Couple questions for you:
- Does the smoker get up to temp? This would validate that the unit is working as expected.
- What type/brand pellets are you using? It does matter. Most of the more inexpensive pellets may say "all hardwood" on the bag but typically only contain a small percent of the "flavor" wood. This typically results in less smoke flavor. You might try a better pellet that contains 100% of your flavor wood.
- What are you looking for in the smoke flavor part of the flavor profile? It is commonly "known" that pellet smokers produce less smoke flavor than stick and charcoal burners That said, you can produce great smoke flavor from a pellet grill; many BBQ competitions are won by pellet smokers. It just takes practice and experimenting.
- Smoking at lower temperatures produces more smoke than higher temperatures.
- Don't give up. Lot's of members here (including me) love their pellet smokers and the QUE they produce.
Thanks for joining. I would encourage you to read many of the threads here. You're QUE will improve and you'll be the envy of the neighborhood in no time.