It’s easy and possible, but grilling with a pellet smoker can be tricky sometimes.
Tricky in a way that smoke can come out of it when you don’t know how to use it properly.
But when you understand how to use it, you’ll get the exact smoke ring and flavor you desire.
In this article, I want to show how to use a pellet smoker to get a nice smoke ring.
A pellet smoker can create a smoke ring because it uses wood. And this pellet grill actually burns pure wood.
The smoke from the pure burning wood will mix with the meat myoglobins that create a smoke ring.
Low and slow temperatures between 20 to 50 minutes will create a smoke ring easily and faster.
Meat myoglobins simply mean the reaction between the oxygen inside the meat with carbon monoxide (CO) & nitric oxide (NO) from the wood or the oxygen molecule inside the meat that stores the oxygen.
Don’t get confused about the chemical explanation above. It has nothing to do with grilling with a pellet smoker.
How Does A Pellet Smoker Work? (Helpful Tips)
There is no science behind how to use a pellet smoker. It’s very simple to understand. You’ll enjoy grilling with it.
You’ll need low and slow temperatures for a few minutes to create that smoke ring you’ve always wanted.
Pellet smoker is just like an oven. The way you pour charcoal inside the oven is the same way you pour hardwood sawdust inside a pellet smoker to grill.
Pellet grill uses electricity. Just plug the grill into the electrical circuit and turn on the digital controller.
The current will flow into the auger to enable rotation. It produces pellets from the hopper to the cylindrical fire pot housing as it rotates. The rotation causes the rod to glow red.
This happens for several minutes.
Pellet smoker has a storage container called a hopper. The hopper is where you feed in the hardwood sawdust.
It has a corkscrew that is powered by electricity that heats up the sawdust inside the hopper.
This process is done through heat combustion. The electricity will ignite heat inside the hopper that produces heat combustion, which heats the wood pellets.
As this is going on, the intake fan is brought in air. The air is what makes the heat and smoke disperse through the cooking area.
As the smoke and heat disperse through the smoke cooking area, it heats the meat and causes it to create the smoke ring.
This process is repeated until the meat turns to a smoke ring. This is much like an oven. Though, a pellet smoker has a meat probe that monitors the internal temperature of the meat.
The probe is connected to the monitor board that sends a signal to the control board when the meat is smoke enough.
The controlled temperature usually ranges from 180°F to 500°F. You can either low or slow the cooking heat to get the exact smoke ring you deserve.
Types Of Pellet Smoker
Basically, there are two types of pellet ring:
- Vertical pellet
- Horizontal pellet
These pellets are different in smokiness and the flavor they both produce. This depends on the smoke ring you want — that will determine the one you’ll use.
Regardless of the one you choose, you’ll definitely get the exact result. Though they vary in terms of flavor, how quickly it produces smoke rings, etc.
Let’s explain the two types of pellet smokers.
Vertical Pellet Smoker
Below is Vertical Pellet Smoker
Vertical pellet smokers are different from horizontal pellet grills in terms of designs and functionalities.
The flavor that comes is in many ways like in designs, appearance, the way they cook meat, fish, vegetables, and the flavor.
However, vertical pellet smokers are specifically designed to roast food but not actually grill.
Though, you can still smoke with it. Vertical pellet smoker has a less cooking area around the meat compared to the horizontal.
Vertical pellet smokers are designed to smoke and roast foods but cannot grill. The heat source is usually far away from the meat.
The smoke in the vertical pellet smoker stays closer, which allows better penetration. The smoke and the heat move the same direction upward.
The burner is at the bottom of the smoke chamber. That’s where you will put your wood or charcoal.
Some people prefer mixing both charcoal and wood together to get the best smoking result.
A vertical pellet smoker can be placed anywhere in the backyard because of the way it’s designed.
The compartment is built into one that allows the smoke and heat to come out from one side.
Some people also prefer vertical pellet smokers because they are sometimes more superior than horizontal pellet smokers.
Horizontal Pellet Smoker
The horizontal pellet smoker is designed to smoke, bake, roast food, and grill, unlike the vertical pellet.
A horizontal pellet smoker is used for both smoking and grilling. This is made possible because it has many cooking areas.
The only source of fuel for the horizontal pellet is hardwood sawdust, not charcoal or wood chips.
It’s powered by an electrical circuit that makes the corkscrew red that heats up the sawdust and controls the air fan as well.
The heat source from the horizontal pellet smoker is closer to the meat compared to vertical pellet smokers.
Horizontal pellets are powered by electricity because of the presence of a hopper. The hopper is where the heat and smoke generate.
You can either grill or roast with charcoal or sawdust with a horizontal pellet smoker.
The horizontal pellet has several compartments that allow heat and smoke to come out in different areas.
Are Low And Slow Important in Grilling?
Low and slow are important because it’s what creates the rich flavor you need
Do you need a rich smoke flavor? Then, a low and slow grill is what will make it happen.
