- Joined
- Sep 2, 2012
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The "Smoke" setting, according to Traeger, slows the deposit of pellets by doing a "15 seconds on, 65 seconds off" cycle and in doing so it tends to keep the temperature between 150-180. People having to do this kind of silly shit to get the smoke flavor they desire is why I'm pretty much not interested in pellet grills. I've seen people with the Yoder pellet grills, at $2000+ and they're adding those Amazen smoking tubes to the cook chamber. Why the hell are you going to pay that kind of money for a smoker that doesn't give you the smoke flavor you want?
Anyways, play around with it, have some fun. Lots of people say they get much better smoke flavor / aroma from different pellets... I think 2 very good brands are the Lumberjack and Smoke Ring. Also lots of people say getting a single flavor is better than a "blend" so give that a shot and see how it works.
It took about 20 minutes to go from 275 to 225. Then it gets back to 275 quickly.
I grill (chicken breasts, burgers, steak, etc) a lot more than I smoke so if I have to do some stuff that's not a huge deal to me but it is a bit disappointing. They should really have smoke level options on top of temp. If I smoked meats often I would be getting something else.
The blend smelled fantastic, basically a fruity sweet hickory, we'll see how it goes. I might try my own mixture. In the past with wood chips I would often mix pecan and cherry or hickory and cherry. But I'll probably try out different brands as well. I'll see how this first smoke goes.