jted
Smoking Fanatic
I already know that as I investigated it after the first time I used the JD Pellets with poor results. To sum it up, the pellet are made from charcoal and not wood. Other pellets such as Hickory, Mesquite, etc are supposedly made from wood.
While here and talking about Mesquite & Hickory, I question about both of them being genuine wood pellets. The reason I say this is that I have used the Mesquite pellets twice with good results. However the Hickory is another story ... I have used the Hickory pellets twice now and have had a problem keeping them lit both times, but didn't the Mesquite nor the Pecan pellets. Even the JD pellets stayed lit, just didn't produce as much smoke as the Mesquite & Pecan because they are made from charcoal.
Twice now on the Hickory, I used my 5 x 8 Maze and wanting more smoke, I lit both ends and got the red hot rose bud before putting them in smoker. When I first put them in they smoked really great and heavy. Then the smoke started getting lighter and lighter and lighter. At the end of the 2 hrs of smoking the pork loins, I removed the pork loins and then removed the Maze and found that one end only burned less than 1/4 of the way before going out and the other end burned 1/3 of the way before going out. The Maze was placed in the same position/place as I place it when using other pellets. Something wrong with this bag of pellets. They are stored in the house in my closet in a controlled temp of 75* with the other 7 kinds of pellets I have, so it shouldn't be a case of moisture getting in them. I guess I will try nuking them the next time before I use them and see if that makes a difference.
Hi, I think that either microwaving them or putting several hours worth(1 row) in you smoker while you bring it up to temp will solve your problem with the Hickory pellets. You know as well as I do anything may have happened during the manufacturing process. Long term storage also. .All anyone can do is report on is there experiences and yours have not been good. The above are my experiences to dry out my suspect pellets. I tried storing them in Zip Lock baggies and that did not work. Now i use containers with screw on lids. I use Apple sauce bottles and the Bear carver uses large juice containers. To further help my pellets to burn I use the River Rat damper. It is adjustable and I can dial just the right amount of air depending on the wind circulating. Jted
Come on Rick, give me a bit of credit... I was the one that asked Todd quite sometime back about this and posted all of the details here a number of times since then ..
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