Edchad
Well-known member
Ok did my first cook today and as promised here comes The questions. Lol.
First let me describe what happened so you can answer better to what I’m asking. (Does that even sound right???)
I used Pit Boss Apple pellets and cooked 2 racks of baby backs. Not sure how I wound up with Apple. Normally I like hickory on most everything especially pork. On my PB Hammertone 2, I sometimes mix just a little apple in with my hickory chips. Tends to smooth the smokiness a little. But I can’t recall ever using straight Apple. Anyway I’ll say I had a brain fart apparently and put a bag of Apple instead of hickory in the buggy at Lowe’s.
Emptied the ashes from my burn-off the other day. Filled the water pan. Plugged it in. Then pressed the button and turned it on. Left the door open and verified the hopper and fan was running and when I got a whiff of smoke I closed the door. I checked the control and it was set on ‘S’ (that I thought was a 5 the other day. Lol)
I left it that way for awhile but wasn’t sure it was heating up like it should. So I then ran it up to 300 I believe and watched the temp. I also put a Maverick probe on a holder and put on the middle rack. And put the PB probe on a lower rack on a holder as well.
Didn’t take long and the temp started climbing nicely and it was smoking like a freight train.
I wound up setting it on 250 degrees shooting for around 225 in the pit. I’ll say it did a pretty good job maintaining what was showing 250. But reading closer to my 225 off the probes. The two probes read maybe 3-10 deg from each other but about 30 less than what the main Actual temp on the pit was showing. Set on 250 it only fluctuated maybe +/- 8 deg during the whole cook. The probes being that far off the mains Actual didn’t bother me as everything I’ve ever had was like that. I cook from the probes readings anyway because I know it’s right. (Talking about the Maverick. The PB probe was pretty much just testing it.)
Cooked the ribs 3-2-1 style.
I even tried the app. Monitoring only. I didn’t make any adjustments with it. But it seemed to reflect the pits control pretty well. The little icons for fan, auger and element were sort of cool. Lol. When I finished the cook I removed the ribs and some ears of corn I added about the last hour and half and pressed the button no let it so it’s shutdown while I brought the food in.
Ok. The ribs came out falling off the bones tender.
They didn’t caramelize well during that last hour or so. Also, and I’ve already read a lot on this , they weren’t very Smokey at all.
Part of that I think was the Apple pellets. And after reading quite a bit in here apparently these things just don’t give off that much Smokey flavor?
I find that kinda weird as this thing was smoking like a train at startup for quite awhile and off n on all during the cook I’m assuming when it was firing itself back up for temp? After watching all the smoke this thing produced I was almost in shock with the lack of smoke flavor.
I still think the Apple was part of it. Milder smoke ??
I have read about the AMAZEN tubes. And in fact have a 5x8 tray I just got the other day to play with in my grill.
I understand that adds a lot of flavor. But if it’s loaded with the same pellets I don’t understand how it would be different than all the smoke billowing out of it anyway.
I already said somewhere this was much of an impulse buy.
I justified it as larger capacity. Which it is. Self tending. Which it did. But I was under the impression these things left a great Smokey flavor.
The cooker and even the app worked flawlessly.
I already have a bag of PB competition blend pellets. Will these be smokier? I plan to test hickory after these.
I hate to say it but my old Hammertone 2 beats this hands down for flavor. And is just about as easy to use.
Any help, tips, comments, or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance. And apologies for such a long post.
First let me describe what happened so you can answer better to what I’m asking. (Does that even sound right???)
I used Pit Boss Apple pellets and cooked 2 racks of baby backs. Not sure how I wound up with Apple. Normally I like hickory on most everything especially pork. On my PB Hammertone 2, I sometimes mix just a little apple in with my hickory chips. Tends to smooth the smokiness a little. But I can’t recall ever using straight Apple. Anyway I’ll say I had a brain fart apparently and put a bag of Apple instead of hickory in the buggy at Lowe’s.
Emptied the ashes from my burn-off the other day. Filled the water pan. Plugged it in. Then pressed the button and turned it on. Left the door open and verified the hopper and fan was running and when I got a whiff of smoke I closed the door. I checked the control and it was set on ‘S’ (that I thought was a 5 the other day. Lol)
I left it that way for awhile but wasn’t sure it was heating up like it should. So I then ran it up to 300 I believe and watched the temp. I also put a Maverick probe on a holder and put on the middle rack. And put the PB probe on a lower rack on a holder as well.
Didn’t take long and the temp started climbing nicely and it was smoking like a freight train.
I wound up setting it on 250 degrees shooting for around 225 in the pit. I’ll say it did a pretty good job maintaining what was showing 250. But reading closer to my 225 off the probes. The two probes read maybe 3-10 deg from each other but about 30 less than what the main Actual temp on the pit was showing. Set on 250 it only fluctuated maybe +/- 8 deg during the whole cook. The probes being that far off the mains Actual didn’t bother me as everything I’ve ever had was like that. I cook from the probes readings anyway because I know it’s right. (Talking about the Maverick. The PB probe was pretty much just testing it.)
Cooked the ribs 3-2-1 style.
I even tried the app. Monitoring only. I didn’t make any adjustments with it. But it seemed to reflect the pits control pretty well. The little icons for fan, auger and element were sort of cool. Lol. When I finished the cook I removed the ribs and some ears of corn I added about the last hour and half and pressed the button no let it so it’s shutdown while I brought the food in.
Ok. The ribs came out falling off the bones tender.
They didn’t caramelize well during that last hour or so. Also, and I’ve already read a lot on this , they weren’t very Smokey at all.
Part of that I think was the Apple pellets. And after reading quite a bit in here apparently these things just don’t give off that much Smokey flavor?
I find that kinda weird as this thing was smoking like a train at startup for quite awhile and off n on all during the cook I’m assuming when it was firing itself back up for temp? After watching all the smoke this thing produced I was almost in shock with the lack of smoke flavor.
I still think the Apple was part of it. Milder smoke ??
I have read about the AMAZEN tubes. And in fact have a 5x8 tray I just got the other day to play with in my grill.
I understand that adds a lot of flavor. But if it’s loaded with the same pellets I don’t understand how it would be different than all the smoke billowing out of it anyway.
I already said somewhere this was much of an impulse buy.
I justified it as larger capacity. Which it is. Self tending. Which it did. But I was under the impression these things left a great Smokey flavor.
The cooker and even the app worked flawlessly.
I already have a bag of PB competition blend pellets. Will these be smokier? I plan to test hickory after these.
I hate to say it but my old Hammertone 2 beats this hands down for flavor. And is just about as easy to use.
Any help, tips, comments, or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance. And apologies for such a long post.
that there was no more smoke flavor, how this thing was running. It smoked probably more than my other. And off and
