My name is Dorothy and I want to be a pellet smoker!

Not Dot

New member
Hi all,

We have a New Braunsfel smoker that we bought used (looks new) and we've never used it. Today is the day! A co-worker told me to use pellets, so we bought apple pellets for the pork loin we're smoking today. My concern is the pellet bag says we're supposed to use charcoal too; my co-worker said no charcoal. What works best? If we use pellets only how much do we use?

Thank you!
 

CarterQ

Moderator
Welcome aboard Dorothy! I believe the New Braunfels smokers were offset (the fire box is on one side) In your case the pellets would be the source of your smoke flavor, you will need to use charcoal for your heat and then add pellets for smoke. Hope this helps and don't hesitate to ask questions, there are a lot of people here with experience on a myriad of smokers.
 

HoDeDo

New member
Dorothy, What is your New Braunfels like? Is it Barrel shaped, or is it more of a vertical box with a grill attached to it? There are several NB models, but to my knowledge, none of them are designed to run solely on pellets. It could be done, but would require some effort to make happen. (A grate that would keep them from falling through, a source of air to burn them efficiently, a way to feed the fire with additional fuel)

If your cooker is a new braunfels Bandera, I'll grab you a link to the tips and tricks for it.
 

Not Dot

New member
Thank you for your replies to help out this virgin smoker! Our New Braunfels looks like a Krieger smoker. It is barrel shaped with a firebox on the side. There is a damper on the side of the firebox and chimney. I watched a Krieger video on youtube yesterday and excpet for the high grade material of a Krieger, they look the same. We've had it for over five years and the guy we bought it from said he used it a couple of times--it has all the grates it came with. We're sure it is from the original New Braunfels factory before it shut down. So on to the procedure for today, I'll use charcoal and the pellets. We also have some treated wood chips to use--we'll save those for a tri-tip, our next big adventure.
 

Rip

New member
Welcome to the forum Dorothy! I see you're getting good help. Let us know how the cook comes out.
 

Not Dot

New member
We're having a hard time keeping the temp above 150 with briquets and pellets so we are adding small hunks of firewood with a little pitch on the wood. I think we need to use a lot more wood next time! Its a good thing we eat dinner between 8-9PM because I think its going to be a while before the inner temp reaches 160! Any and all advice is greatly appreciated...
 

HoDeDo

New member
Dorothy, I would start that thing with two chimneys of charcoal. then damper it down once you are at or slightly above temp. Pics would help, but essentially, put an oven thermometer on your grate, so you know what temp you are cooking at... maybe once you are able to get it up to temp do a biscuit test for the eveness across the cooker.

For a loin, putting some chunks on top of that, or small sticks, or even a foil pouch of pellets, will get you your smoke flavor rolling.
I'm not sure what you mean by treated chips... "treated" sounds like something you wouldnt want to go in your cooker....

Run that chimney wide open, to get a draw going, and get that heat in there! :)
 

Not Dot

New member
I think you are right about doing 2 chimneys of coals. There is a built in thermometer on the grill hood but we can add an oven thermometer on the grate also. The wood chunks are treated with "apple" and are for grilling...sorry I didn't make that clear. We're going to try a whole chicken, chopped in half, meat side up on the smoker today. Thank you so much for your advise!

Dorothy, I would start that thing with two chimneys of charcoal. then damper it down once you are at or slightly above temp. Pics would help, but essentially, put an oven thermometer on your grate, so you know what temp you are cooking at... maybe once you are able to get it up to temp do a biscuit test for the eveness across the cooker.

For a loin, putting some chunks on top of that, or small sticks, or even a foil pouch of pellets, will get you your smoke flavor rolling.
I'm not sure what you mean by treated chips... "treated" sounds like something you wouldnt want to go in your cooker....

Run that chimney wide open, to get a draw going, and get that heat in there! :)
 
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