Featured Using "Smoke setting" only on pit boss

[kcwnj77]

Out of Houston Texas (new caney), novice smoker at best.

Coworker and myself were discussing the "P" settings on our pit boss grills. My understanding was that this was only for initial start up. I realize i was wrong.

My question is, has anyone used the "smoke" setting for an entire cook session? And what you experienced with that? My thinking is that you are in for a long day if you stay on that setting. Pit boss specifically states that is what the "P" setting is for, and around 225-250 temp setting. We were looking for ways to increase the smoke flavor of the meat we are cooking. Im going to try and initially staying on the smoke setting for around an hour or two when the meat first goes on and then bringing the temp up to the 225-250 setting and see if that gets the difference in flavor im looking for. Just wondering anyones experience with that?

Im new here and look forward to learning some tips and tricks. Thanks

 

[sandyut]

m going to try and initially staying on the smoke setting for around an hour or two when the meat first goes on and then bringing the temp up to the 225-250 setting

welcome, I do this all the time on my Rec Tec and works good.

P setting is Pause, the auger pause between turns=pellet dumps. so the lower the setting the more pellets (less pause) and v/v, pretty sure, just about 99% sure. Rec Tec calls is min auger feed rate so low=less. but same concept.

its a way to control the temp at the lowest setting. for me that is 180 (extreme smoke). when its hot out in summer if I dont slow the pellets it will fly past 180 and not slow down. I think this concept is generlly the same on all pellet grills.

here is PB explaining

post up some cooks! we love food here.

 

[smokerjim]

Sorry I wont be much help Mine doesn't have a p setting I use a amnps tube with mine. They work good

 

[WaterRat]

I've only used the "Smoke" with "P" setting a couple times - most successfully to make tasso. Using it for more smoke flavor is possile but will require some playing around. I doubt you'd ever be able to cook a rack of ribs solely on the smoke setting. Safety is also consideration with such low heat and you could be in the danger zone too long depending on what you are cooking. Good luck!

 

[kruizer]

Welcome to SMF from Minnesota.

 

[bill1]

I have a Masterbuilt pellet vertical and I find, for the out-of-the-box design, I drop to under 180 deg within 20 minutes on the Smoke setting, pretty much regardless of the P setting I use, just because the fan runs so fast it blows too much heat out. I suspect "steady-state" in the smoke setting, even on warm days, is about 150, though I'm always too impatient (hungry?) to let it drop that low. Instead I've added switchable resistors of 50, 100, and 200 ohms in series with the combustion fan (and Hardie board on 4 sides for a bit of wall insulation) and find that makes a world of difference in both creating smoke and maintaining temperature.

Still I'm always a little leery (even before making mods to the factory design!) of walking too far away in the Smoke setting since most of your control system isn't in play during the smoke setting (it's really just a "run the auger for x seconds every y seconds" sort of timer) so an overflowed pot, out-of-control fire, etc. just becomes s little too likely for my comfort zone.

So what I've been trying, although I'm not quite ready to say this is a silver bullet yet, is to just set the normal cook setting to its min temp and forget the "Smoke Cycles". (You can always increase temp at the end as you approach the "stall" temperature.) My hunch is you generate just as much smoke at your LOWEST (180 for me) cook setting as you do in the so-called smoke cycle, and it's a lot more set&forget. Does anyone else feel the same?

I suspect the major reason the builders don't allow cook settings below 180 is that the temp swings become much more noticeable at the lower temps and that's a show-stopper for a lot of potential customers. (And would be to me too if I put in a bunch of expensive cheese and came back to find goo on the bottom of the smoker.)

And not being one to only change 1 variable at a time, I've also replaced the factory heat diffuser with a large cast iron fry pan I keep loaded with chips so it's not like I'm smoke-deprived anyway.