be able to dial it back. Even things like mac and cheese, that is loaded with oil, taste much smokier on my BGE than the yoder.

Thanks!

Chris

 

[-Chris-]

I finally found the search function, looks like I have some reading to do first. I don't have the ability to delete this post.

 

[STLBBQer]

My Blaz’n Grand Slam burns crazy efficiently. Temps don’t swing AT ALL even in 30 degree temps. It puts out enough smoke for birds, but is lacking for pork or beef. I always supplement with a smoker tube. Lately I’ve experimented with mixing in wood chips with the pellets in the smoker tube and that’s given me exactly the smoke I’m looking for. It still burns many hours due to the consistency with the pellets, but the wood chips give it that extra kick.

 

[Shadowdog500]

Welcome to the world of pellet smokers. This is a common complaint that I had as well. They say you get used to it, but I didn’t. I bought a GMC which has more smoke flavor than my pit boss, but still isn’t as good as a WSM, and use it mostly for poultry.

Pellet smokers are convenient and are great for chicken and turkey, but I doubt you are going to get the smoke to penetrate deep into a brisket unless you add some liquid smoke to your injection ( which would probably be disgusting). I’ve tried all of the recommended pellets, the pellet tubes, smoking at low temps at extended times and never found the results I was looking for. The one thing that I found that did work was a heavy D wood burning diffuser. Here is a link https://youtu.be/ex4GD_l-5Fc

The heavy D puts out the smoke level you are looking for. The one drawback I found is that sometimes the wood burnshotter than the pellet cooker can compensate for and you have to prop the lid open slightly and in one case I had to shut my pellet cooker off until the wood burnt out.

I’ve got to the point where I use the pellet cooker for convenience, but pull out my WSM when I have the time or want to serve really good BBQ to guests.

 

[Cookb4]

I owned a YS640. I used a Amazin tube to get the smoke favor I wanted.

 

[shaddie]

I have a pit boss vertical smoker (about 4 months old) and I tried something new yesterday. I had 2 chickens and a pork butt. Did at 150 for 2 hrs. Also put a smoke tube in during this time. My taste buds say lots more smoke flavor than previous cooks. Almost too much but chicken tacos today were awesome with perfect amount of smoke.

 

[-Chris-]

Lately I’ve experimented with mixing in wood chips with the pellets in the smoker tube and that’s given me exactly the smoke I’m looking for. .

Wow, that is a great idea!

Shawdowdog500

Yes, I bought the Yoder for capacity and convenience as well. I am going to try the smoke tube again with some chips in it.

Chris

 

[RCAlan]

Chris, definitely give the Smoke tube a try again... If you have more then one smoke tube, use two. Make sure they are lit properly as well to insure they’ll give you a good 2-3 hours of good strong smoke. Mix the Smoke tubes with a strong wood like Mesquite or Hickory chips and if possible, Lumberjack Char-Hickory pellets or Mesquite/Hickory pellets. 50% wood chips to 50% pellets mixed together in the smoke tube/tubes... In the Pellet Hopper, use either Mesquite or Hickory pellets and bbq for the first 2-3 hours at 180*-200* degrees and no higher for a brisket. Spritz every hour for the first 3-4 hours to help the smoke stick to and penetrate the brisket. After the third hour, then bump your Yoder up to 250*-275 to finish your cook. FYI, the higher your Pellet Smokers temp setting is, the more and harder your smokers fan will blow air out... and smoke out of your smoker. If the Smoke tubes and lower grill temps don’t produce enough smoke for you, hopefully it will, then your only other option would be is to add a true hardwood/lump charcoal burning Smoke Generator to your Yoder. On your next brisket cook, give the Smoke tubes and lower grill temp setting tips a shot and good luck.

 

[CrabbyAppleton]

Get a stainless tray and put charcoal in it. Then chunks of your preferred wood. Light it and stick it in the pellet grill 15 min. prior to the meat. If you find it goes out, then get an aquarium pump and some copper tubing to spray air on it during the cook. Works great. If you like it you can make a manifold. Google heavy metal BBQ he shows how. WAAAY better smoke than a smoke tube and less hassle. You can even throw another chunk on if it burns too fast - tailor the amount etc.

 

[SMOKE FREAK]

The one thing I avoid with any smoker is the "taste like a fireplace" thing. It's a fine line to taste like an ashtray.

 

[mike243]

I didn't know Lowe's had a brand of pellets, If you can source some shag bark from a hickory tree put several strips down in the tube then pack pellets in with them, adds a lot more flavor imo. I like the Lumber Jack brand, B&B , bear mountain , pitboss and Traeger don't use 100% of the stated wood, they use blend and oils to make the pellets, a blend can be great but when you want a taste profile a certain way you get 100% if you can

 

[Whisky]

I have a Yoder and use a tube for longer cooks and/or bigger pieces of meat. Otherwise I personally like the flavor smaller cuts of red meat and poultry as is.

It has been dang near a year since I've used my XL BGE. Cleaned it up today and reverse seared an elk tri tip with lump and only 1 chunk of hickory. Too smoky. Guess my tastes have changed.

 

[Curt.P]

I'd try a different pellet first. I've had some that produced very little smoke flavor which seems to be pretty common for house brands (at least in my experience). I'd ditch the water pan too.

 

[gtsum]

I had ceramics and went to yoder and then Memphis pellets and now back to burning sticks. I tried all sorts of pellets and got the best results from lumberjack 100% hickory. I used a tube at times also. You are never going to get a heavier smoke profile with the yoder unless you smoker chips or chunks or other. I had very good results with lumberjack though (better than the Memphis which had less smoke flavor). My tastes changed and I sold em all to burn bigger pellets (logs). Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[luv2smoke]

I wished I had 10 bucks for every thread started on how to glean more smoke flavor from a pellet grill, I'd be a wealthy man.

