First visit and have some basic questions

[rgstoneinsc]

I am unfamiliar with pellet smokers (except what I have read on the Internet) and would be interested in learning if they do as good a job with smoking as other methods and also would be interested in approximately the consumption of pellets for a 8 hour 250f smoke.....just trying to determine operating cost as might be compared to propane or electric.

Thanx

 

[TentHunter]

It depends on which pellet smoker/grill.

I have smoked, bacon, Hams, Sausage, Summer Sausage, Pastrami, etc. with better results that I would have imagined with our MAK 1 Star.

Mind you it's a very clean light bluish smoke instead of a heavy white billowing smoke, which is what you should strive for anyway with any smoker.

As for operating cost, I can't imagine running a smoker off of propane. Propane is not cheap. I have found most of my cooking with pellets to be comparable with what I was spending on charcoal.


Hope this helps.


Oh yeah... Welcome to the forum!

 

[RickB]

With a Mak pellet smoker in a 225-250 temp smoke you are looking at about a pound per hour. Price per pound about a buck.

 

[So Cal Smoker]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[sparky]

i used 18 lbs of pellets for 13 1/2 hours of cooking @ 275. pretty good i think.

 

[scooter]

Pellet smokers pros: clean burning, digitally controlled heat, "set it and forget it" convenience, no need to learn fire management as part of the BBQ experience learning curve, light smoke flavor added to meat so you can't oversmoke anything, some cookers also do grilling

Pellet smoker cons: You never learn fire management as part of your BBQ experience, light smoke flavor added to meat (no smoke flavor added in certain circumstances), high heat range around 600F in some units but understand that that type of heat will take a toll on the powder coating turning it gray before long or cause it to split or peel and it can discolor some stainless steel.

If you're one who appreciates a good amount of smoke flavor added to what you're cooking, you'll need to suppliment your pellet cooker with a smoke generator such as a Smoke Daddy to give you options in areas where there are none. The weakest spots in pellet cookers for adding smoke flavor are anything cooked in the 325F+ range and anything slow smoked for 2 hours or less. In these two areas I have not detected much if any smoke flavor added without using a smoke generator.
There are some theories out there why pellet cookers offer a lighter smoke footprint on your food such as they are VERY efficient burners of wood so they offer a "clean" smoke and thus impart a lighter flavor. I tend to think it has more to do with the induction fan which constantly blows air into the firepot to keep the fire going. What it also does at the same time is blow the smoke out of the cooking chamber. The smoke does not have the same amount of time to linger on the meat as it does in a wood burning or charcoal type smoker where heat convection is the only thing moving smoke out of the cooker.
I tell you all this because you should know what you're getting into. A quality Pellet smoker is an investment and you should know what it's capable of before you purchase and you should absolutely love it after you've purchased it! There's nothing worse for the pellet cooker market than someone who is not happy with their pellet cooker purchase.

 

[So Cal Smoker]

Excellent Scooter.