I have been using a smokers for a few years now. I recently started reading articles about pellet grills. What is everyone's take on pellet grills?
I'm from the South and we havent seen or heard a lot about these "pellet grills". There is not a store here that sells the grills or the pellets. That being said, my main cioncern is getting pellets without having to order them everytime I need them. If the taste and cooking are that much better I would be willing to deal with the hassle until some local stores started carrying the product. I use a Masterbuilt electric smoker now and have been somewhat pleased. Its just an old one without the digital temperature control so you have to constantly baby it to make sure the temp does not get out of control. I came across the Yoder and Traeger through a web search and from what I've read they serve as a grill and smoker. Seeing as I also need a grill I thought this would be a good option.
I currently have a Blazin Grillworks Grid Iron.
Onto them pellet grills... Do the controls allow to shut the grill down after a preset period of time of cooking? Because that was the first thing I was thinking about when you mentioned for the long overnight smokes.
For the kind of money that is being charged for these things I would think it would be great to see a few more features built into the computer portion. Such as...
Varying temp by time, where you could chose to smoke for say the first two hours, then have it bump the temp to wherever you want for the remaining time. Often times this is how I smoke meats, I think you get the best penetration at the lower heat levels and once the ring is formed the meat is sealed you can crank it up by 50 degrees and just finish it off.
A way to cook for a pre-determined amount of time and have the unit shut itself off.
As an add on a temp probe for your product that is monitored by the control board and will either alarm or shut the grill down when it reaches the internal temp you set it for. This would be worth it's weight in gold to me.
Features like those would help me part the money from my wallet and jump into the pellet game. Otherwise I am having a real hard time justifying purchasing an appliance that cost on average 4 times what a typical smoker cost. Even if there is a convenience factor with the grill keeping the temps right.
Price $1,299.00 |