i’ve been grilling all my life, on Weber kettles (charcoal), currently on a gas grill (also Weber). And I do some smoking, on a Weber Smokey Mountain.
But I’m considering making the switch, and looking at Traeger pellet grills. Do they really do everything perfectly – grill, smoke, sear, bake, braise, yada yada…? Do they really maintain nice steady temperature forever? (This drives me crazy about the Smokey Mountain) Should I be looking at brands other than Traeger?
I just came in from cleaning my Traeger, I had it up to 450F.
Good:
It will keep at the temp you set forever
You can add fuel to the hopper and ignore it forever
Relatively easy to clean
Gives a gentle Smokey flavour without being intense
Bad:
Pellets can be expensive
You can’t get a good sear
It occasionally catches fire if you don’t clean the drip tray well or if the fire goes out and you restart without taking it apart and removing extra pellets
Gives a gentle Smokey flavour without being intense
I’m making hot smoked salmon for 35 people tomorrow night on it
I was given a pellet smoker for free by my mother-in-law, who got one for Christmas from her brother and didn’t want it. It’s not a Traeger but a different brand.
For this particular model, I’d say the bad outweighs the good. You have to prime it half the time or it won’t even heat up. It takes forever to heat up. It loses heat dramatically and it’s impossible to keep a consistent temperature.
One aspect that was driven home to me in my pre-purchase reading is: keep it clean (inside) and dry (electronics). People who didn’t vacuum out the fire box every smoke or two would start running into pellet feeding problems.
It can’t replicate a grill’s searing or high heat.
I found using a ThermoWorks Smoke to be a really nice accessory; probably even necessary if smoking with charcoal.
I have a PitBoss, which is a vertical pellet smoker. Pros and cons are pretty similar to what’s been laid out. If you have the room, an off-set Traeger would be a better choice, as I’d rather have the extra room, as well as not having to stack things on top of each other on racks. If you want a more compact profile, the PitBoss is an awesome choice.
But being able to set the temperature (mine dials down to 25° increments) is a huge pro over a stick burner. I can do a quick batch of burgers or brats if I want something a little fancier than just grilled, and it takes no extra effort.
I’ve got a Camp Chef XXL, and it’s good for most things. Basically it’s great for things that don’t call for heavy smoke. It makes fantastic jerky, bacon, homemade sausage, smoked poultry, etc… because it’s more or less set and forget and produces a mild and relatively moderate smoke. I can’t say I’ve ever had problems feeding pellets; the Camp Chef seems mostly bulletproof.
I really like a mix of the wood pellets and the charcoal pellets. Lumberjack brand is probably the best overall, but now that I’m not attempting to smoke briskets on the thing, the Wal-Mart Pit Boss pellets are just fine for the rest of the uses.
But it doesn’t actually generate that much smoke, and for things like brisket or pork butt, it’s not smoky enough- they come out tasting more like baked meat than actual barbecue. Maybe some parts of the country are game for that, but here in Texas, it’s not true to style. It shouldn’t be a rich brown coming out of the smoker, it should look like it just got finished with re-entry and be nearly black.
I generally use the built-in probes for temperature, even though I do have a ThermoWorks Smoke & Billows setup like @Raza suggests, but that’s for my 22" WSM (a charcoal smoker).
Gas or charcoal grilling often involves setting up a hot side and a cool side, and letting you choose between direct and indirect heat. I take it that this concept does not apply to pellet grillling?
That’s correct, because the heat source is a single point about the size of a can of tuna. The Traeger has the burner pot, a heat spreader/shield, a drip liner, and then the grill. You might get a bit cooler in the corners but convection keeps it consistent.
These are smokers, not grills. The heat source on smokers is going to be indirect - either in an off-set box (using either pellets, charcoal, or hardwood) or from a hopper under a pan.
I’m surprised to hear this. I bought a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker several years ago, after having been frustrated with a much cheaper bullet-style smoker that really did not hold a steady temp, and I’ve been very happy with the oven-like consistency of the SM smoker, once it gets up to temp and you adjust the vents a little initially.
One trick I found works really well with the SM is to fill the heat-sink bowl with sand instead of water. It seems to do a better job of regulating the internal temp than water, and you can cover the top of the sand-filled bowl with foil so it catches the grease and you don’t have a huge mess of greasy water afterward.
Wife got a Traeger last summer when I was away for a few days. I was skeptical at first, but damn does it make great ribs, and burgers. I like the temp setting and it stays there. However, there are some things it has not done so well for us - grilled fish was overcooked and dry, BBQ pizza does not really need the whole smoke thing, come to mind. Grilled veggies are about the same as our old gas grill, if not a little worse, TBH. And as someone mentioned, no char, and a long-ish warm-up time compared to gas. We have also had several episodes where it kept feeding pellets and was not completely burning them, leading to too much smoke, undercooked food, and a mess of half-burned pellets and ash to clean-up underneath afterward. We think it had to do with moist pellets, even tho we keep it covered with a fitted Traeger cover. Overall, I would give it a B-, but then our gas grill had some downsides as well (uneven heating, burning stuff, and the occasional grease fire).
Traeger owner here and I find about ten minutes is all it takes when starting it up, even when setting the highest temperature. Perhaps it’s because it’s their smallest model.
One problem I’ve had with it on the smoke setting, target about 180F, it it occasionally goes out. Unlike the higher settings, the pellet auger isn’t controlled by the temp, but simply a timer, a few seconds on, many more seconds off. Again, perhaps it’s because it’s the little one.
One thing I do all the time is throw on a bunch of 1-pound sausage chubs, i.e. Jimmy Dean, and smoke them for three or four hours until the internal temp reaches 180F. It has a nice smoke ring and taste when sliced and devoured. One is eaten right away, the other’s are vacuum-sealed and frozen until wanted, then simmered inside the pack on the stove.
I have a Rec-Tec pellet grill, a Weber gas grill, and a Char-Broil electric smoker. The pellet grill holds a consistent temperature, but it’s a compromise between the other two. It doesn’t get as hot as fast as the gas grill so it doesn’t sear very well, nor can it impart as much smoke as the electric smoker. It’s also harder to clean than either the gas grill or electric smoker.
I’m giving the pellet grill to my son and will use the other two for what they do best, either hot grilling or thorough smoking.
Weber is advertising a new grill that supposedly combines the smokiness of a pellet grill with the heat of a gas grill, but I have no idea how well it works.
Does anyone have thoughts on pellet smokers vs kamado (eg, Big Green Egg) smokers?
Kamados claim to do everything well – low & slow smoking, high-heat searing and pizza. But it appears they operate the same way as my Smokey Mountain – tweaking vents to get the right temperature…and I struggle with that,