Which pellet smoker is a good one?

[silverhawx]

I have had a weber smoky mountain for about five or six years now. While I really like it, I’m just looking for something a little more convenient as life has gotten busier. More of a “ set it and forget it” type of smoker.

I was in Costco last week and they had a special on Traegers but I did not bite. I have seen them in there before. Been looking online and on YouTube and see a lot of positives but negative comments as well. The other one I’m looking at, and my brother has one, is a Rec TEC. Just for reference, I was looking at the Traeger 885 size. I guess the similar rec tec was the 700 model? I haven’t looked real closely at those but I’ve heard they’re high-quality and made in the USA. Just wondering for those that know more about these the me if either one of the ones I mentioned is good and if one is recommended over another? Or am I leaving a brand out that’s just as good?

My wife bought me a Rec Tec. Doing my 3rd smoke on it in the early morning. My daughter made me a Gunpowder rub. So far they have turned out great. I gave my some my old Traeger. Moving forward and not looking back. So much room on the RT700 with the fold down table, extra shelves and the griddle works great for bacon. Ill try to post picks tomorrow.

 

[silverhawx]

 

[Hijack73]

I wouldn't go with the Pit Boss again. Mine is usable after I added a Savannah Stoker PID BUT before that it was not a machine I enjoyed cooking on.

The 850 just isn't big enough either. That's the one I have. It is good for butts (up to 2 big ones or even 4 smaller ones) but for a big brisket it isn't ideal, and that is my main complaint. I'm a brisket guy, and briskets ain't cheap anymore.

I guess I've got $750-800 bucks in mine after the addition of the aftermarket motherboard and all of the shipping and taxes etc...., and it still is far from what I would consider a good smoker. I've learned to make it work, but I wouldn't buy anything less than a 1250 Rec Teq if I had to buy another pellet machine.

 

[G8trwood]

On so many the capacity is meh. Mine is a 1000, and that is kind of true if doing wings or ribs. Butts won’t fit on bottom with top shelf in. Shelves that don’t slide out…. Come on guys. How about 36 * by 25 high or so space with 3 real shelves that slide out and deep enough for a slab of ribs to run front to back ;) I realize I am high maintenance… haha

 

[fxsales1959]

Don’t forget about the Master Built gravity series charcoal cookers. They are set and forget also and provide a decent smoke and bark final product.

I'm glad someone else mentioned this. I didn't want to pee in the stream, and have never used pellets, but I absolutely love my Masterbuilt gravity fed 560. Charcoal flavor, plenty of smoke if you do it right, and temps can get to hell +one degree. I'd never leave any appliance unattended, but my 560 is as close to set it nd forget it as I think I trust. I haven't used my "Egg" or offset since i bought it.

 

[mike243]

As high as charcoal has gotten I am glad I didn't grab a gravity fed, have a Weber 18" clone thats pretty cheap using charcoal. Running my pellet smoker is a lot cheaper. 4+ years and still running great

 

[friedenfels]

Apologize for being late to the party. I currently have a Traeger 885 Ironwood, and while it has performed well, I just pulled the trigger on a Recteq RT-1250. Recteq's app is not quite as robust as Traegers, but does everything you need it to. Traeger has a super smoke mode up to 225, not sure it has really made that much a difference. Recteq built like an armored truck, and the stainless will last many years. Both around the same price. Can't go wrong with either, but for me - Recteq for the win.

 

[sandyut]

F friedenfels you are gonna love the RT-250.

 

[chopsaw]

The cover comes off my SmokeFire more than any of my other cookers . I just love the results , from low and slow to high heat grilling . Cleans up with a stiff brush and a scraper that comes with it . No shop vac to drag out . I can't think of one complaint . I was on the fence , but couldn't be happier that I bought it .

 

[BCP3006]

I have had a weber smoky mountain for about five or six years now. While I really like it, I’m just looking for something a little more convenient as life has gotten busier. More of a “ set it and forget it” type of smoker.

