Depends if your doing Fish or fowl The pellet is great. If your doing a big hunk o meat off sets are the preferred choice. I have both and use each a lot. (Depending on how lazy I feel that day lol) Some days I use both precisely since I'm lazy. I start on the off set get some good smoke on the meat then switch to the Pellet after I wrap so I can relax!! (especially when its 102 degrees here in West Texas) There are ways to make pellet smokers put out more smoke flavor (inexpensive ways) so get what you can afford and enjoy!!
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My opinion will be one sided because I have never cooked on a stick burner. I can see the appeal to master a stick burner ( might even try some day ) Prior to joining the pit club ( one month after buying my Champ Chef pellet grill 5 years ago ) My outdoor cooking was done on a gas grill ( or charcoal for burgers and hot dogs ) I have added a Weber 22 Kettle with a slow n sear and cook only for family and friends. I do use a smoke tube with my Camp Chef. With that being said my family and friends say that my - Brisket - Pulled Pork - Ribs and yes Smoked burgers and hot dogs are better than any restaurants provide. So I guess I am saying you can cook great BBQ on many cookers just know your COOKER
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I was a stick burner for about 10 years. Then the thing began to fall apart and was faced with getting a new one. For a while, when using it, I never thought of getting a pellet smoker. Once I began reading more about them, I began to have a change of mine. The matter of convenience and time began to make me look at them.
Now, I do like tending to the fire as was needed, it was just that with kids and their schedules, it was getting inconvenient and unpredictable. There were also times when I didn't feel like getting up at 2:30am and begin to get a fire going then tend to it all day long. A lot of times I would cheat by putting the meat in the oven then go back to bed and then put in the smoker after I woke up. Sometimes the outcomes were good, other times they were so so.
I got a pellet smoker a little over a year ago and I'm glad that I did. Does it produce the same level of smoke as the stick burner, no but I'm fine with that and thus far, no one I have cooked for has said things could have been smokier. My Rec Teq has an extreme smoke setting that I will routinely use for the first hour or so with great results.
So, as with other comments, it's really what you are looking for and wanting to do and spend time with that will assist you with your decision.Comment
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i cookout almost every night.....question is .the only difference between the 2 the amount of smoke flavor? i would think with pellet smoker i could get more smoke flavor if needed by some tweak's..is the food is truly better from stick burner ? i am not lazy but i do want convenience but not at the cost of inferior food.
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This is definitely subjective and inferior would be an opinion. What do you cook on now? If you want smoke to be primary spice, you're going to be disappointed with a pellet grill. If you want smoke to be an element among other seasonings you may enjoy the convenience. It's all up to how much smoke do you need? As far as tender, juicy, properly cooked meat, that falls on the person cooking more than the source of heat. Results from the two would definitely taste different. -
They definitely burn different, and therefore will taste different. Clean burning wood imparts a smoke that no other fuel source can.
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I don't have a stick burner, but I have a Grilla Chimp, a kettle/SNS and WSM. I have done some comparisons, and the Chimp definitely has the lightest smoke flavor but it the easiest to operate. A couple of weeks ago I did a couple bellies for bacon, one on the pellet with B&B competition pellets and one on the kettle with some cherry chunks. Both were excellent - I mean, it is bacon after all. Just a matter of what you like. We didn't actually prefer one over the other though. I also broke down a turkey and did the same thing, and again, both were excellent. The kettle turkey had crisper skin, but the pellet turkey was juicer.Comment
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This is the reason some folks here have MCS (More Cooker Syndrome). Want a lighter smoke profile or some smoke but it's 38F and lightly raining? Fire up the pellet grill or a charcoal grill. It's 76F and you have all day to hang out? Stick burner.
I use a kettle with an SNS and I think the best compromise, if you want just one cooker, would be a kettle with SNS and a fan+controller, e.g. the Fireboard etc. You get close to the set and forget convenience of the pellet, with the ability to get more smoke. You can tune the smoke level by adding more or less wood.
Myself, I won't ever own a stick burner as I don't want to have to monitor it every 30 or so minutes and in Seattle enough of the year is cool/cold/rainy that, combined with the times when I just want to smoke something without fuss, I wouldn't get much use out of it. Others feel differently. This is why there are so many cookers.Last edited by rickgregory; March 1, 2021, 12:49 PM.Comment
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This is important advice - I find myself using my offset smoker less and less, favoring the results I get with my kettle+SNS when I don't need the capacity. With the SNS Kamado now, I'll just use it AND the kettle if I need more capacity. The offset needs tending every 30-45 minutes, and uses a LOT of fuel. If I were to go with charcoal and wood chunks, it uses 40+ pounds of fuel in the same amount of time the kettle+SNS uses 7-8 pounds. -
jfmorris - plus you need to source and store a considerable amount of wood which could be trivial or a real pain in the ass depending on where one lives.
