- Dec 16, 2020
- 4
- 0
First time pellet grill owner and first thread post on the site!
I grew up in the MS Delta just south down Highway 61 from Memphis and worked in BBQ and Blues restaurants from my teenage years through college. I came up smoking meats in those restaurants, have been involved in some way or another in BBQ competitions from Memphis in May down to small local delta town contests. I even ran and opened several restaurants in the Florida panhandle over a good 15 year period or so as an adult, BBQ and others, so I have what I'd say you can call a significant, ranged culinary background . However, as I mentioned, the PB850 with PID controller is my first backyard pellet smoker so I'm learning still about the technology and how to apply my existing knowledge of smoking meats to it.
I just got it last week and did my first prime brisket flat this past weekend. Turned out pretty good, but always looking to improve. Had decent smoke flavor (not too much), nice looking rings on every slice, and full of flavor with my homemade Memphis style rub. I did my slow cool down (not as long as I originally planned due to timing being off, but it worked out fine in the end), then extra wrapped while still in butcher paper, with foil over the paper, then a towel and refrigerated late night (was nervous about leaving out too long) until a little after noon the next day. At that point, I pulled it out, cut in half and vacuum sealed both. One went in the deep freeze for later and the other went in to my Sous Vide (I call her Antoinette, and strongly recommend getting one as the perfect compliment to reheating your favorite smoked meats while retaining ALL that juicy flavor and moisture- best way to reheat, bar none IMO, as long as you give yourself ample time to reach temp before serving).
My only concerns were with timing, the amount of smoke and control of smoke, and maybe I could have a had a better, darker bark (although after my wrap and with timing and all that I had to sacrifice that a bit, so that was understandable). In my experience with traditional offsets and commercial smokers I've used in the past, while obviously bigger, they produce much more smoke. At home though, my experience smoking has always been more basic, smaller, and old school... old cheap charcoal and wood chip vertical smokers here and there... I've typically cooked with more abundant smoke and more control of the smoke in the past with the more traditional and simple equipment. I feel sort of helpless in that respect with my pellet grill. I can hold the prime so that the auger does a continuous feed for a bit, but that only seemed to result in a brief burst of smoke that didn't last long at all (maybe a minute or 2 at best). The timing went much longer than I had planned for also (4 hours longer!). I stalled early and had to fight through that to get to my wrap temp (in fact, I made the executive decision to bump my temp up from 225 to 250 at this point because of the early stall and running behind schedule), then I seemed to stall a bit just before I reached 200 internal on my brisket (around mid 190s), post wrap, but eventually got there.
In retrospect, when thinking about the amount of smoke, the longer than expected cook time, and the bark not being as dark as I expected (especially, considering the brown sugar that was in my rub I expected darker) I realized that I don't recall the fan turning off at all the entire cook. Does anyone know if this is normal in a PID controlled pellet grill/smoker? Is it supposed to run constant like that? Or is it running constant, but adjusting speed to help control temp? I started to wonder if this was a defect of sort. Could a constant running fan have an effect on keeping smoker temp down or prevent a heavier smoke? I know it's important in making sure that there is no residual dirty smoke hanging around in there with my meat, but I see these videos and pictures of pellet grills with billowing smoke pumping out of them. That was not the case at all with my cook. I used a mix of maybe about 65/35 hickory/apple, and ultimately the smoke flavor was sufficient even after the Sous Vide reheat, but I just felt helpless with my smoke control and would have like just a little bit more (maybe more hickory or a heavier wood is my answer there). If the fan is not supposed to constantly run like that, it seems like it would would make sense that it be the cause of my longer than anticipated cook time, less visual smoke, and lighter colored bark.
Any advice on better control of these 3 things, the new PB850 Pro Series if anyone has any experience with this new model, or tips in general for a PID pellet grills/smokers would be much appreciated!
P.S. I came across some forums and threads discussing more advanced PID controllers that you can swap out on these pellet grills. I'm not going to rush into something like that, but very well might swap it out in the future so If anyone has any insight on that also, I'm all ears!