I was in Costco last week and they had a special on Traegers but I did not bite. I have seen them in there before. Been looking online and on YouTube and see a lot of positives but negative comments as well. The other one I’m looking at, and my brother has one, is a Rec TEC. Just for reference, I was looking at the Traeger 885 size. I guess the similar rec tec was the 700 model? I haven’t looked real closely at those but I’ve heard they’re high-quality and made in the USA. Just wondering for those that know more about these the me if either one of the ones I mentioned is good and if one is recommended over another? Or am I leaving a brand out that’s just as good?

If I had some criteria to help me choose the pellet smoker that would give me the best blue smoke, I would just have to pretend that each pellet smoker was a girl and pick the prettiest one and hope she could smoke my heart.
As far as creating blue smoke the pellets can't till the difference of the brand make or model of this pellet smoker they're going in. It was just pure stupid look on my part that I picked up bag of pit boss charcoal blend pellets at the end of barbecuing season last year at Walmart. So there was this one bag of charcoal blend pellets from pit boss laying there and I'm still at the point trying to search out those pellets that give blue smoke. All the pellets I have ever tried that look like wood only gave white smoke and that's all smoke I saw for 6 months and was getting very discouraged because I can get blue smoke on an offset smoker. So I picked up that one bag and I don't know how long it sat there or in the warehouse if they stored it in at Walmart and they picked it up from the manufacturer's Warehouse and God only knows how long it sat in that warehouse...
When I got home I took a handful of pellets put them in the hopper and turned it on and went inside and threw some seasoning on some ribs and came back out and looked over at the smoker which is just a natural occurrence because every time I come out I always look over there I guess just to make sure the smokers still there LOL put lo and behold there was blue smoke coming out of there and you should have seen a smile on my face.
Then I started to do some testing with a hygrometer with some of my charcoal blend pellets from pit boss and I put them in a piece of Tupperware and I put my hygrometer in there with them and snapped the lid shut and walked away and a couple days later the hygrometer said 41% moisture. There has got to be a moisture threshold that has to be violated to make those pellets not create blue I read that some manufacturers are trying to shoot for 5% moisture in their pellets where they normally would be shooting for 10 to 15% moisture. These moisture experiments have started conducting got me to thinking that maybe a blue smoke with 5% moisture would be a better smoke than with a blue smoke with 15 or 41% moisture because when I took my ribs off the smoker there was no smoke flavor on the ribs and I smoked them for 5 hours at a low temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. So there went my smile I had on my face but you only made me dig deeper trying to find a way to get more flavor onto my meat and it does come from the refrigerator and not allowed to come up to room temperature before they enter the smoker.I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell if those ribs were even in a pellet smoker... So I sat down and ate them anyway...
I have been watching a couple gurus on YouTube using pellet smokers and they're always bragging about the flavor.. pare these gurus getting pilots delivered to their backyards straight from the press that makes the pellets without having to sit on a shelf and a warehouse for God only knows how long? Does lower moisture have anything to do with smoke quality? I know you can't get more flavor by creating more blue smoke because the thinner the blue smoke the better the flavor is but it's not actually the smoke that gives the flavor if something else in the gases given off by the fire that is lost somehow so that just got me to wondering how these gurus on YouTube for getting all of this flavor from their pellet smoker. I get good color and a smoke ring but when Elvis leaves the house he brings the flavor with him.
My pellets are stored in tupperware so that keeps the moisture out and the pellets will snap when I break them with my fingers so that means they're still dry but even at 41% moisture they'll still I am assuming that 41% moisture does have some effect on flavor. I'm thinking that the color of the smoke Ring determines how well your fire is burning and you need a hot fire to create blue smoke 650° up to 750° smoldering pellets in a smoke tube only create white smoke but slap me with a pork chop if I'm wrong . But more smoke will not get you more flavor because the least amount of smoke is enough to give you that deep smoke wood flavor like to smoke you can barely see coming out of your stack

 

[BCP3006]

