Pit Boss pellet filler wood?

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kevin james

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Jul 30, 2012
484
384
Sacramento, CA
I'm wondering if anyone knows what type of wood Pit Boss is using as "filler" in their pellets. Their bags say "100% Hard Wood", but not 100% Pecan, or 100% HIckory etc., so I know they are using something as a filler, just not sure what.
 
They are a bit secretive about it. I think a lot of blends have some oak, then add the hickory etc. I can finds Lumberjack pellets easy so I use those.
 
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They are a bit secretive about it. I think a lot of blends have some oak, then add the hickory etc. I can finds Lumberjack pellets easy so I use those.

I was buying Lumberjack pellets from Dick's Sporting Goods, but the only ones on the website now are Apple Blend, so I'm not sure if they stopped carrying them or what.

I would actually be fine with oak as the filler though. Most of my smoking is done in my offset and I run oak splits with a few pecan or cherry splits here and there. I got in to sausage making recently and have been testing out different methods to cold smoke them and came to the conclusion that using my old A-Maze_N pellet tray stuck in my fire box works great, so I started looking at pellets again for that purpose. Since I couldn't find any Lumberjack pellets I grabbed a bag of Pit Boss Pecan pellets knowing they were a blend, and hoping the filler is oak which would match what I run in my offset anyways. Plus, they are cheaper then the Lumberjack pellets at $8.97/20lb bag so that would be a double win if the filler IS oak.
 
MOST pellet makers use some type of filler wood for their flavored pellets. Usually a 60/40 blend of filler to flavored wood due to the texture of pecan/hickory/mesquite/etc wood. I had a response from B&B last year telling what was what but I'll have to look for it
 
I know initially in the food grade pellet manufacturing they used Alder as the filler wood. It’s cheap and plentiful.
 
I was buying Lumberjack pellets from Dick's Sporting Goods, but the only ones on the website now are Apple Blend, so I'm not sure if they stopped carrying them or what.

I was bummed when LJ stopped with the 100% apple.Just about out too.
 
I got ahold of Pit Boss customer service and the rep put me on hold and looked in to it, and came back confirming the filler is indeed oak, and that the Pecan blend is only Pecan and Oak, nothing else.

He didn't tell me what the ratio is, but probably 60% Oak, 40% Pecan I would imagine, which I'm good with since I want to match what I'm using in my offset anyways, which is mostly Oak and a little Pecan.
 
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