Pellet Smoker Bland Compared to old WSM

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I use a tube and a maze on my pellet smoker, and get pretty close to the smoke flavor level of a stick burner. And it's a very clean smoke flavor.

The nice thing with tubes is, it allows for easy blending of wood, too. Go with your standard in the hopper, and mix others in the tubes.

There is a product made by Smoke Daddy (I am not associated with them), which may be the answer. It basically turns a pellet smoker into a stick burner hybrid. It replaces the standard diffuser plate, with one that has chambers on either side, to put in wood chunks.

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The end results, the convenience of a pellet smoker, and all the smoke flavor of stick burner.

They're $100.00

I haven't tried one yet, because I am liking my results with smoke tube and maze, but it is not out of the question that I may get one.

https://smokedaddyinc.com/product/the-heavy-d-stick-burning-heat-diffuser/

There are plenty of YouTube vids showing their use, and reviews.
 
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Let me mention another option, that I haven't used, but a good friend has, and it also gets results very close to a stick burner smoke flavor levels.

It is another product (again, I am not associated) called MojoBricks.

These are small bricks of compressed wood, that burn slowly, providing supplemental smoke. They come in 3 sizes.

https://www.mojobricks.com/
 
I use a tube and a maze on my pellet smoker, and get pretty close to the smoke flavor level of a stick burner. And it's a very clean smoke flavor.

The nice thing with tubes is, it allows for easy blending of wood, too. Go with your standard in the hopper, and mix others in the tubes.

There is a product made by Smoke Daddy (I am not associated with them), which may be the answer. It basically turns a pellet smoker into a stick burner hybrid. It replaces the standard diffuser plate, with one that has chambers on either side, to put in wood chunks.

View attachment 634877

The end results, the convenience of a pellet smoker, and all the smoke flavor of stick burner.

They're $100.00

I haven't tried one yet, because I am liking my results with smoke tube and maze, but it is not out of the question that I may get one.

https://smokedaddyinc.com/product/the-heavy-d-stick-burning-heat-diffuser/

There are plenty of YouTube vids showing their use, and reviews.
Personally, I had poor results using this diffuser with loaded wood chunks.

Of course, others may report more favorable results than my own.

But in my particular case, the chunks tended to ultimately ignite, sometimes early in the cook, and the resulting flames tended to throw temperatures way out of whack.

I tried wrapping the wood chunks in foil to slow their combustion, and this didn't work very well for me either.

I ended up using this diffuser as a regular diffuser and without loading wood into it
 
Well pellet smoked food is lighter on smoke flavor pretty much compared to other styles of cookers, 1 thing I hope is maybe a lower percentage of cancer causing residue on the meat due to a more efficient burn, cancer runs in my family and I will take a little less risk I hope by using the pellet smoker more than my other smokers. I still crave a heavy hickory smoke at times and my Weber clone works well enuff to get me through lol. The smoke daddy burner was tested by 1 of our members and best I remember temps are hard to control and took a lot of cobbling to make it work .
 
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I went from a Lang & WSM, to a Rec Tec 1250. Surprisingly, my wife likes the flavor from the Rec tec better than the Lang. I am getting used to the lighter smoke flavor, and am willing to put up with it for the sake of convenience. I’m going to resist using a smoke tube for a while & may try the extreme smoke setting on the next smoke.
Al
This is why I inch closer to getting a pellet pooper. While SIL and I like a relatively heavier smoke profile, everyone else prefers a very light one, if any … and I do find it’s not a bad trade of getting more of the meat itself coming through.

So if I actually want to MINIMIZE the smoke flavor, at what temp does it all but disappear? Assume use the blend pellets and up at/over 350 or so, but wonder down around 250 (Where butts and ribs live)?
 
This is why I inch closer to getting a pellet pooper. While SIL and I like a relatively heavier smoke profile, everyone else prefers a very light one, if any … and I do find it’s not a bad trade of getting more of the meat itself coming through.

So if I actually want to MINIMIZE the smoke flavor, at what temp does it all but disappear? Assume use the blend pellets and up at/over 350 or so, but wonder down around 250 (Where butts and ribs live)?
with my pitboss at 350 i get no smoke flavor at 250 i still get very little but i'm sure all smokers are a little different.
 
Have not gotten the chance to try the Royal Oak pellets

But did try the Lumberjack Charcoal pellets about a year or so ago. Don't know if they still make them. Either way, they didn't give me a much noticeable difference in flavor than the Competition Blend.
 
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Personally, I had poor results using this diffuser with loaded wood chunks.

Of course, others may report more favorable results than my own.

But in my particular case, the chunks tended to ultimately ignite, sometimes early in the cook, and the resulting flames tended to throw temperatures way out of whack.

I tried wrapping the wood chunks in foil to slow their combustion, and this didn't work very well for me either.

I ended up using this diffuser as a regular diffuser and without loading wood into it
Thanks for the info!

I guess most people have to wedge the lid open a bit to regulate temps better. There are a few instructional and review vids on YT I'll have to watch before deciding if I want to take the plunge.

As I previously stated, my smoke level with a tube and a maze, is pretty darn close to a stick burner anyway, I may just stick with what has been getting me good results.
 
Propping the lid slightly open in my case, made my temperature issues even worse as the wood ignited even more from the increased airflow and oxygen from having the lid open.

Again though, the results of others may be different from my own.

But in my own case, I felt that what seemed like a good idea, for me at least, resulted in wood chunks getting hot enough to themselves ignite into flames, and those flames carrying grill temperatures to levels that were well beyond what I considered within limits of what I wanted to cook.

In my case, propping the lid open in attempt to allow some of the excess heat to escape, resulted only in feeding more air in to already smoldering and or lit and out of control wood chunks. For me, this resulted in even further out of control temperatures.

In my particular instance, once it got hot enough inside of the Rec Tec RT590 to ignite the wood chunks in that diffuser, be they soaked or not, partially wrapped in foil or not, temps would get out of control, and flames would lick from underneath the drip pan, resulting in temps that for me were unmanageable to the point of having to literally turn the smoker off, remove the food, remove the drip pan and remove the diffuser with it still in flames.

The following pics show what I experienced after attempting to wrap the wood chunks in foil in effort to retard their complete combustion, having previously experienced an instance of them igniting very early in a cook.

I ultimately had to abort the cook, and remove the food, the drip pan and the diffuser for fear of getting into a burn back situation or an out of control fire inside my smoker. This is what I saw after removing the diffuser and putting it into my fire pit.

As I look back, this really did not give me a stick burner type flavor, nor a charcoal type flavor. Stick burner flavor can only be gotten from a stick burner, and charcoal flavor only from a charcoal burner.

I ended up using this diffuser without using wood chunks in it. Because it is made of a much heavier gauge steel than my stock diffuser, it worked out for me in regards to durability. But I gave up on trying to burn wood in it.

Thanks for the info!

I guess most people have to wedge the lid open a bit to regulate temps better. There are a few instructional and review vids on YT I'll have to watch before deciding if I want to take the plunge.

As I previously stated, my smoke level with a tube and a maze, is pretty darn close to a stick burner anyway, I may just stick with what has been getting me good results.
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