Propane smokers use a lot of wood, so ... .

I use the AMNTS tube smoker from Amaze N Smokers for adding smoke in my propane smoker. I works in the smoker with pit temps up to 285. Above that the pellets ignite and do not smolder. For higher temps I use my mailbox mod and pipe the smoke into the smoker. With the 12" tune I get 4-6 hours of smoke. The 18" tube I get 8-12. Both times depend on the pit temp.

smokersouth said:

 
Believe it or not after that long post about chainsaws etc., I like to keep things simple if I can.

Pellets, pipes and mailboxes aren't for me. Plus, if I i want to crank up my smoker for a few minutes to finish off a chicken with crispy skin, I end up with the pellets burning up, right?

All things being equal, are pellets more or less expensive than charcoal or pre-packaged wood?

And there's another thing I don't like about those pellets. They look like like rat droppings from a giant wooden rat.

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but the pellets are concentrated so it doesn't take very much product to produce the results we like to get. No cutting, hauling, having room to store the logs, BUT,  I'll still use real logs for a brisket, but I am a pellet person using the AMPS on everything else.

smokersouth said:

 
 Plus, if I i want to crank up my smoker for a few minutes to finish off a chicken with crispy skin, I end up with the pellets burning up, right?

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I don't use my propane smoker to cook poultry because I smoke all my poultry at high temps. So I use my Mini-WSM or my 18.5 WSM for that. Now if I did use the gasser as you describe and turn it up for the last few minutes of the smoke I wouldn't be concerned about burning up the pellets because the cook is over.

As far as pricing its probably a wash.  I get 6-8 hours of smoke from a pint and a half of pellets in the tube or the same amount of smoke from (3-4) 2"-3" chunks of wood.

The nice thing about the pellets and the tube is I can cold smoke in the gasser without doing anything. Which is important to me because I cold smoke all kinds of things.

First off, you will have to pardon me if this sounds like a stupid question but i used to work tech support and you have no idea the number of times i got a call for a monitor that was not turned on.

Your wood that your smoker is burning up, do you have that soaked in water prior to use, or are you just dropping the dry wood right in the wood pan? If dry, soak the wood in water for 30 minutes or so, the moisture will control the burn rate, you will get good smoke, and your bag of wood will last longer.

I bring that up cause nobody mentioned it yet, and you didn't either.

As to the pellets, i use one of the amazing tube smokers, liked it enough to purchase the smaller model as well as the bigger one, in the big one for about a cup of pellets i can smoke for 6-8 hours easy, i purchased a couple of the 5lb bags of pellets along with the smoker and it has taken me the better part of 3 years to get through them, smoking at least once or twice a month. i smoke a lot of stuff in the summer the smoker can be running every week. those pellets last forever

smaller model works great for short smokes for burgers and the like. 

https://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=AMNTS

for my tube smoker/smokers i use one of these, just set the tube smoker on it, plenty of air flow all around the tube


i drilled 4 holes under it to provide air and have it setting as far as it can get in the bottom of the smoker from the burner. it has worked great for years.

and to your question about just dropping them in the pan and useing a tourch, strickly speaking it will cause them to burn and smoke. but, they will consume all the fuel (pellets) very fast doing that, so your smoke time wont be much, with the tube or the box one from amazn it is made to burn them a little at a time in a controlled way so they last for hours, and you dont have to fill it. just add what you want for the time you want to smoke. 

If anything it is a more controlled way of smoking

I put a tube on the bottom of my smoke hollow under the burners as there are a few big stamped holes on bottom and plenty of air and works good...never had as good of luck putting above burners in any place starting at burners and up to shelves

I know this is an old thread, but I just came across it.

I have the amazn tray and tube. I use the tray for cold smoke in my vertical gas smoker with no flame in the wood box. When doing a hot smoke, say at 225, can I do the same instead of using wood chunks or would the flame cause the pellets to burn instead of smoke?

Thanks.