Slow and low heat from the pellet smoker will give you the rich flavor and a well smoke ring.
The more the meat stays on heat and smoke, the more it produces the smoke ring you deserve.
The horizontal pellet smoker is created to give you slow and low grilling that will produce the exact smoke ring.
Though, the size of the meat is what also determines how long it will be grilled. The horizontal grill has a controlled temperature that determines if it has a grill or not.
The more time the meat is grilled, the more flavor you get after grilling. Though, always watch out for drying out of water from the meat.
The risk is that once the meat is dried of water, the flavor will not be there again. The essence of allowing it for more extra time to grill will be defeated when the meat is dried of water.
Constantly regulating the heat and smoke or checking on the meat when grilled during low and slow is important to have a flavor. This will make your meat properly join together.
You can grill meat for 2 to hours. When it’s more than 4 hours, you’re no longer grilling the meat but drying the water. You are no longer getting smokier rather cooking the meat.
Why Pellet Smoker Grills?
Over the years, a pellet smoker is one of the best ways to produce smoke rings.
Pellet smoker has overtaken the traditional way of grilling — this is dependent on technology advance that may produce better.
This produces a smoke ring when the burning hardwood pellets heat up and are infused with real smoke — while the air fan produces the air that fans up the heat.
This will make the heated air circulate in the burner that smoke rings the meat.
Apart from adding smoky flavors, you can also get a flavor smoke ring through a low and slow grill on the pellet smokers.
Breeze smoke rings are another way to get the perfect smoke ring flavor.
Leave the meat to grill for a long time when the breeze helps you to keep the grill on. This is mainly possible with vertical pellet smokers.
For the horizontal pellet smoker, you set up the grill and control the progress by using a remote thermometer or meat probe to get the exact flavor.
People like pellet smokers because they produce the exact flavor they want.
Thought, the control that the horizontal pellet has makes it possible to get the exact flavor.
Difference Between Pellet Grill And The Traditional Smoker
A Traditional smoker has one way to smoke meat, but you can’t grill it. But a pellet grill has the capacity to grill and smoke meat as well.
Pellet is designed with a compartment that allows you to grill to any level you want.
You can easily control pellet grill temperatures because of the automated fuel and air delivery system that is built into it. This facility makes it an option for your grilling.
Many people get frustrated with the traditional smoker because the fuel it uses lacks controls when smoking meat spills into many hours.
But this is made easy with a pellet smoker because it has a capacity where you can control the fuel that is being used.
You control the fuel by set-up the pellet smoker into the number of hours you want to grill. This calculated hours you know the meat will have a good smoke ring flavor.
Traditional grills only grill one item at a time, but pellet smokers give you many options to grill different items in one facility.
For a traditional grill, you need to buy another facility if you want to grill, smoke, bake, or roast your food.
Pellet smoker is an advanced grilling method. Pellet grilling has facilities that are not present in grilling in the traditional grill that make it easy to grill and get the exact flavor.
Pellet grills are more portable and convenient compared to traditional grills.
While pellets offer you a different option for grilling, the traditional grill has only one option to either grill or bake.
Advantages Of Pellet Smoker
Pellet has several advantages that make it better and preferable by many people in the U.S.
Pellet grill has several options like barbecue, smoke, roast, grill, and bake; this makes it versatile.
Pellet smoker has many functions built into one. You can smoke and grill meat at the same time.
The easiest way to pre-heat is with a pellet smoker grill. Pellet smoker can pre-heat a slice of meat for 5 to 10 minutes.
Horizontal pellet grills allow you to regulate temperatures in 5-degree or more for you to get the exact smoke flavor.
The thermostat in the cooking chamber is what controls the heat when you set it up at any required degree.
You don’t get over smoking your food or meat when you use a pellet smoker because it has heat control.
Does A Smoke Ring Taste Good?
Are you looking for a good taste smoke ring? The pellet smoker is what will produce the exact smoke ring you may require.
Pellet smokers produce a special kind of nice smoke ring that traditional smoke can produce.
Smoke rings taste good, and it’s purely an aesthetic that gets people excited when they taste it or eat it.
Pellet smokers make grilled meat appealing to the eyes and taste better than the traditional way for grilling.
It’s not difficult to produce a smoke ring. Pellet smoker makes it easy to produce nice taste ring smoke because it has an air fan that keeps the fanning the air always.
Conclusion
Now you know that you can get a smoke ring with a pellet smoker. You can go ahead to grill with a pellet smoker.
Pellet smokers have different options built into one facility to make grills easy. The pellet smoker makes grilling possible without stress.
Whatever smoke ring you’re in need of, you can get the best of it with a pellet smoker. Grilling with a pellet smoker will create a nice flavor smoke ring.
One of the best ways to get a smoke ring is through a pellet smoker.
Pellet smoker is in two types. The horizontal pellet has the facility regulate the heat and the smoke when grilling.