 

[Zalick]

Seeing as you like buying grills, If you want amazing smoke flavor from a pellet grill, get a MAK!. Robb @rwalters can chime in more eloquently than me but the smoke profile is not just about efficiency, it's about the controller "stoking" and the fan blowing at appropriate times. This is what really differentiates pellet grills. MAK built their controller from scratch and uses a variable speed fan. I get incredible smoke flavor from 180 up to 350.

I have two Traegers, a Primo XL, GMG Dan Boone and MAK 2 star.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[RCAlan]

I wished I had 10 bucks for every thread started on how to glean more smoke flavor from a pellet grill, I'd be a wealthy man.

Very true... New Pellet Grill Owners often times approach it the wrong way. To get a decent smoke flavor profile from a pellet grill alone, you have to start the cook on Smoke mode or a temp of 200* degrees or lower. If the Pellet Grills temp is set above 250* degrees and especially if it’s above 300* degrees, it’s like cooking in your oven. After finding out the hard way, they search the Web for help and answers and windup here...

 

[buckhorn_cortez]

Most pellet smokers / grills are extremely efficient at burning pellets, and they all have a temperature at which they will produce the most smoke. Pellet grills will have a low temperature "smoke" setting that corresponds to under 200 F. The smoke setting should be between 170 F to 190 F. On my MAK, the grill stays at 190F on the smoke setting. One of the things that controls the amount of smoke is the fan, and at lower temperatures the fan setting is the slowest speed meaning the smoke stays in the cooking chamber for a longer period of time as the air is moving more slowly and stays in contact with the meat longer.

Smoke is mostly a surface effect and doesn't penetrate the meat more than about 1/8 of an inch. This means that the greatest amount of smoke flavor can be created early in the cooking process. You can use that knowledge to your advantage and can help the smoke flavor by using cooking strategies to help you maximize the smoke flavor early, and then promote additional smoke flavor throughout the cooking process. Physics is part of the process and can be used to your advantage to help attain more smoke flavor. Thermophoresis is a force that moves particles from warm air to a cold surface. Putting the meat into the smoker cold rather than at room temperature and having the smoker temperature set to "smoke" uses thermophoresis early in the process to get more smoke onto the cold meat surface.

As the cooking time progresses, you can regularly spritz the surface of the meat with a liquid to help increase smoke flavor in two ways. The smoke particles stick to wet surfaces and because of thermophoresis, as the liquid evaporates from the surface of the meat, it momentarily cools the surface slightly causing the smoke particles to move from warm (the air inside the smoker) to a cooler surface which is the meat cooled slightly by evaporation.

You may want to add extra time to your cooking process to account for the lower temperature of the smoke setting - and then once you have developed a good smoke layer on the meat, raise the temperature to finish the cooking process and use spritzing or mopping the meat with a liquid to continue building smoke during the remainder of the cooking time.

For people who don't believe that thermophoresis is a real effect, you can prove it to yourself quite easily. Take an empty soda can and fill it with ice water and an empty soda can at room temperature and put both cans into your smoker for 30 minutes. At the end of that time see which one has the heaviest coating of smoke - it will be the one filled with ice water because of the cold surface. The cold can will also have more smoke on it because there will be some condensation caused by the temperature differential between the interior and exterior of the can and the wet surface will allow more smoke to stick to it.

You are going to have to tailor your cooking technique to account for how your pellet smoker operates. Stick burner, vertical cabinet smoker, WSM, drum smoker, or charcoal grill - you can use any of them to make really good, smoked food. You simply need to alter your cooking techniques to account for how the equipment operates. You can get great food from a pellet smoker with lots of smoke flavor, you just need to adjust your cooking process to use the equipment to the best advantage.

 

[-Chris-]

I wished I had 10 bucks for every thread started on how to glean more smoke flavor from a pellet grill, I'd be a wealthy man.

Nah, not here. This is my 3rd Yoder, I know what I am getting into. I don't have the desire to babysit a stickburner and even the XL BGE or Primo XL aren't big enough for most of my cooks. I am looking for tricks to optimize the smoke flavor. Seems like I have quite a few now.

1. Stronger pellets (I am working on my second Lumberjack group buy)
2. Smoke tube with chips
3. Take out the water pan and spritz to cool the surface to attract more smoke

 

[-Chris-]

Quick update, did a 12-pound bone-in pork butt for New Years'.

Stats:
12 pound pork butt - placed fat cap side down!
Injected with the Chris Lily injection apple juice, water, sugar, salt
Rubbed with my own Memphis rub
Cabela's peach/pecan pellets at 225 degrees - 16 hours
spritz with water/Worcestershire sauce near the end of cooking
no water pan
placed some pellets on top of the diffusor

Results:
The pellets smoked nicely on top of the diffuser plate, but since it was an overnight cook I only was able to add some initially.

Probably the best butt I have ever cooked. It just fell apart and was so moist throughout.

Putting the fat cap down shielded the meat from the bottom heat design of the Yoder. It was amazing, all the fat rendered off the butt just leaving delicious meat.

Unfortunately, my buddy put it best, "Wow, that butt is amazing and has no smoke flavor, Heather will love it."

I just tried a piece of bark this morning, no smoke taste at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a 20 pound waygu brisket that I will cook this week. I am going to try a smoke tube with chips and will cook the brisket upside down as well. I am going to go straight to a mesquite blend to try to get more smoke flavor.

Chris