How I get more smoke flavor with pellet grills

[BC Buck]

I like cutting my own smoking woods but dont always have time to baby sit a smoker. My Memphis pro is a true turn it on and forget but smoke profile is mild. Iv tried many, many,ways but this works every time.

If you use foil pack you dont need to worry about flareups. You will need to experiment with location and volume of wood used.

 

[one eyed jack]

Good idea. Never seen that one before.

Like.

 

[BandCollector]

Let me get this straight.

First you are showing a piece of wood in a pan.
Then you show chunks in aluminum foil.
Followed by charcoal on top of the piece of wood in the pan.
And then the foil pack on top of the charcoal placed on the piece of wood.

So you are sandwiching the charcoal between the large piece of wood and the foil pack. . . Right?

 

[BC Buck]

Let me get this straight.

First you are showing a piece of wood in a pan.
Then you show chunks in aluminum foil.
Followed by charcoal on top of the piece of wood in the pan.
And then the foil pack on top of the charcoal placed on the piece of wood.

So you are sandwiching the charcoal between the large piece of wood and the foil pack. . . Right?

Correct, hardwoods dont necessarily need wrapping but soft woods (apple,cherry) fire up rather than smolder. With my pit this setup gives really nice blue smoke.

 

[eddiememphis]

What temperature do you smoke at?

 

[BC Buck]

What temperature do you smoke at?

Too get heaver smoke flavor I set this method up at 220 for first two hours then adjust temp to what is needed to finish protein.

 

[texomakid]

Very cool. I typically just rely on quality 100% pellets & setting/methods to increase smoke on slower cooks and when cooking briskets or other things I want a more pronounced smoke aroma and flavor I've had good results with AMPS 12" tube but this looks like something I may try soon. Makes sense. I also fall back onto the WSM 22" when I want to "smoke it up" during a cook. Great idea, thanks for sharing.

 

[eddiememphis]

Have you tried smoking at a lower temperature? I was starting that high with my GMG and was disappointed. The lady at the grill store told me to drop it below 200° for smokier flavor. The last tri tip I did was at 170° and very smoky.

 

[BC Buck]

Have you tried smoking at a lower temperature? I was starting that high with my GMG and was disappointed. The lady at the grill store told me to drop it below 200° for smokier flavor. The last tri tip I did was at 170° and very smoky.

For long cooks I do start below 200 and does help. Been needing to try a tri tip for a long time. A little apprehensive never eaten one cooked correctly and not sure if I can even buy that cut hear in STL. Going to look into that.

 

[Meltdown]

Correct, hardwoods dont necessarily need wrapping but soft woods (apple,cherry) fire up rather than smolder. With my pit this setup gives really nice blue smoke.

My understanding and from using my offset is smouldering is a no no when it comes to burning wood as it releases the grey toxic smoke, not the clean smoke...

How does smouldering in this case bring out the desirable qualiities of the wood smoke?

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

I thought the texomakid was back until I realized this an old thread

 

[BC Buck]

My understanding and from using my offset is smouldering is a no no when it comes to burning wood as it releases the grey toxic smoke, not the clean smoke...

How does smouldering in this case bring out the desirable qualiities of the wood smoke?

With experimenting holes location and amount in foil packet its no different than how you control oxygen to your fire box. Also I cut my own smoking woods so can control season cut and drying.

 

[Smokin Okie]

My understanding and from using my offset is smouldering is a no no when it comes to burning wood as it releases the grey toxic smoke, not the clean smoke...

How does smouldering in this case bring out the desirable qualiities of the wood smoke?

That is one of the major unanswered questions with a lot of barbecue smokers.

Getting clean smoke depends upon how hot the fire is, not the temp in the cook chamber.

After running a stick burner for a few years, I found a great price on a Masterbuilt 560 gravity feed. I bought it out of curiosity and thought it would be a great ' set and forget " second smoker as there's times ya can't run a stick burner. I expected white billowy smoldering smoke and I got great thin blue. That was a huge surprise and it was eye opening.

I bought a WSM in 2002 and cooked on it for 15 years. Enjoyed the barbecue it made. But it was charcoal/chunk and produced white billowy smoke. I think the reason it did not produce a lot of off flavor is the chunks burned up quickly at the start of the cook and I did not get a lot of smoke on the meats. If it had made smoldering smoke for the entire cook, the meats would've tasted like an ash tray.