UK Pellet options - where would you spend your money?

[dotcodotuk]

Howdy, folks.

I'm about to embark on my first pellet smoker and want to try and start off on the right foot.

While we don't get the full range of pellets over here that you can get your hands on, we do appear to have a few of the more specialist options that I read a lot about so I thought I'd ask for some opinions.

Here's what I can get and the price per pound - where would you spend your money? I'll be starting off smoking some pork and beef cheek, moving on to pork collar for pulled pork and then working my way towards sausage, beef rib and beyond.

CookinPellets- $1.04 / lb

Cookshack / Fast Eddy's - $1.23 / lb

GMG - $1 / lb

Lumber Jack - $1.23 / lb

Pit Boss - $1.36 / lb

Traeger - $1.37 / lb

Weber - $1.48 / lb

BBQrs Delight - $1.37 / lb

Kirkland/Costco - $TBC (unsure if available)

PS. Would be funny to know what you pay over there for the same stuff!

[Michael_in_TX]

With perhaps some of the mesquite- and hickory-forward ones (and those new fangled pecan shell ones), I've kinda found there is little difference between traditional pellet brands. I buy on price.

A B&B Bag of Charcoal Championship Blend runs me $0.50/lb.

[Donw]

CookinPellets user here. At least here in the US a solid brand, pellets made from the actual wood listed, and not a combination of lesser value woods being heavily mixed into the final pellet.

[dotcodotuk]

Are you using Perfect Mix or favouring other options?

[Donw]

Predominantly Perfect Mix but I keep a bag of Apple Mash and Black Cherry on hand too for certain cooks. Apple Mash for seafoods and the cherry basically for the color it imparts on some pork cooks.

[Jerod Broussard]

Cookinpellets, and I pay more than Pit Boss.

[dotcodotuk]

Which of their range is your favourite?

[Jerod Broussard]

dotcodotuk I just use hickory

[LA Pork Butt]

Smokin Pecan made from pecan shells is the best I have found so far for adding smoke flavor. Most pellets lead you to believe they are hickory or some other hardwood, but are composed mostly of cheap oak or alder. I understand the Lumber Jack is true to the wood on the label, but they have been bought out by the same conglomerate that produces pellets made from cheap hardwoods. We’ll see if they remain true to the hardwood on the label. You need to read the labels carefully because the labels are often deceptive.

[dotcodotuk]

Ah, yes, they seem everywhere online - nobody has them here though, but I'm trying to persuade a colleague to take an empty suitcase to the US next month and bring some back... assuming they can be checked!

[bbqLuv]

Traeger pellets are great. They check all the boxes. Never-the-less, at Costco here in Oregon, Traeger pellets are $19 for 33lbs and Kirkland pellets are $16 for 40lbs. I will be trying another bag of Kirkland pellets as soon as my Trager pellets run out.
Not quite sure if my preference for Traeger pellets is worth the extra cost for everyday cooks.

[Carolyn]

I found the Kirkland pellets to be lacking in smoke flavor. I started putting a pound or so of the Bear Mountain blend in the hopper and topping it off with Kirkland to get them used up.

[glitchy]

CookinPellets 100% hickory most of the time is my first choice. Especially with your prices. CookinPellets are the more expensive pellets here and still worth it. The Perfect Mix is good too, but I’d start with Hickory.

CookinPellets uses 100% of the woods on the bag with no oak or alder base wood. The other thing about CookinPellets is they do not use bark either. Makes them some of the cleanest burning pellets.

[dotcodotuk]

I see comments about oak pellets being unfavourable, is that purely down to it being used to bulk out bags that should be other woods? Or is oak just not seen as a good option for pellets?

[glitchy]

dotcodotuk It’s cheap filler. There’s nothing wrong with oak or alder for cooking, but it’s not post oak being used, it’s red oak. Red oak produces good BTUs, but not a strong smoke flavor. So some of the lower BTU fruit woods may need the mix for consistency in pellet grills, but woods like hickory, pecan, maple don’t. But like many things it’s capitalism. They can sell 20% Hickory with 80% oak or alder and make more money.

[glitchy]

I would also guess a lot of pellets are made from scraps and collected sawdust from furniture and flooring companies. I don’t know this with any evidence, just a guess.

[glitchy]

Also, I would advise not to buy a ton of pellets until you try them out. Some pellet grills don’t like certain pellets. The SmokeFire didn’t do the best with CookinPellets larger diameter pellets, but hopefully they’ve resolved that with the Searwood. My second choice, based on my cooking results and not price would be LumberJack or Weber. I like the Weber GrillMaster blend or LJ MHC. Those at least used to be the same thing. If you buy Weber Hickory it will likely be 60% oak and 40% Hickory. Lumberjack makes a 100% hickory on their own label, but they use bark in their pellets. It can leave a ton of ash in your pit, I quit using their 100% hickory after a couple flame outs on my MAK on long cooks from all the ash in the burn pot. This might not be an issue on the Searwood depending on the burn pot design. If they switched it to a can style it could be.

I would probably ignore the pellets from other grill manufacturers as they’re most likely just Bear Mountain, Lumberjack, or BBQ’r Delight put in a different bag.

As far as pricing here, CookinPellets are usually around $1/lb bought single bags from Amazon and maybe .75/lb if you bulk order from them direct 7-15 40 pound bags. LJ usually 50-75 cents a pound and the others you listed most .75-1.00/lb in my experience.

[Draznnl]

Lumber Jack pellets user here. I started with them when I got my pellet smoker and they have not had a problem yet. There was a recent price hike here to $19.00 for a 20 pound bag. Previously, a bag cost $12.99.

[RiverJeff]

+1

[dotcodotuk]

First batch of CookinPellets Perfect Mix arrived today - doesn't look to be even a hint of dust in the bags but I'll check, sieve and decant them into storage containers over the weekend.

Quite impressed with the quality, especially so when compared with the bags of Pit Boss and Weber pellets I saw at a local place that were very dusty by comparison.

[glitchy]

A lot of it is in the handling. Every bag of CookinPellets I’ve ever gotten has been in an individual box, whether from Amazon or CookinPellets directly. The only other pellets I’ve ever gotten in a box are when bought online and they’ve been boxed multiple bags in one box just to ship.