If you are looking for good flavor and convenience, a pellet burner can be a great choice. The secret to pellet grills is like your BGE - LOW and Slow. Pellet grills burn pellets for both heat and smoke, but they are in an inverse relationship. The hotter you burn, the less smoke you get. So, if you cook very low, they do great. If you get in a hurry and "smoke" at higher temps, the smoke can get light. Just the nature of the beast. With our pellet burners, we will sometimes smoke half a dozen briskets for 12-14 hours at 170-180. Amazing results. Don't need to add tubes or mazes or smoke generators. Just fill it up, turn it on, and go to bed. Next day, smoking is finished.
Personally, I think you can do much better than a Traeger. I think they are exceptionally well marketed, but not the best smoker in their segment. In the same price neighborhood, you can get a Louisiana Smoker. Much better combustion system. Feeds from the side, so no real chance of an auger fire and much easier to manage (similar to a Yoder, but at half the price). Louisianna smokers are just better made (most still made in Canada, last I checked - someone will correct me if that is no longer the case).
If you like the traeger combustion system, the Pit Boss has the exact same combustion system for a much lower price (Walmart carries them). The
camp chef is also good,with a combustion system is like a traeger and similarly priced, but it has some nice additional features.
We just picked up a couple of pit boss vertical smokers (some 5 and 7 series units) to try. They have enormous space (multiple racks), hold 60 pounds of pellets (many days worth) and I can clean the ash out of one out in less than a minute. We have only been testing them for a few weeks, but I really like them. we have done up to 6 briskets at a time in one. Haven't had time to see how many racks of ribs one will hold (I would guess maybe 15 or so without using rib racks-with racks, its probably at least double that). For personal use, I like the 5. Plenty big for me. We looked at the 3, but the 3 is a little too narrow for my taste (sized kind of like a
masterbuilt - have to cut racks of ribs to fit them in a 3).
If you pick up a pellet burner, one other word of advice - buy good pellets. The smoker brands (traeger, louisianna,
camp chef, etc.) are usually not that great and not very consistent. I like lumberjacks, but there are several other good brands out there (that is a discussion for another post).