If I had some criteria to help me choose the pellet smoker that would give me the best blue smoke, I would just have to pretend that each pellet smoker was a girl and pick the prettiest one and hope she could smoke my heart.
As far as creating blue smoke the pellets can't till the difference of the brand make or model of this pellet smoker they're going in. It was just pure stupid look on my part that I picked up bag of pit boss charcoal blend pellets at the end of barbecuing season last year at Walmart. So there was this one bag of charcoal blend pellets from pit boss laying there and I'm still at the point trying to search out those pellets that give blue smoke. All the pellets I have ever tried that look like wood only gave white smoke and that's all smoke I saw for 6 months and was getting very discouraged because I can get blue smoke on an offset smoker. So I picked up that one bag and I don't know how long it sat there or in the warehouse if they stored it in at Walmart and they picked it up from the manufacturer's Warehouse and God only knows how long it sat in that warehouse...
When I got home I took a handful of pellets put them in the hopper and turned it on and went inside and threw some seasoning on some ribs and came back out and looked over at the smoker which is just a natural occurrence because every time I come out I always look over there I guess just to make sure the smokers still there LOL put lo and behold there was blue smoke coming out of there and you should have seen a smile on my face.
Then I started to do some testing with a hygrometer with some of my charcoal blend pellets from pit boss and I put them in a piece of Tupperware and I put my hygrometer in there with them and snapped the lid shut and walked away and a couple days later the hygrometer said 41% moisture. There has got to be a moisture threshold that has to be violated to make those pellets not create blue I read that some manufacturers are trying to shoot for 5% moisture in their pellets where they normally would be shooting for 10 to 15% moisture. These moisture experiments have started conducting got me to thinking that maybe a blue smoke with 5% moisture would be a better smoke than with a blue smoke with 15 or 41% moisture because when I took my ribs off the smoker there was no smoke flavor on the ribs and I smoked them for 5 hours at a low temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. So there went my smile I had on my face but you only made me dig deeper trying to find a way to get more flavor onto my meat and it does come from the refrigerator and not allowed to come up to room temperature before they enter the smoker.I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell if those ribs were even in a pellet smoker... So I sat down and ate them anyway...
I have been watching a couple gurus on YouTube using pellet smokers and they're always bragging about the flavor.. pare these gurus getting pilots delivered to their backyards straight from the press that makes the pellets without having to sit on a shelf and a warehouse for God only knows how long? Does lower moisture have anything to do with smoke quality? I know you can't get more flavor by creating more blue smoke because the thinner the blue smoke the better the flavor is but it's not actually the smoke that gives the flavor if something else in the gases given off by the fire that is lost somehow so that just got me to wondering how these gurus on YouTube for getting all of this flavor from their pellet smoker. I get good color and a smoke ring but when Elvis leaves the house he brings the flavor with him.
My pellets are stored in tupperware so that keeps the moisture out and the pellets will snap when I break them with my fingers so that means they're still dry but even at 41% moisture they'll still I am assuming that 41% moisture does have some effect on flavor. I'm thinking that the color of the smoke Ring determines how well your fire is burning and you need a hot fire to create blue smoke 650° up to 750° smoldering pellets in a smoke tube only create white smoke but slap me with a pork chop if I'm wrong . But more smoke will not get you more flavor because the least amount of smoke is enough to give you that deep smoke wood flavor like to smoke you can barely see coming out of your stack.Air and light cause oxidation... Thoughts ideas suggestions???

 

[bill1]

...Does lower moisture have anything to do with smoke quality? ...

Moisture in wood turns to steam which might appear as added white smoke, and gets some folks excited they're getting more "smoke", but it's not flavoring your food, just adding humidity. And I think it's much easier controlling the humidity in your cooker with water pans (set at varying degrees of coupling to your heat source, or with its own electric element if you want to go whole hog) than by selecting wood moisture. Added humidity definitely helps your meet cook quicker (compare a steam burn with just sticking your arm in an oven to see what I mean.) Now in general shorter cook time would mean less smoke flavor, but I don't find that to be true, so I believe that the steam also helps the large flavor molecules of the smoke condense out and stick to the meat. At least that's the Blonder explanation and he's a pretty sharp guy.

