BGKYSmoker
Nepas OTBS #242
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Nice!
Did you abandon your PID run smokehouse or are you only doing lower temp sausage smokes and such in it? :)
Just got a Pitt Boss Vertical pellet smoker for my birthday. I have never smoked anything! If I could get some pointers I would greatly appreciate it!
Just got a Pitt Boss Vertical pellet smoker for my birthday. I have never smoked anything! If I could get some pointers I would greatly appreciate it!
You get more smoke at lower temperatures. Run low to put smoke on whatever you're cooking, then raise the temp after a couple of hours to cook to your finish temp. Above 250F not much smoke is generated as the fire burns too completely. Pellets generate the most smoke when they're burning slowly.
Rick,
I run the water pan dry and only as a secondary heat deflector in my PB5. I moved the water pan to the 3rd hole from the bottom and the temp swings seem to be less as there is a little more volume of air for the flame to heat around the sensor which is below the pan (at lowest level). I also use a full size disposable pan as my drip pan, but I'm not sure the Pro model you have (PB4?) will hold the full sized pan on a rack. It's perfect for the 5 series though. Yes I sacrifice a cooking rack, but it's worth it. Not a drop of drippings/grease on my water pan or the bottom of my PB5 after 8 smokes doing it this way. I also watch the grate level temps, not the fire box (under water pan) level temps which are displayed on the unit controller. The fire box will swing 20* or more but the pit is rock solid at the meat level in mine.
Also if I'm cooking something that is not drippings/grease heavy, I will just loosely foil the disposable pan and let it sag down into the pan. I can strip off the foil and reuse the pan several times, but if it's something like a pork butt (or two), I just plan on using the whole pan to catch the grease and toss it.
Thanks for the info. Yeah I read some of the manual and saw where you need to do the initial burn.Just the initial burn in as described in the manual. You want to run it at a high temp for a while to make sure all the oils and stuff from the manufacturing process are burned off.
When I did my burn in, after I was satisfied it was done, I tossed some sausage on and dropped the temp down to 225* and smoked them. I also do the shut down as described in the manual (sort of). I will crank it up if I'm smoking at a lower temp and then you lower the temp so what is in the burn pot is mostly burned, then before it drops to my new low set temp, I put it in shutdown mode (push and hold the on/off button). The auger and element will stop, but the fan will continue to run to burn up the remaining pellets in the burn pot. Keep the door closed and latched during shutdown. I also vacuum out my bottom and fire pot after every usage (the next day).
Just bought the Series 4 from Lowes this week, have not assembled it yet. I have used MES smokers for years and after my last one crapped out I decided to go with a pellet smoker . Look at the MES pellet but just did not look to well insulated.
One question I have is do you leave the unused pellets in after you are done or do you empty the holding compartment. I did buy a cover with mine as well.