Cabela's brand of pellets?

[darwin101]

Hi all,

Has anyone tried the Cabela's brand of wood smoking pellets?  It looks like they are replacing the Traeger brand with their own in my local store. I will be using them in my A-MAZE-N trays & tube.  

My primary question would be on performance in an A-Maze-N tray or tube and secondly what do you think of the taste/quality of smoke?

The Competition blend (hickory & cherry) and the Pecan & Peach sound interesting, but I don't need a 20# door stopper.  The GF gave me five 20# bags of Traeger that I am still using, so no rush for more, just curious.

 

Thanks

 

[pbibler]

Hi, I was just searching to ask the same thing, though it's been a while since you posted.  I thought the Cabela's apple pellets were good, but I'm using the peach pecan now, and the amount of ash is ridiculous.  There's so much, it leaves a gray tinge on the skin when I smoke a turkey.  So I'm not using them anymore, I'm going to find another brand.  Even the Menard's brand were better, but I don't want to buy a 40lb. bag.  I may try another flavor of Cabela's, but the peach pecan are OUT.

 

[darwin101]

Thanks for the update on the Cabela's brand of pellets.  The heavy ash sounds like a no go for me.  I still have not tried them and I am overstocked with other brands.  I added to my stock while not remembering what I had in the garage and I got a bag of pure cherry from BBQ Island and pure hickory from Amazon.  I like both so far, but I only use them in the A-Maze-N pellet smokers.  I almost purchased a pellet smoker the other day just to help use up my supply, but I thought I should come on here and other places a do a bit of research first.  Good thing I did.  

 

[knightoftears]

The Cabela's pellets are manufactured for them by Lumberjack pellets.

 

[mneeley490]

I had a problem using Cabela's pellets last weekend.
I was warm smoking bacon using their apple flavor. First tray in my mailbox mod went fine; I light from both ends so they lasted about 6 hours, exactly as I would suspect.
However, on the 2nd load, after a couple hours my remote therm started beeping as the inside temp had shot up from 120° to over 170°! I ran out to pull the tray from the mailbox and exactly as I expected, it was in full flame. The flames ignited some residual creosote in the mailbox, and it was putting out lots of black smoke. Doused it in my driveway with water to put out the flames.
I pulled the plug on everything and got my bacon out of the smoker, but there was still some nasty smelling smoke lingering. Couldn't have been exposed for more than a minute or two, so I'm hoping the bacon will still be okay. It's wrapped in the fridge now to mellow out, and I'll make a determination once I unwrap it.

This was the first time I've used Cabela's, and the first time I've had such a total failure in my mailbox with the AMAZEN tray. (I have one of the originals from Todd Johnson.) Nothing about the mailbox has changed; I've been using it for years, and it still has the same amount of air intake that it always has. So it's a mystery to me. The only different variable is that I used these Cabela's apple pellets. Could they have changed their supplier recently to one who uses oils, like Traeger? Cabela's website gives no information on the manufacturer.

 

[Fueling Around]

Mike-
After reading and posting on the thread on pellets
(26) Bear Mountain Owns Lumberjack? | Smoking Meat Forums - The Best Smoking Meat Forum On Earth!
Do you think your issue was Lumberjack or the new Bear Mountain.?

I only have Rural King store brand pellets at the moment. I'll be home in 2 weeks and will start comparing brands where I have a large stock to shift through

 

[mneeley490]

I don't know. I've used Bear Mountain for years, as it used to be the only one readily available here. Never had a problem with them, but I don't usually use them in my AMPS. This was the first time I tried Cabelas.

 

[tallbm]

Mike-
After reading and posting on the thread on pellets
(26) Bear Mountain Owns Lumberjack? | Smoking Meat Forums - The Best Smoking Meat Forum On Earth!
Do you think your issue was Lumberjack or the new Bear Mountain.?

I only have Rural King store brand pellets at the moment. I'll be home in 2 weeks and will start comparing brands where I have a large stock to shift through

I don't know. I've used Bear Mountain for years, as it used to be the only one readily available here. Never had a problem with them, but I don't usually use them in my AMPS. This was the first time I tried Cabelas.

I know for sure that if you have an AMNPS tray that has burned all the way through but you don't remove the existing pellet embers and you just add more pellets back to the tray thinking the cherries will keep it going... that will start a flame up situation every time.
Even if its only part of the AMNPS with embers. My experience is it WILL flame up.

I don't know if this was the case for mneeley490 but I know it is has happened everytime I have tried to get cute with this kind of situation haha.

The solution is simply to dump all the embers and ash from the AMNPS and start the new pellets fresh with the AMNPS pellet starting process (light and have flame for 10 min, then blow out and use).

Just wanted to share this info to save any confusion or headache and to share my lessons learned as I have tried and tried and tried to skirt this issue and the attempt went up in flames every time, literally haha.

 

[mneeley490]

I know for sure that if you have an AMNPS tray that has burned all the way through but you don't remove the existing pellet embers and you just add more pellets back to the tray thinking the cherries will keep it going... that will start a flame up situation every time.
Even if its only part of the AMNPS with embers. My experience is it WILL flame up.

I don't know if this was the case for mneeley490 but I know it is has happened everytime I have tried to get cute with this kind of situation haha.

The solution is simply to dump all the embers and ash from the AMNPS and start the new pellets fresh with the AMNPS pellet starting process (light and have flame for 10 min, then blow out and use).

Just wanted to share this info to save any confusion or headache and to share my lessons learned as I have tried and tried and tried to skirt this issue and the attempt went up in flames every time, literally haha.

Of course. I oven dry my pellets and bring the tray inside to fill it. No embers. This was just a one-off situation that never happened to me before. Perhaps it just got windy, and more air entered through the vent holes on my mailbox.

 

[1MoreFord]

..................
After reading and posting on the thread on pellets
(26) Bear Mountain Owns Lumberjack? | Smoking Meat Forums - The Best Smoking Meat Forum On Earth!
Do you think your issue was Lumberjack or the new Bear Mountain.?
...................

AFAIK nobody knows who is making the Calela's pellets these days. Don't assume they are Bear Mountain.

 

[Fueling Around]

AFAIK nobody knows who is making the Calela's pellets these days. Don't assume they are Bear Mountain.

There is a lot of brands out there that are made by others.
I was going by a post in this thread :
Bear Mountain Owns Lumberjack?

 

[tallbm]

Of course. I oven dry my pellets and bring the tray inside to fill it. No embers. This was just a one-off situation that never happened to me before. Perhaps it just got windy, and more air entered through the vent holes on my mailbox.

Yeah it happens. I get a flame up about every 10 smokes or so.
I have a hunch that when I open the door of my smoker sometimes, that it causes a major suction and then air push event through my mailbox mod that ignite the pellets slightly then they turn into a full blown flame.

Most of the time I see a flame up event its after I open the door and close it haha.

 

[JWFokker]

They're Lumberjack. You can get them cheaper most likely but Cabelas runs some pretty good sales.

 

[schlotz]

Had used BBQ'ers Delight for a number of years always with good success and very little ash, which is why I stayed with them. Hard to find locally now so have been using Rual King's own brand of Hickory for the last 6 months or so. A slight bit more ash but not too bad. Flavor is good.