Hi i am new to pellet smokers

Deborah said:

 
I just purchased a Traeger Lil Texas smoker and tried it out on the 4th. of July smoked some mac and cheese, ribs and asparagus well everything turned out fine EXCEPT there was not much smoke flavor . I used hickory pellets. I must say that i also have a masterbilt smoker that puts out more smoke flavor than my pellet does . Did i do something wrong ? Oh i put the setting on smoke.

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Welcome to the group Deborah, and congrats on that new Traeger!  

Your comment about the smoke flavor is a pretty common complaint from new pellet cooks.  Pellet grills burn more efficiently than other types of pits, and so they just don't make the heavy smoke flavor that you can get off other smokers.  There are a couple ways to increase the smoke flavor you get:

First, try smoking at your lowest temperature setting for the first hour or two of your cook, then finish at a higher temp.  The higher your cooking temp, the less smoke your cooker will produce.

Second, you can supplement your grill's smoke with a smoke generating device such as the A Maze N Tube Smoker, which will add extra smoke to your cooks.

Just realize that even with these measures, your Traeger likely won't produce a super heavy smoke flavor in your food...it'll be a cleaner, more subtle smoke flavor than you may be used to getting in that Masterbuilt.

Hope that helps...

Red

you probably used the Traeger Pellets?

Best use for them is to put them back in the bag and bury it. Now, go and get some pellets - cooking pellets .com has some great ones.

I too have the masterbuilt and get better smoke than the pellet smoker I have, which I love and has the Mailbox attachment.

My friend had a Traeger, which cooks great  - but lacks smoke - its due to the design and how the smoke chamber has so much volume that it barely touches the meat. What we do with his, is turn the vents down low to trap more smoke inside and then we bought the AMPNS tube smoker - GREAT invention, and put that inside the smoker as well. You will use more pellets when you smoke, but youll get the dependability and even heat of the traeger and get some good smoked meats with all the smoke. Im not a fan of the traeger, but theres a convenience factor also in it.

The other advantage we find, and we stumbled across it, is that you can easily blend your smokes because you can use two different pellets.