 

[BCP3006]

Moisture in wood turns to steam which might appear as added white smoke, and gets some folks excited they're getting more "smoke", but it's not flavoring your food, just adding humidity. And I think it's much easier controlling the humidity in your cooker with water pans (set at varying degrees of coupling to your heat source, or with its own electric element if you want to go whole hog) than by selecting wood moisture. Added humidity definitely helps your meet cook quicker (compare a steam burn with just sticking your arm in an oven to see what I mean.) Now in general shorter cook time would mean less smoke flavor, but I don't find that to be true, so I believe that the steam also helps the large flavor molecules of the smoke condense out and stick to the meat. At least that's the Blonder explanation and he's a pretty sharp guy.

 

[BCP3006]

I'm new to using a vertical pellet smoker. And had it for seven or eight months now and 90% of that time I only got white smoke out of the pellets I went by and I had several brand.

I tried to order Royal oak 100% charcoal pellets but what I received was Royal oak pellets when I specifically said Royal oak charcoal pellets of their two different pellets all together anyway but through some in my smoker and all they did was belch out white smoke.. I called the store where I bought them and I tried to return them but they said just keep them so heck how much is use them for fertilizer in the garden totally useless for smoking.last year at the end of barbecue season I was in Walmart and I saw a bag of pit boss charcoal blended pellets and that kind of reminded me about that charcoal pellet I tried to order so I picked up a bag and it was the only one laying there and no telling how long it laid there and in the warehouse and in the warehouse from the manufacturer where they store there stock anyway I brought it home took a handful and threw them in Hopper turn the grill on went inside about 5 or 10 minutes later I came out and glass over at the smoker just out of habit trying to make sure it's still there and hoping it didn't wander off. But there it was right in front of my eyes all I could see was blue smoke coming out of the smoker of my eyes. I blinked a couple times and rub my eyes and sure enough that blue smoke was still there well long story short I had a rack of ribs in there and I smoked them for 5 hours and when I pulled them out when they were done with all that blue smoke coming out that just tells you that you far is burning right and clean but there was no smoking wood flavor on your pork ribs.
We as consumers don't really see what happens to our pellets behind the curtain.
Anyway, all this wood gets ground up into sawdust and exposed to air and air oxidizes everything it touches so if there was flavor in the wood well there isn't quite so much when you get it off the shelfand the good Lord only knows how long it sat on that shelf in the warehouse...

I watch gurus on YouTube using their pellet grills and they tell you what flavor pellets they are using and at the end of the cook they always tell you how great and wonderful the flavor is.. I'm sorry I haven't learned how to taste flavor watching a video. I have never tasted any flavor with any brand of pellet that I have used even if it was putting out blue smoke there still was no wood flavor on the meat.
But there are those who only want to taste a subtle amount of smoke on their meat and that makes them happy well I'm not from that camp. If you put meat on a smoker I wanted to taste like it smoked when you pull it off and not have to sit there and think well do I taste the flavor or not well then pretty soon you convince yourself there might be some flavor there

YOUR HOPES THOUGHTS WISHES AND DREAMS ABOUT MY PREDICAMENT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. I STILL HAVE ONE TRICK UP MY SLEEVE ABOUT HOW TO GET SOME FLAVOR ON YOUR PORK RIBS...

I HAVE A BIG GLASS WINDOW ON MY SMOKER AND I WONDER WHY THEY PUT THAT THERE. I KNOW THE RIBS AREN'T GOING TO GO ANYWHERE SO WHY SHOULD I WATCH THEM and no I have never burned up a piece of meat on my pellet grill.
And while I'm still standing on my stump I can truthfully say these smoking tubes or a big hoax yeah they put out lots of smoke but it's all white smoke and yes I tried some of those pellets I have that create blue smoke in my pellet grill but all they put up in those tubes are white smoke.


blue smoke tells you is that you have a clean fire and the smoke doesn't have anything to do with the flavor of your meat, the gas is giving up by your clean fire that combined together produce that red ring around your meat and because that happens you see blue smoke...

Okay okay I'll get off my stump...

Well maybe somebody came out for me some advice.

I was burning sticks for 35 years and just wanted to see what this pellet grill world was all about.

