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Spent $400 on a pellet grill last spring and went back to my $60 craigslist offset after 4 cooks
I finally get why the old guys at the KCBS events in Lenexa keep saying pellets are just an oven with extra steps. I grabbed a mid range pellet smoker last April because a buddy swore it held temp overnight with zero work, and honestly for the first two cooks on pork butts it was fine. Then I did a brisket and the bark came out soft and gray, nothing like what I get off my cheap offset I bought used for $60 from a guy in Olathe. I messed with the controller, tried a smoke tube, even ran it at 225 the whole way, and it still tasted flat, like the smoke never really got in there. What got me was one of the pitmasters at a local comp telling me pellets burn too clean, so you lose that fat rendering and that dirty blue smoke flavor you actually want. I sold it to my neighbor for $250 and went right back to feeding splits every 45 minutes, sweaty and tired but way happier with the meat. Maybe it's just me but I don't think you can buy your way out of tending a fire. Anyone here get good bark off pellets, or did I just never crack the code?
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palmer.henry6d ago
Funny how a pellet grill is basically a crockpot with a light show and a $400 price tag. You paid all that money to babysit a controller instead of a fire, and the meat still came out tasting like it was cooked in a convection oven at a Holiday Inn. The old guys in Lenexa aren't wrong, clean burn means clean flavor, which is a nice way of saying no flavor. You sold it for $250 and got your weekends back, that's a win no matter how you slice it. Buy your way out of tending a fire, sure, but you also bought your way out of the whole reason people do this in the first place.
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