Just a thought about my experience with pellets...........I started smoking with a purchase of a Traeger. Of course they recommend their pellets. Great for cooking but little smoke flavor...in my opinion. So the quest was on. I added the Smoke Daddy to add pure wood flavor to my cooks. Sometimes good..sometimes bad. A lotta work, I'm kinda lazy. I didn't know a lot about pellets but lurk enough and you learn. I purchased a MES at Sam's because of the Traeger + SD, with hope of good smoke flavor and ease of use. The wood chip tray worked well but still a pain adding chips every 30 min or so. Well back to square 1. I read about the traeger pellets being mostly oak or alder. That explained the reason for the taste being similar between the different flavors. So I tried BBQR'S Delight pellets for pellet cookers. They are also mostly oak with flavored wood but the reason for the oak is for higher btu. I did get more smoke in smoke setting and more flavor but..........I want more so I purchased the
AMNPS from Todd and that baby works. You use the pure wood pellets for the smoke flavor because the btu factor don't matter. Works great in the MES. I haven't used it in the Traeger yet. I'm going to try it in smoke mode before I turn it up to finish my cook. I really think with the forced air, a good smoke is hard to get from a pellet smoker but still they do a good job. I have noticed the BBQR'S Delight pellets for pellet grills do seem to burn faster than the Traeger pellets. Todd is great to deal with. The best customer service since the 60's. So I guess from my limited experience I would advise oak + flavor in cooler months but you may be just fine in the heat of summer with the pure pellets. Maybe Todd could find the best blend for pellet grills and offer them.