Everyone enjoys an excellent smokey flavor in the meat. To produce smoky beef, you might need to make some adjustments if you are cooking with a Traeger grill, as this brand doesn’t have that type of heavy smoke on its own. With years of grilling experience, our experts give tips on getting additional smoke out of your Traeger to get the smoke taste you want. Here are several modifications and actions you may do to get your pellet grill’s smoke roaring.
Some professional Smokers say “It is difficult to smoke food with Pellet Grills”. But they must show the different ways by which one can enjoy the smokey flavor from the pellet grill as well. Newbies with little experience in smoking food with a pellet grill find it difficult to smoke food pellet grill and they find ways “How to get more smoke flavor from your pellet grill”.
Difference Between Smoking and Grilling?
Smoking and grilling are the different processes of cooking meat on a heat source. The heat will either be direct or indirect. It uses the same grill with a little adjustment if one can’t buy separate devices for enjoying the different tastes of the same meat.
What is Smoking?
The process of cooking food in a grill by providing indirect heat, which cooks the food slowly and smoothly over a long period. Smoking provides tenderness with better flavor as it uses wood chunks that provide flavorful smoke to food. When the wood chunks are heated up it produces smoke that invades the food and gives an extra flavor to the wood to the food.
What is Grilling?
The process of cooking food over direct heat is called grilling. Grilling makes the food cook quickly as the meat is directly exposed to direct heat. The high temperature which is mostly 500 degrees Fahrenheit or higher can sear the meat for the outer side that traps the juice inside the meat. The trapped juice within a steak is what we call the best-grilled steak.
How to Get More Smoke Flavor From Your Pellet Grill
When cooking between 165°F and 225°F, the super smoke option on the Traeger series intensifies smoke. This is a fantastic technique to increase the smoke taste when cooking at lower temperatures. At these temperatures, the smoker will automatically start creating additional smoke and keep it there until you reach the target temperature. Other tricks that can increase the smoke on Traeger include covering the lid, trying different wood pellets, lowering the temperature, repairing the leaks, and avoiding direct heat.
Smoking is all about a well-cooked and well-smoked piece of meat. Smoking at a low temperature in the presence of flavored wood makes the meat a masterpiece. According to professionals’ a pellet grill doesn’t produce much smoke or smoky flavor as compared to other types of grills mostly smokers. To get more smokey flavor from your pellet grill you must know the basic things for getting better results.
1. Cook at a Lower Temperature
The lower temperature imparts a great smokey flavor to the meat. The longer the meat stays in the smoked-filled grill the more it will gain taste from the smoke. Most Pellet grills have adjustable temperature gauges for controlling the temperature. You just set the temperature once and relax for a couple of hours or do whatever you want.
Start smoking by lowering the cooking temperature by about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Close the lid of the grill, this will produce enough and even smoke throughout the chamber. The smoke will infuse slowly within the meat but it has one drawback. The meat will lose its moisture because the smoking will take a couple of hours. In order to avoid this condition, use a water pan within the chamber that will keep the meat moist.
Difference Between Direct and Indirect Heat
When the bark is properly formed all around the meat then increase the temperature of your smoker to 250 degrees Fahrenheit till the internal temperature reaches 135 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the recommended temperature for perfectly smoked and cooked meat.
2. Try Different Wood Pellets
As a matter of fact, if you are using a pellet grill for smoking the food and you are not using flavored wood then you are lacking a greater flavor. The wood pellets don’t ignite the fire but also affect the flavor of smoked meat by producing a huge amount of smoke. Among all the wood used for smoking meat forest woods like hickory, beech, mesquite, alder, oak, etc. are the best ones as they are strong and produce high wood flavor by making huge smoke.
Other types of flavor wood pellets are apple and cherry pellets but, they won’t produce much of the long-lasting flavor. In order to get long-lasting and better taste, it is recommended to use them with forest wood pellets. Mesquite is used for chicken and beef, and Hickory is used for pork.