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As said somewhere above, "the best bbq is the bbq you like" or something like that anyway. I couldn’t agree more. I have a variety of grills and smokers. I originally bought my pellet smoker (Recteq RT-700) for convenience and increased capacity. Wifey and I found we really like the lighter smoke profile. It allows the flavor of the meat itself to shine through. But different strokes for different folks.Comment
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I think you need to think about what you plan to cook, and your time to devote to it.Originally posted by cookinjack View Post
A stick burner truly produces beautifully smoked foods. However, you need to consider that you basically cannot leave it unattended for more than about 30 minutes, as you need to keep adding fuel to the fire. Secondly, you need to consider sources of local cooking wood - you need firewood small enough to fit the firebox, and it needs to be seasoned oak, hickory, etc. Third - it uses a LOT of wood, or charcoal if you buy one that has a charcoal basket option. And last - its a LOT of work doing a long cook of butts or brisket. I've grown to where I use my Weber kettle + SNS, and now my kamado, for smoking butts and brisket. The last time I used my offset was for a bunch of slabs of ribs almost a year ago. A year before that, I stayed up overnight with it to smoke 9 Boston butts. It was a long sleepless night of watching TV, monitoring the Smoke thermometer, and going in and out to the smoker. I was proud of the results for the party I was hosting, but tired.
If you want to use a smoker every night, and have true convenience, I think a pellet smoker is the ultimate in convenience. Less startup time than your Weber Smokey Mountain (you said you had a Weber bullet), and while the results may be less smokey, they are still going to be good BBQ. If you choose the right pellet smoker, some of them produce more smoke than others. An example would be the Grilla "OG" (original Grilla with upright round footprint). Some swear by Recteq. The Weber Smokefire produces good results if you are willing to deal with the quirks of a new product.
You have a Weber gas grill and "bullet" smoker you said, so you already have a good grill for quick direct grilling style cooks, and you have something for long smokes if you want to do ribs or brisket or butts overnight. The pellet cooker would give you smoking and indirect cooking results you can't get with the gas grill, with similar levels of convenience for weekday evening cooks, where you don't plan to cook overnight.Comment
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When I got my 1st pellet smaller for Christmas I didn’t notice any flavor difference at first. I was cooking things that were at the har end of what I was willing to deal with to cook them on my WSM.
After I did a few long cooks I decided to try to incorporate it into my reverse sear steak process. Normally I would light one end of a slow and sear basket in the jumbo Joe and once that was going would rake the coals across the basket over some un lit hardwood charcoal and then put a grill grate over the top. The steaks would smoke on the cold side for half an hour to 45 mins then I would take them off. Next flip the grill grate over and use it like a griddle to sear the steaks. The process would start out about 225 and rise to 300 as the basket got going, and the grate would be between 4 and 500 degrees for the sear. Makes great steaks when the timing works out, unfortunately that doesn’t always work and i have to add more coals to get the searing done which adds a considerable amount of time to the process.
I figured I could use the pellet smoker to smoke the steaks a little slower and then a smaller fire in the basket for the searing process. Worked out time wise a lot better, but things didn’t taste the same though.
Unfortunately the smoker met its demise in the Great Texas Ice Storm so I’m now debating what to replace it with. Most likely it will be another pellet smoker and I’ll probably add in a smoke tube to see what that does.Comment
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thanks everyone.........wish i could try some food from a pellet smoker especially one from from lone star.if they ever put them out for sale.neighbor has a traeger....food tasted like burnt wood......Comment
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Simple answer: YESComment
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I regularly compare barbecue from my stickburner with that of friends pellet cookers. Haven’t tasted any of their pellet barbecue that had enough smoke flavor. There were a couple times I wondered if they only did an hour or two in the pit then finished in the oven.
That’s why I’m a stickburner for life! 🔥😎🔥Comment
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I've never cooked with pellets, but when comparing lump or briquettes to my offset the profile is different. The offset produces a cleaner and more distinct smoke than briquettes, and a much better bark. But cooker design could have something to do with this (Shirely offset vs. WSM). Shirley is reverse flow so drippings hit a baffle and evaporate into the cook chamber. When I want to split the difference I cook with my BGE using lump charcoal, which strikes a middle ground between better smoke profile/bark and convenience.
This could all be psychological as I've never tried a blind taste test.Comment
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IMHO there is a huge difference in smoke profiles between cooking with wood logs or pellets.
I prefer the smoke and bark I get with logs over what I get with my pellet cooker.
That being said they are both delicious. If I don't have the time or desire to tend my stick burner I'm still very happy to eat what comes off of my pellet or my kamado cookers.
When making the decision between one or the other I think your lifestyle should be the determining factor. If you're sure you'll have the time and desire to tend a fire then go for the stick burner. If your not sure your lifestyle will allow that kind of time commitment by all means get a pellet cooker and enjoy the food that comes off of it.
At some point MCS will kick in and you'll have both anyway. 😜Comment
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