4 Expert Picks: Best Smoking Pellet Grills

Customer Review: Nothing but Awesome. I’m writing this review after about 1 year of usage with making brisket, pork butt, wings, ribs… Just about everything you would do with a regular smoker. My issue with full on smokers is most take power to operate and tend to be very expensive for quality. Not every meal I make I want smoke flavor on so having a single propane grill to be versatile is nothing short but an added bonus and these tubes do just that. I bought 2 of them and work in a rotation. I use the Traeger pellets but looking to switch up to another brand here. For the pork butts I do a 50/50 hickory and cherry. Most of my meat comes from Costco and these are not little portions by any means. If you look at my image I have 1 grate off my Weber Spirit 330. The tubes fit perfectly between the seat burner the burner next to it. I use offset heat the igniter burner on the far left being my only source of heat. I typically keep this on the lowest setting or slight above to maintain a temp of around 220 to 250. I have noticed that on Florida summer days I do have to keep this at the lowest possible setting. The smoke tubes do produce a small amount of added heat so can be a finicky to try and maintain an exact temp. One tube fully loaded lasts me about 2 to 3hrs contrary to the 5hrs but since I am increasing the temperature in my grill opposed to just burning this straight possibly offsets that. But this timing works perfect. I spritz with straight on Apple Juice every hour and plan for a tube exchange during this event. When there is just a little bit left to burn in one tube, I offset the tube across my left flavor bar and the seat burner such that the direct heat from the offset burner is not hitting the pellets. Just so I’m not touching anything I use a channel lock wrench to pickup and place a ready to go tube burner. To ready the tube burner I will load it up near the top just below rim cap medal so a little air is making its way through the pores. I have a couple of different lighting options but found using a cheap cocktail or chef torch works best. I’ll ignite the top of the burner and let it flame for about 5 or 10mins before making the exchange. I will typically go through about 4 tubes on a pork butt which amounts to about 10 to 11hrs on the grill. The grill uses next to nothing on propane at the lowest setting. Not measured but guessing I can get probably 4 or 5 pork butt events on a single tank. The amount of smoke one tube generates has been perfect. Using lower temps in the grill along with the tube seems to increase more smoke. I use a Typhur dual probe to monitor ambient and internal temp. I do have a combustion probe as well but the Typhur is way better in my mind. Estimated cook time of course is not very accurate but monitoring temperature flawless. I have had about 50 smoke events with these tubes running nearly every weekend for the past year and surprised that they haven’t really shown any soft medal or strange wear. There is a hefty amount of creosote build up but I guess that’s added flavor and probably helps with protecting the medal. My flavor bars I feel need to be replaced more often and it’s possible that these sitting right on the bars might add to some of the wear. The smoke flavor has been awesome with this practice and run into bigger problems of not being able to make enough. As for the amount of pellets usage, I am working with the same 2 20lb bags I felt I bought ions ago and close to the point where I need to buy another round. Estimating about 30 smoker events at about 4 tube exchanges for each one at 40lbs of pellets. I think this also depends on the hardness and burn rate of the pellet. Smaller pellet bags would probably work better for the occasional or just looking to experiment. But for the weekend warrior who doesn’t want to relinquish the propane grill but have additional options this is truly your winner. I have yet to try a cold smoke but looking to find a way to reduce the temp in my grill to get down to the 160F range. Most pellet smokers use a PID control to control the burn rate of the smoker to maintain temperature. This can be good and bad as it doesn’t necessarily control the amount of smoke as trys to maintain temp using the pellets as it’s main fuel source. Offset smoker where you can control the temp and smoke probably produces the most consistent. But for these little tubes this really brings in possibility of using your grill more versatile. Some of the things I wish I had was a longer burn tube. I was thinking something like a U shape would work best for my case where maybe a small amount of space between the loop such that the heat from one side doesn’t automatically ignite the other side. Not a welder but possibly thinking of making something to do this.

