Have I Found The Holy Grail?

[Troutman]

Well maybe not, but I did find an accessory for my pellet cooker that has dramatically increased the smoke levels during a long cook. First, I'm running a Pitts & Spitts custom rig. It's a P&S stick burner that was converted into a pellet cooker using the Smoke Daddy Pellet Pro hopper, burn pot and PID controller. I love it for it's convenience and size, I can cook well over 100# of meat in the thing. Unfortunately I have gotten further and further away from using it due to the biggest complaint that most pellet cookers have, the lack of smoke and smokey flavor imparted to the meat !!



We really like stick burner or Weber kettle type heavy smoke profiles in our barbecue. The P&S works wonders on lower profile proteins like fish but beef and pork just lack that smokey flavor.

So I just happened to be cruising the Smoke Daddy website looking for something else and came across the Heavy D Stick Burning Heat Diffuser. It was a little on the expensive side at $100 but I figured that it looked promising enough so I decided to buy it. It replaces my current diffuser plate and needed a little propping up to get the proper clearance, but fit like a glove otherwise. You essentially load it with some small splits or chunks of wood that pop into the perforated chambers on each side. They ignite with the fire from the burn pot and smolder producing some really nice smoke levels. So much better then the Amazing tube could ever do. Here are some pics of the device.



I did some beef ribs over the weekend to give it it's inaugural launch and was more than satisfied. It produces about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of smoke at 275* then tapers off once the wood is fully consumed. That's usually enough to impart a nice smokiness to the meat, and did with my beef ribs. Here's the smoke level at the 1 hour mark, rolling pretty thick....



...and then again just before the 2 hours mark. Smoke at this point was nice and blue. It tapered off to nothing after that.....



More than satisfied with the result, this accessory has turned my pellet "cooker" into a true pellet "smoker" !! Obviously this may not fit into your particular rig but you might want to give it some consideration if you're frustrated with your pellet smoke levels like I was. I was actually at the point of thinking of selling the unit, this breathed new life into it !! You might also want to give Dennis at Smoke Daddy a call to see if he can build one for you.

Troutman is out, and again re-joins the ranks of the pellet heads !!!!

[Voodoo628]

Haha nice write up! Looking good!

[RonB]

Congrats on blowing enough smoke out yur....... cooker.

[lostclusters]

I got one of these to check it out. Thanks for the heads up Troutman

Did you run with your lid propped open like the video shows to moderate the temperature inside the cook chamber?

https://smokedaddyinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Heavy-D-Video-Sm.mp4

[Troutman]

Nope, I had zero heat issues with some oak splits. Going to do mesquite this weekend, really put it through is paces.

[texastweeter]

If you get no issues with the mesquite, I would say it should be fine. I use a lot of mesquite, stuff burns HOT and long.

[Texas Larry]

Thanks for this Troutman.

[LA Pork Butt]

As the saying goes "necessity is the mother of invention." Almost all the gadgets are either an attempt to bridge the deficiency in a cooker or an attempt to make it easier. Congratulations! I think you have a winner.

[Polarbear777]

I’m not sure.. it might only be "grail shaped".

It does sound like you’ve rescued a superb device from neglect.

[TripleB]

Not a pellet head, but I always enjoy your write ups. Very descriptive and good supporting pics. Thank you.

[klflowers]

I saw the post where you first mentioned this - figured you would pull the trigger. Looks like a good pickup. If I ever decide to get a full sized pelleteer, now I am going to have to make sure I get one that this thing will fit in.

[Huskee]

Nice! I just toss a chunk of wood or 2 on top of the burn pot's diffuser, but this looks like a good contraption to make it official.

[Troutman]

Unfortunately the top of the diffuser and the bottom of the grease tray only clear each other by about an inch. I tried the wood trick but never got it to work very well. And for get the tubes and trays, they were worse.

[Huskee]

Gotcha, yeah that stinks. Mine has enough room for a small chunk or 2 which is cool. This device looks great though. Troutman

[JCGrill]

Very interesting. This would let me change the smoking wood without changing my pellets (which is a pain). What are you left with on the sticks when you are done? Ash? Blackened chunks?

[Troutman]

Ash

[ifican]

Curious to see how you like it after a bit. Another forum im part of had several folks give it a try with very mixed results, i want to say temp fluctuations were a big issue when the wood chunks ignited but i would have to go back and search to be sure. Please keep us updated as i was once looking at this as well.

[texastweeter]

So you turned a stick burner into a pellet pooper, and then back into a stick burner. Is it really that much more smoke flavor? How big of splits fit?

[Troutman]

You can shove about 5 regular chucks of bagged firewood on each side. I also have some 3" dia mini branch size logs that I split in half. You can get 4 of them in both sides. Yea it pumps out a lot of smoke along with the pellet combustion gas so you get a much better smokey flavor. As I mentioned, it's NOT the Holy Grail but it's an improvement.

[Troutman]

I did want to mention on my first try there was not an issue with temperature fluctuations that I was aware of but I did, for about the first hour, have some blow back into my auger tube. I've been getting that anyway with high temp cooking (over 300*), so I'm not sure it's necessarily the fault of the stick burner but I'm sure it's a contributing factor.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

We just had a guy on the MAK FB group post something similar they home made. It was on the old style, but it was pretty dang clever. Had a door cut into the front face of the cooker and you could insert new wood chunks without opening the grill lid or removing other components. I do see add ons like this making waves at some point... but I could never justify cutting into a $2K+ grill, so something like this setup is more reasonable to the masses.

Having said that I've still been super happy with the smoke production on the MAK on all but the shortest of cooks. Those are the ones my buddy's food definately stands out over mine from his stick burner. Everything else the average eater doesn't seem to notice one way or another, and to me it's minimal. (things like pulled pork or brisket with long unwrapped cooks on the MAK have even been "smokier", but I think that's because he pulls after a few hours and wraps to retain moisture and I go the whole time unwrapped).

[Troutman]

Yea MAK seems to do a better job.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

I have seen some folks putting a single chunk of wood on top of their deflector/diffuser plate on models with the head room to some effect, but I think the thing you linked would probably give you a longer stronger result. Some people are just never going to like what a pellet grill puts out, but I'm glad you found something that returns yours to the arsenal. The dang things are super convenient!