New To Traeger

[Darrylovia]

Hello all,
I've been mainly a charcoal guy for years (Large BGE, Kamado Joe Jr, Weber Performer, Weber Smoky Mountain, Smokey Joes, etc.) and just purchased my first pellet grill. I was minding my own business at Costco when I saw the Silverton and it caught my eye. The features were nice and my wife said it looked good too, so I ended up walking out of the store with it. I got the older model without the WiFi and D2. I also picked up a bag of Traeger Hickory pellets and Cherry Pellets.

I loaded up the hopper full of hickory pellets and did the burn in. The smell was odd or not charcoal like and I assume that was the oils/chemicals getting burned off.

So far did 2 cooks: wings and brats, then reverse seared steaks. The cast iron grate that came with the Silverton did a decent job in make grill marks.

One thing i did notice is that the smell of the pellets burning is quite different and not in a good way from the charcoal grills with or without wood chunks/chips. I was wonder what everyone's opinion is on the smoke odor difference between pellets and charcoal with/without wood chunks.

v/r
D

 

[bfletcher]

Hi Darry. I can relate to your experience. To me, the charcoal experience compared to the pellet experience is quite different. I feel a previous thread where I shared my personal opinion best summarizes my journey. The link to that thread follows, along with a screenshot of my post. Others may have different opinions, though.

https://www.traegerforum.com/thread...dvice-about-potential-purchase.778/#post-5052

 

[primeone]

Welcome to the forum! Congrats on the new Smoking Rig!

After you burn through all of those pellets, I would suggest trying a different brand and see how you like the results. Maybe B&B, Kingsford, or LumberJack.

 

[Darrylovia]

Thanks for the replies. I burned through my bag of Traeger Hickory pellets and now using the Traeger Cherry pellets. I smoked some St Louis ribs with the Cherry pellets and they turned out quite good. I also ordered a bag of Oak and Apple from BBQr Delight and I'll see how those work, after that I'll order some Lumber Jack since I see a lot of positive reviews on Lumber Jack.

Lesson Learned: after smoking 3 racks of ribs, don't turn the Traeger to high. I thought hmm some grilled asparagus sure would go nice with these ribs so I cranked up the grill to high. Bad Idea. All the rendered fat caught on fire. Yikes! All was saved after I re-foiled the heat shield.

Thanks
D