Customer Review: I can’t believe people are using propane torches to light these smoke tubes. There’s an old saying “you only need to be 10% smarter than the equipment you’re working with” and to me wasting time standing over a pellet tube with a propane torch in hand trying to light them is simply a ridiculous waste of time not to mention expensive. Like I said you only need to be 10% smarter than equipment you’re working with, that’s why I use a shot glass and 91% alcohol to light my pellets. It’s far cheaper and much safer. Once again you only need to be 10% smarter than the equipment you’re working with so please ( don’t light the pellets on fire in the shot glass) 91% alcohol burns very hot and very clean which means unlike lighter fluid it leaves absolutely no residue and imparts absolutely no flavor. I simply take an old shot glass, fill it with pellets then pour just enough 91% alcohol to cover the pellets. I let them soak for about 5 minutes while I prep the BBQ. Unlike water alcohol will not cause the pellets to swell. When I’m ready to light the tube I simply pour off the excess alcohol, drop the alcohol soaked pellets on top of the pellets in the Smoke tube and light them. In less than a few minutes your smoke tube will be billowing clouds of smoke. Be forewarned don’t Let the pellets in the Smoke tube flame too long as you will ignite too many pellets and it will generate billowing clouds of very dense smoke and burn your pellets up much faster. Although I will say that being able to generate dense clouds of smoke comes in handy sometimes, for example if I want to cold smoke a steak before grilling it. When cold smoking a steak I’ll let half the tube catch on fire blow it out and put it in the smoker. Then I Fire the pellet grill up for just one cycle, when it hits a hundred and fifty degrees I unplug it so it doesn’t go through the fan cool down period, this allows the pellet in the burner to slowly burned down. If the temperature in the smoker drops below 90 degrees I’ll plug it in for another cycle. I let the steaks smoke over Mesquite until the internal temperature of the steak reaches 100 degrees at which point I pull it and post sear it on a Weber with lump charcoal to the final temperature. If you like extremely strong smoke you can let the steak cold smoke until it reaches 120 internal. Pull it off the barbecue and let it rest until it drops back to 100 internal and then post sear it. If I’m using the tube for say ribs or pulled pork then I only let a small fraction of the pellets catch fire before blowing them out. Using this method the tube will run for about 5 hours. By the way It takes less than a half an ounce of 91% alcohol to light the smoke tube meaning that a $2.50 quart bottle of 91% alcohol is enough to light your smoke tube 64 times making it far less expensive than using those ridiculously expensive disposable propane cylinders. The bottom line is this is an excellent product for any BBQ. I find it almost indispensable in my electric cooker for smoking fish. If you’re interested I’ll give you a little background in my barbecue endeavors along with some tips that I picked up over the years. My wife and I have been involved in competitive BBQ. Since the 1970s prior to an injury that disabled me, my lovely wife and I traveled the country in motorhomes towing whatever BBQ we could afford to Bbq competitions. Over the years we’ve developed several award-winning recipes and even though we are now retired from the barbecue circuit we still like to barbecue, but on a much smaller scale. After 50 Years of cooking on large stick burners I never thought I would ever even consider a pellet smoker. I’ve cooked on everything from a klaus custom built BBQ Pit, off the shelf Gator BBQ Pits… Green eggs, Weber Smokey Mountains and Ugly Drum smokers, heck one of my favorite BBQs was an old dryer drum….. and now I can add pellet grills to that list and I have to say I think at this point next to a stick burner they are my favorite. We have 2 horse ranches one in California and one in Montana and unfortunately that means we simply don’t have the time anymore to sit around babysitting a stick burner for 12 to 14 hours. But we still love our barbecue so we decided to give pellet grills a shot, at first I wasn’t overly impressed with them. They take quite a bit of adjustment to technique to make them work right. But with the proper technique they can produce BBQ that’s just as good as the best competition stick burner. With that said this is probably one of the best accessories I have found for your pellet grill. It is easy to use and allows you much more precise control over how much smoke is being generated by your barbecue. One of the biggest newbie mistakes to barbecue we see is food coming out of the barbecue tasting like it was left in a smoldering forest fire. I hate over smoked food, smoke is like any other seasoning it should accent the flavor of the food not be the flavor of the food. That’s where this tube really shines it allows you to very precisely control the amount of smoke being generated in your barbecue. It also allows you to cook using generic cooking pellets while saving your good flavor pellets for the smoke tube. Generic competition blend pellets produce a very mild smoke, you can add Mesquite to your pellet tube to bump it up a notch or if you really want strong Mesquite flavor fill the hopper with Mesquite and a tube with Mesquite but you need to be careful again not to over smoke the food. It also allows you to mix and match wood flavors, for example Apple in the hopper and Cherry in the Smoke tube. I find the pellet tube works best with Alderwood and an electric smoker for smoking fish. I find that stick burners, pellet grills, charcoal grills all have a tendency of massively over smoking fish. So I have a small electric smoker that’s dedicated to doing nothing but fish and I must say This smoke tube works amazingly well in the electric smoker for fish. The bottom line is you’re probably going to want to buy two of these.

Customer Review: Rating: ★★★★★ If you own a Traeger or any pellet grill, the Signature Blend is the absolute gold standard. I’ve tried several different brands and single-wood flavors, but I keep coming back to this one for its consistency and incredible versatility. The mix of Hickory, Maple, and Cherry is genius. It provides that classic deep smoke from the hickory, a hint of sweetness from the maple, and a beautiful mahogany color on the meat from the cherry. It’s subtle enough for fish or chicken but robust enough for a 12-hour Texas style brisket. For a 20lb bag of 100% all-natural hardwood, the price is unbeatable. It’s an inexpensive way to ensure you’re getting a clean burn without any artificial binders or fillers that can gunk up your auger.

Customer Review: Supreme! I love the taste of smoke. They work really well. It is a great price of the amount you get. Easy to pour. Highly recommend.

Customer Review: I was skeptical at first, but these tubes are amazing for the price. I used them on my gas grill to smoke some chicken thighs, and they came out with a perfect smoky flavor. The hexagon shape is a great idea – they stayed put the entire time. For a budget option, you can’t beat these. They produce a steady stream of smoke for a good few hours. Definitely recommend if you want to add that extra layer of flavor to your grilling.

Customer Review: Great addition to my smoker setup. I needed something to give me a bit more smoke for longer cooks, and these tubes delivered. I filled them with hickory pellets and got a consistent smoke for about 4-5 hours. They are easy to load and clean. I appreciate that they came as a pair, so I can have one ready to go when the other is finishing. Solid stainless steel construction means they should last a long time.

Customer Review: Outstanding Quality on par with my Traeger, in fact the screen is better. Temp has some big swings but it doesnt seem to matter in the end. Made pulled pork which was a big test. It took about 14 hours with an 8lb shoulder. Hopper needs to be fed roughly every 4 hours or so. That’s its biggest downfall. It’s a smaller hopper but it does feed pellets slow. A bag lasts a long time. It puts off a bunch of smoke and takes up minimal space. Size is big enough to cook most things. It can even fit a dutch oven without the lid. It’s crazy how good this performs for the price. It has seen a ton of use and had zero issues thus far.

Customer Review: Great little smoker. Perfect for starting out and portable. Easy to clean this Cuisinart smoker really smokes and flavors the meat and can add a nice char. I’ve used it for ribs, chicken, and even a small brisket. It gets up to temp quickly and holds it fairly well for its size. The portability is a huge plus for me as I often take it to family gatherings. Highly recommend for anyone looking for an entry-level pellet grill.