Best Pellet Smoker

Advantages & Disadvantages of using a Pellet Smoker

There are many reasons why you should use a pellet smoker.

Firstly, you have to remember that a pellet smoker functions as a sort of oven. Therefore, you can fill up the cook chamber and not have to worry about your cooking. You’ll have the perfect even cooking regardless.

Moreover, pellet smokers tend to preheat very quickly. Usually within 20 minutes you have the smoker ready to go.

More importantly, a lot of pellet smokers will let you play around with the temperature in small amounts, usually 5 to 10 degrees.

Moreover, you can do quite a lot on a pellet smoker. From the obvious smoking, to barbecues, there is much to be tried on one.

That being said, you have to remember that most pellet smokers rely on electricity. So you might be limited on where you can use it depending on your needs.

In addition, it is well known that at higher temperatures, less smoke is generated. But, overall these setbacks are minimal as long as you know what you are doing and what exactly you’ll be doing with your pellet smoker.

What are pellets?

Pellets(or pellet fuels as they are also known to be called) area form of biofuel that is normally made from a form of compressed organic matter.

These pellets can be made from quite a few forms of biomass. Nevertheless, wood pellets are the most common type and the ones mostly used.

As you already know, they can be used for cooking, as well as to generate electricity and power, among other things. Namely, they are used as fuel, and for specific types of barbecues and grills.

The majority of wood pellets are made in bulk in what are known as pellet mills.

Pellets are in high demand, and while there has been concern about the future availability of pellets, the industry has grown thanks to the demand of pellets. Therefore, there has been a conscious effort in producing more.

They produce more heat, and as such temperatures rise a lot quicker during cooking.

Best Pellet Smoker, how does Grilling in Wood Fire Work?

Firstly, let’s give a quick overview on how does grilling in one of these smokers work.

The first thing you need to know, is that the wood feeding is temperature controlled. A motor is in charge of turning the auger, in order to feed pellets into the firebox.

Afterwards a heated rod ignites the pellets, and with the help of a combustion fan, the pellets are kept smoking.

Furthermore, inside the pellet hopper there is a fan that has the task of making sure there isn’t any burn back in the auger tube.

Usually, the heat shields used to cover the firebox has the purpose of distributing heat to the entire grill, although this can vary depending on the brand.

Nevertheless, most(if not all) pellet smokers come with very specific instructions on how each one works.

Remember that the idea of smoking is to cook meat for long periods of time, particularly at low temperatures.

Hence, it is very important that you pick a pellet smoker that is tailor made for your needs.

If you do not want to spend a lot of time for example near the smoker, while it smokes, make sure you find one that gives you that option.

Primarily, what you cook in is wood pellets.

Because of the variety of temperatures that you have in pellet smokers, you can cook a ton of things you would not be able to do in a normal grill.

Basically you can also do whatever you can cook in an oven as well. Hence, why many people love to use pellet smokers.

Let’s take a look at our top 5 best pellet smoker options.

How to make Wood Pellets?

The first thing you want to do is make sure you gather all the wood you plan on using for your cooking.

Afterwards, you want to cut the wood pieces into appropriate sizes. You don’t want the pieces to be longer than 1 inch.

Namely, you want to make them as small as possible. Afterwards, you want to make sure you dry all the material with some form of heat.

You can either do this the natural way by placing the wood in the sun, or in a heaving oven until the wood gets as dry as you would like.

If you plan on making your own wood pellets, then you will most likely need a batch mixer.

With one, you can place the wood material through the mixer and make sure all the pieces are equally sized.

Moreover, you will of course need a pellet mill or press to produce the actual pellets.

For smaller amounts, you will of course use a pellet press. Hence, make sure you remember that a pellet press is either flat die or round die.

If you are wondering what a die is, it is a metal piece that has holes pierced through it.

Additionally, some pellets will not form correctly, namely, you’ll have pieces that fall apart.

Therefore, when this happens, make sure to separate the wrongly formed pieces.

Afterwards, the pellets will come out of the press.

And, you have to make sure they cool, so give them time and space to cool naturally.

Finally, make sure you store the pellets in sealed plastic bags. And, put them away in a dry place.