 

[bill1]

BCP, I think what's happening is that pellet smokers burn their fuel just too fast. Both crucibles and pellets should be larger...think of a typical offset. (IMO Traeger was basing his cooker just too much on pellet furnaces.) Charcoal is basically wood that's had half its energy content burned out already. (And unfortunately also at least half of the smoke flavor as well.)

I suspect you had bluer "finer" smoke (this Wikipedia article has a great picture of white milk turning blue with fine flour added) just because the crucible was a bit cooler using charcoal pellets instead of wood pellets, so indeed you had a better fire per se. (You didn't mention the cook temperature for your ribs, but I doubt you were pushing the 500-degree limits that the market for pellet "grills" feels they need to address, so of course you weren't starved for heat energy from using charcoal instead of "full-strength" wood.) Alas, even though you had a better fire, the limitations of the stock pellet grill at impacting smoke flavoring to food are still there. Sorry that the smoke flavor molecules didn't stick to your food as well as you'd hoped.

 

[G8trwood]

BCP, I think what's happening is that pellet smokers burn their fuel just too fast. Both crucibles and pellets should be larger...think of a typical offset. (IMO Traeger was basing his cooker just too much on pellet furnaces.) Charcoal is basically wood that's had half its energy content burned out already. (And unfortunately also at least half of the smoke flavor as well.)

I suspect you had bluer "finer" smoke (this Wikipedia article has a great picture of white milk turning blue with fine flour added) just because the crucible was a bit cooler using charcoal pellets instead of wood pellets, so indeed you had a better fire per se. (You didn't mention the cook temperature for your ribs, but I doubt you were pushing the 500-degree limits that the market for pellet "grills" feels they need to address, so of course you weren't starved for heat energy from using charcoal instead of "full-strength" wood.) Alas, even though you had a better fire, the limitations of the stock pellet grill at impacting smoke flavoring to food are still there. Sorry that the smoke flavor molecules didn't stick to your food as well as you'd hoped.

Couldn’t agree with this more. I have believed for a while that they need a larger firepot and move more air through at a lower velocity. They wanted the efficiency for heating, but for cooking we want dem flavanoids!

 

[BCP3006]

BCP, I think what's happening is that pellet smokers burn their fuel just too fast. Both crucibles and pellets should be larger...think of a typical offset. (IMO Traeger was basing his cooker just too much on pellet furnaces.) Charcoal is basically wood that's had half its energy content burned out already. (And unfortunately also at least half of the smoke flavor as well.)

I suspect you had bluer "finer" smoke (this Wikipedia article has a great picture of white milk turning blue with fine flour added) just because the crucible was a bit cooler using charcoal pellets instead of wood pellets, so indeed you had a better fire per se. (You didn't mention the cook temperature for your ribs, but I doubt you were pushing the 500-degree limits that the market for pellet "grills" feels they need to address, so of course you weren't starved for heat energy from using charcoal instead of "full-strength" wood.) Alas, even though you had a better fire, the limitations of the stock pellet grill at impacting smoke flavoring to food are still there. Sorry that the smoke flavor molecules didn't stick to your food as well as you'd hoped.

Thanks for the text Bill.

The Bigger word gave me an idea. They do extrude coconut shell and shape it using the same technique as they do wood pellets.about the only difference is there is a hole going down through the middle of the extruded coconut to form a longer thicker pellet kind of looks like IMR 4831 rifle powder only on steroids . I'M JUST GOING TO HAVE TO CREATE A GLAZE WITH THE FLAVOR OF CHOICE MAYBE SOME HICKORY AND SOME RASPBERRY FLAVOR.

WELL I ENJOY THE HANDS-FREE COOKING ON A PELLET SMOKER BUT I SURE MISS THAT OFFSET SMOKER FLAVOR.

I have a buddy that is an accountant who works in one of those tall buildings in Dallas Texas that have building is just full of accountants anyway I made him some smoked ribs one day and they brought some to the break room to eat for lunch and he heated those up in the microwave and he said immediately he noticed something different about the people they were moving faster Missouri whether they were coming into brake warm or going out they were on a mission to find out where the smell of them ribs were coming from they finally zeroed in on my buddy in the break room and they told him they've never smelled ribs that good in their entire life. That that was the second compliment I've ever had with this meat I've been smoking of course I haven't been offering any of it to anybody other than cooking for myself.

