I recently upgraded from a propane grill to the woodridge pro. My first cook on the woodridge was steak and Mac and cheese. These turned out amazing. However, yesterday, i smoked a pork butt for 9+ hours using the super smoke option and the flavor on the pulled pork was extremely dissapointing. Seasoned it well and cooked it low and slow until internal temp was about 203 and let rest, covered for an hour. The pork was very tender but the smoke flavor was almost non existent.
by Mr_Bradley217
20 Comments
What pellets did you use?
What temp did you cook it at? 225 is the way if you want good smoke flavor from your pellet grill.
Smoke tube
It’s all about experimenting. If doing large piece of meat from this point I would toss in additional smoke tube
I’d jump on the bandwagon and recommend a smoke tube and also consider using a smokier wood like Hickory or mesquite. Most people I know who have a Traeger use a smoke tube regardless of model.
I always use a smoke tube, and it may just be my family’s preference, but scoring the surface and heavily seasoning pork butt makes all of very happy !
Woodwind Pro with the smoke box is retrospectively what you should’ve bought.
What you can do is start at the lowest temp highest smoke for the first 2-3 hours and use good pellets like Lumberjack. You can also try a smoke tube but the quality of smoke is debatable
For pork butts I’ve seen a lot of people slicing them into strips rather than doing it whole.
They cook faster, and you get a lot more surface area for bark, rub and smoke.
Haven’t tried it but I’ve been meaning to
Everyone is hopping on the smoke tube bandwagon but what pellets did you use?? Going to lumberjack pellets from pit boss ones was night and day for me on smoke flavor.
Try that sucker on the top rack next time if it’ll fit.
Highly recommend GMG pellets. Also I prefer to use an open smoke tube, the squarish ones let you put wood chips on top which helps a TON.
On top of the smoke tubes recommended so far, don’t do a whole. Slice into two or three smaller ones. More surface area means more flavor, more bark, more smoke.
Change up your pellets to something better like lumberjack, knotty wood, or Smokin pecan. I’ve done a couple of these on my Woodridge pro and found the smoke flavor to be solid
Also, place it on the top rack next time.
I do not have the pro, but I use 2 smoke tubes in alternating fashion, to keep the smoke thick.
That being said my old gas upright has tons of smoke and a water pan and I miss that.
Traeger. That’s all you needed to say.
Traeger is the white bread of bbq. probably need smoke tube and way more seasoning. if you want even more flavor, brine with salt and brown sugar over night.
I prefer to use Lumberjack or CookingPellets because they are 100% flavor pellets, whereas a lot of main brands have a high (50-70%) proportion of “fuel” pellets. Switch pellets will definitely help with smoke flavor.
I always add seasoning and a bit of sauce once pulled. You can also reheat it on the smoker to add flavor
Also I’ve seen a video recently of a bbq joint (the Original Blacks bbq in Texas) doing a method I want to try. He separates the meat in 4 sections to get more bark, more smoke penetration etc
When doing cooks like this I tend to grab lumberjack hickory. Going with a straight wood vs a blend really helps it gain smoke.
Also if you left it on super smoke the whole cook that can be counterproductive. From the picture it doesn’t look like your bark ever formed properly. If that was the finished product that is.
I’ve run smokeboost (Weber) for the first 2 hours and then set it to 225-250 to let the bark from.
Try lumberjack or bear mountain pellets. Also the smoker is quite new so it hasn’t had much time to develop the soot and other good stuff all over the inside that further boost smoke flavor.
Rolled with pellet smokers for years and felt the same way didn’t get that smoke taste and bought a offset smoker this year and while it was a learning process getting the hang of it… but WOW the difference is very noticeable. Now with an offset smoker you have to baby sit it and fire management and clean vs dirty smoke , and a good supply of seasoned wood is all part of the process… but the taste is next level