I grew up in the MS Delta just south down Highway 61 from Memphis and worked in BBQ and Blues restaurants from my teenage years through college. I came up smoking meats in those restaurants, have been involved in some way or another in BBQ competitions from Memphis in May down to small local delta town contests. I even ran and opened several restaurants in the Florida panhandle over a good 15 year period or so as an adult, BBQ and others, so I have what I'd say you can call a significant, ranged culinary background . However, as I mentioned, the PB850 with PID controller is my first backyard pellet smoker so I'm learning still about the technology and how to apply my existing knowledge of smoking meats to it.
I just got it last week and did my first prime brisket flat this past weekend. Turned out pretty good, but always looking to improve. Had decent smoke flavor (not too much), nice looking rings on every slice, and full of flavor with my homemade Memphis style rub. I did my slow cool down (not as long as I originally planned due to timing being off, but it worked out fine in the end), then extra wrapped while still in butcher paper, with foil over the paper, then a towel and refrigerated late night (was nervous about leaving out too long) until a little after noon the next day. At that point, I pulled it out, cut in half and vacuum sealed both. One went in the deep freeze for later and the other went in to my Sous Vide (I call her Antoinette, and strongly recommend getting one as the perfect compliment to reheating your favorite smoked meats while retaining ALL that juicy flavor and moisture- best way to reheat, bar none IMO, as long as you give yourself ample time to reach temp before serving).
My only concerns were with timing, the amount of smoke and control of smoke, and maybe I could have a had a better, darker bark (although after my wrap and with timing and all that I had to sacrifice that a bit, so that was understandable). In my experience with traditional offsets and commercial smokers I've used in the past, while obviously bigger, they produce much more smoke. At home though, my experience smoking has always been more basic, smaller, and old school... old cheap charcoal and wood chip vertical smokers here and there... I've typically cooked with more abundant smoke and more control of the smoke in the past with the more traditional and simple equipment. I feel sort of helpless in that respect with my pellet grill. I can hold the prime so that the auger does a continuous feed for a bit, but that only seemed to result in a brief burst of smoke that didn't last long at all (maybe a minute or 2 at best). The timing went much longer than I had planned for also (4 hours longer!). I stalled early and had to fight through that to get to my wrap temp (in fact, I made the executive decision to bump my temp up from 225 to 250 at this point because of the early stall and running behind schedule), then I seemed to stall a bit just before I reached 200 internal on my brisket (around mid 190s), post wrap, but eventually got there.
In retrospect, when thinking about the amount of smoke, the longer than expected cook time, and the bark not being as dark as I expected (especially, considering the brown sugar that was in my rub I expected darker) I realized that I don't recall the fan turning off at all the entire cook. Does anyone know if this is normal in a PID controlled pellet grill/smoker? Is it supposed to run constant like that? Or is it running constant, but adjusting speed to help control temp? I started to wonder if this was a defect of sort. Could a constant running fan have an effect on keeping smoker temp down or prevent a heavier smoke? I know it's important in making sure that there is no residual dirty smoke hanging around in there with my meat, but I see these videos and pictures of pellet grills with billowing smoke pumping out of them. That was not the case at all with my cook. I used a mix of maybe about 65/35 hickory/apple, and ultimately the smoke flavor was sufficient even after the Sous Vide reheat, but I just felt helpless with my smoke control and would have like just a little bit more (maybe more hickory or a heavier wood is my answer there). If the fan is not supposed to constantly run like that, it seems like it would would make sense that it be the cause of my longer than anticipated cook time, less visual smoke, and lighter colored bark.
Any advice on better control of these 3 things, the new PB850 Pro Series if anyone has any experience with this new model, or tips in general for a PID pellet grills/smokers would be much appreciated!
P.S. I came across some forums and threads discussing more advanced PID controllers that you can swap out on these pellet grills. I'm not going to rush into something like that, but very well might swap it out in the future so If anyone has any insight on that also, I'm all ears!