I used to drive a truck and was downtown Dallas for quite some time and it looked like there was a food truck convention going on there and I talked to the one of the guys says, no that's just lunch time everybody comes out of the big buildings and comes down and loads up with that food on those food trucks. If I had a food cart and parked it at the entrance doors to one of those buildings I should have a sellout every day , man if I only had a little food cart..

 

[BCP3006]

Thanks for the text Bill.

The Bigger word gave me an idea. They do extrude coconut shell and shape it using the same technique as they do wood pellets.about the only difference is there is a hole going down through the middle of the extruded coconut to form a longer thicker pellet kind of looks like IMR 4831 rifle powder only on steroids . I'M JUST GOING TO HAVE TO CREATE A GLAZE WITH THE FLAVOR OF CHOICE MAYBE SOME HICKORY AND SOME RASPBERRY FLAVOR.

WELL I ENJOY THE HANDS-FREE COOKING ON A PELLET SMOKER BUT I SURE MISS THAT OFFSET SMOKER FLAVOR.

I have a buddy that is an accountant who works in one of those tall buildings in Dallas Texas that have building is just full of accountants anyway I made him some smoked ribs one day and they brought some to the break room to eat for lunch and he heated those up in the microwave and he said immediately he noticed something different about the people they were moving faster Missouri whether they were coming into brake warm or going out they were on a mission to find out where the smell of them ribs were coming from they finally zeroed in on my buddy in the break room and they told him they've never smelled ribs that good in their entire life. That that was the second compliment I've ever had with this meat I've been smoking of course I haven't been offering any of it to anybody other than cooking for myself.

I used to drive a truck and was downtown Dallas for quite some time and it looked like there was a food truck convention going on there and I talked to the one of the guys says, no that's just lunch time everybody comes out of the big buildings and comes down and loads up with that food on those food trucks. If I had a food cart and parked it at the entrance doors to one of those buildings I should have a sellout every day , man if I only had a little food cart..

I found a restaurant at the Lincoln square in North Arlington Texas they had some darn good smoked ribs.


Have been to Austin and ate at some of those mom and pop shops looking for good taste and smoked ribs but none of them were ever quite like I make as far as flavor.. I was always looking for that deep rich wood smoke flavor in the meat and when I found it it would be like ringing that taco Bell in my head... After I move I'm going to have to get me a better offset smoker. I could just turn that pellet smoker into an oven and be happy with that...

 

[BCP3006]

I found a restaurant at the Lincoln square in North Arlington Texas they had some darn good smoked ribs.


Have been to Austin and ate at some of those mom and pop shops looking for good taste and smoked ribs but none of them were ever quite like I make as far as flavor.. I was always looking for that deep rich wood smoke flavor in the meat and when I found it it would be like ringing that taco Bell in my head... After I move I'm going to have to get me a better offset smoker. I could just turn that pellet smoker into an oven and be happy with that...

I started using stick burners 35 years ago and I was hooked on pecan wood that's what everybody was raving about so I started out using pecan and one day about 10 or 15 years later at the bright idea to try some mesquite but that was only after I ate in a mesquite smokehouse in order to steak and I just about fell out of my chair that doggone steak was good I mean really good and I've been hooked on mesquite ever since . I have never over spoken anything with mesquite. Yep that was mesquite I had on those ribs my buddy had in that office building.

Maybe some people got some that were over smoked and that gave them a bad review of the flavor.

 

[bill1]

...they brought some to the break room to eat for lunch and he heated those up in the microwave and he said immediately he noticed something different about the people...

You tend these smokers while you cook and you really overload your olfactory senses. I'm always saying "needed more smoke" at the dinner table. But you know, the next day after a shower and change of clothes, when you take leftovers into work and microwave them, that smoke flavor really comes wafting out in all its glory. Brings out a lot of complements. (Of course some prefer their raw veggies, which is fine.)