3. Use a Smoker Tube
If you want to make smokey-rich food then you must try a smoker tube. It is the easiest method for producing smoke that infuses the meat and provides smoked flavor to the food. It is a stainless-steel tube with lots of holes throughout the body. When the wood chunks or pellets of required flavor are filled and ignited a few of them and then pat the flame out, it will produce smoke over time. The average time for full consumption of the smoker tube is almost 5 hours.
The Smoker tube will enable the pellets to slowly burn and produce lots of smoke for prologue time. If you don’t want to switch out pellets, consider buying a smoker tube that will work beyond your expectations for producing smoke.
4. Don’t Open the Lid
Most of us have an issue with checking the food while cooking. If we do this from time to time the food will not be cooked properly and absorbed the smoke so will lack the taste we want. It is a common practice that while cooking in a pressure cooker we close the lid till we know it is cooked.
How to Clean Portable Pellet Grill?
The same is the case if we know the proper timing of the smoking that comes from experience then we have to close the lid and wait for the internal temperature to reach the required degrees or for the smoke to be filled within the chamber and absorbed by the meat. It will not fluctuate much with the closed lid. The better practice is to set a timer with the addition of a smoker tube within the chamber and leave it for a prolonged time. In this way, we will get the best results from smokey-flavored meat.
Other Points to Get More Smoke Flavor from the Pellet Grill
There are other additional methods by which we can get the extra smokey flavor. Before smoking trim, the fat from the meat, as the fats will increase the smoking time of the meat
Which One is Better Water Smoker or Dry Smoker?
The use of cold meat will take a much longer time to heat up, so it will absorb more smoke before getting to room temperature within the grill. One thing that most of the newbies did while smoking food it to keep the meat away from the smoke by wrapping it in aluminum foil. this shall be avoided while smoking as the smoke matters a lot in smoking food.
Temperature and Smoking Time for Meat Types
| Type of Meat | Smoking Temperature | Smoking Time |
|---|---|---|
| Beef Brisket | 225 – 250°F | 10 – 18 Hours, 1.5 hrs/lb |
| Short Ribs | 225 – 250°F | 6 – 8 Hours |
| Spare Ribs | 225 – 250°F | 5 – 6 Hours |
| Back Ribs | 225 – 250°F | 3 – 5 Hours |
What is a Smoker Tube?
It is a portable, stainless-steel tube having numerous holes all over the body. It comes in a number of shapes for example rectangle, hexagonal, and cylindrical. Cylinder one is mostly used for smoke production within a grill. It is like a smokebox but it is specially designed for producing smoke while grilling in a pellet grill.
It is a 12-inch long cylindrical body that can hold enough amount of pellets tightly so they can generate more smoke for a longer period of time. On average it can produce smoke for about 5 hours when filled completely. There are ‘s-shaped hooks on both sides so they can be hung when needed. It is used for producing both hot and cold smoke within the grill.
What are the Features of the Best Pellets?
Typically, the best quality pellets are those that produce great taste. The taste comes from single types of pellets or will either be with a combination of other flavored and hard forest wood.
Best Types of Wood Pellets for Grilling
Some of the qualities of the best pellets are;
- They are made of denser material.
- They are long-lasting and burn longer.
- They don’t leave a lot of ash.
- They Produce more smoke.
- They give great flavor to the food.
- You can change the flavor by using different types of pellets in combination.
Conclusion
Although the Traeger doesn’t produce a lot of smoke when in use, the soaked wood chips and indirect heat do a fantastic job of making some steady smoke. Cooking at lower temperatures and using various pellets or hardwood logs are effective ways to increase the amount of smoke. Consider purchasing a smoke tube or ring to see if you want to smoke. Most Traeger grills even include a super-smoke setting to saturate the meal with steam. Enjoy smoked flavor food easily with Traeger by using these alternative techniques.
Pingback: Top 5 Best Pellet Grill For Cold Weather - Grill Pantry
Pingback: Best Portable Pellet Grill For Camping In 2022 - Grill Pantry