New Pellet Grill Owners: Avoid the 8 Most Common Mistakes

so you're thinking about buying a pellet smoker or maybe you just purchased one you're going to want to check out these eight commonly made mistakes so that you don't make them check it out first mistake happens in the store and that's buying too small the rule in barbecue is always by 2x so if you think you're gonna normally cook four hamburgers make sure you buy a grill that can fit eight if you think you're gonna normally smoke two racks of ribs make sure you buy a grill that can handle four it's pretty easy once you get into this you're going to want to invite all your friends over and taste the food you're making the last thing you want to do is not have enough space in your grill i made this mistake with my first grill that was the weber smoky mountain 18 inch right after the first cook i knew i didn't have enough space so remember think about the space you're gonna need and get twice as much barbecue all right so mistake number two and that's worrying about temp swings now depending on the kind of smoker you get whether it's pid control or just a timer control you're gonna see temperature swings now the pid controller should be able to control those swings better than a time based controller this pit boss back here the 1100 pro is a time based controller what that means is the auger is set to turn on for a certain amount certain amount of time and feed pellets and then turn off for another set of time depending on the temperature setting you use a pid controller monitors the actual temperature inside of your pit and adjusts the feed rate or time of feed to hit the temperature that you've set on your settings so independent of what kind of controller you have know that you're gonna have temp swings and that's okay on my pit boss i see swings of plus or minus 20 degrees sometimes and that's all right barbecue isn't an exact science you just got to get it kind of close to what you need to and wait it out and watch that internal temp that's the key get the internal temp of what you're cooking where you want it and it's going to be delicious mistake number three for any new pellet grill smoker is not subscribing to this channel i give you everything you need on how to run your pit really interesting recipes and some true tried classics so take a second right now and hit that subscribe button mistake number four is not following your startup procedure read the manual of the grill you buy each one's going to be a little different but you're going to want to turn on your pit and leave this main cover open right the purpose there is to let some of the explosive gases that develop when you're first lighting your pellets up escape so if you don't do that if you leave this closed and you start up your pit this might happen to you now again what's happening there is when you're first lighting wood any wood product really you off gas certain explosive of gases and in this pit they can stay trapped in there and then when finally you catch fire in your in your pit those explosive gases catch and you get a small explosion so don't forget to follow your startup procedure all right moving on to tip number five and that's stirring your pellets now i know one of the beautiful things about pellet smokers is kind of a set it and forget it right set the temperature you want put your meat on the grill and kind of walk away from it but there's this thing called pellet bridging right so inside the hopper your pellets are supposed to automatically feed down to the auger and into your fire pit but what happens is sometimes the pellets will settle in just the right way where they're kind of supporting themselves up and you create a little void underneath so then when your controller tells your pit to turn the auger on and feed more pellets there's no pellets there so that's pellet bridging another form of this mistake that people make is just a void that forms so your pellets can kind of just sit on the side walls of the hopper and create an empty space kind of like in this shot right here and that that causes the same effect where when the auger turns on there's no pellets the feet of the fire now this can lead to a flame out a flame out uh could lead to the explosion we talked about in a previous tip or worst case scenario in my opinion it could lead to ruining a cook so make sure you are stirring your pellets i like to stir mine every 45 minutes or so just to make sure i got a good feed all right so now we're on mistake number mistake six here's mistake number six and that's not cleaning out your ash pot now my pellet grill requires that you lift the cooking grates lift the searing plate lift the heat deflector and then vacuum out that ash pot you're going to want to do that before every cook now if if you're lazy like i am i i don't do it every cook right depending on how long the cook was so i do a lot of shorter smokes like deviled eggs or salsa they don't take about an hour i'll i'll do two or three of those before i clean out the ash pot but if you're doing a long cook like ribs or a brisket or anything that that's more than like two or three hours you're gonna want to clean out the ash pot before your next smoke now if you get lazy and you don't clean out your ash pot again you're going to risk a flame out right we don't want flame out because flame out could lead to explosion it could lead to you ruining your cook so make sure you clean out your ash pot now i did a modification to my pit that makes the clean out much faster if your pits like mine where you need to remove you know two three four layers of stuff before you can clean it out at the end of this video there'll be a link to the modification that i made it might help you out on yours i can clean my ash pot out in five seconds basically now i lift one great move something over and i'm in so you're gonna want to check that out all right for those of you still watching thank you for sticking around let's talk about tip number seven or mistake number seven rather that you should avoid and that's forgetting to clean out your dripping tracks so on my pit there's tracks on the front and on the back where all the drippings kind of uh head towards the pail uh as you can see in this clip here you're going to want to clean those out i clean mine maybe once a month what you what you're trying to avoid is a buildup of grease and debris in those tracks it hasn't happened to me but based off what i'm seeing if you let those tracks build up with too much debris and grease grease will overflow over the sides and hit the walls in the bottom of your pit and in my opinion that's what causes flare-ups where the grease and debris that's on the sides or the bottom of your pit catches fire and that again in my opinion leads to what you're seeing in these pictures where you're damaging the paint on your pit a lot of folks think it's a manufacturing defect and i mean maybe it is i don't know but um i think if you let those tracks build up too much the grease has nowhere to go and obviously it's just going to flow over the side and coat the bottom of your pit so make sure you're cleaning out your dripping tracks all right last but not least mistake number eight and that's thinking that you're gonna get the same smoked taste that you would out of a stick burner now i was surprised the first time i smoked on my pellet grill i had heard about it but it's a much cleaner smoke right so if you're used to that super heavy smoke taste and you like it know that it's going to be different on a pellet grill the benefits of the pellet grill is kind of that set it and forget it mindset that we talked about earlier it's a lot easier than managing a fire and a stick burner or a charcoal burner but the taste is different it's a cleaner smoke now i i have an opinion that's probably based off of the quality of the pellets that you buy now i've been using nothing but the pit boss brand pellets and i'm currently in the process of filming a video that tests about i don't know four or five different brands to see if there's a difference so again if you haven't hit that subscribe button now's a good time to do it so you can see the results of that test that i'm doing but so far my experience has been that the smoke flavor that i'm getting although it's there it's lighter than from my weber smoky mountain it's lighter than what i'm used to so be prepared for that when you buy your pellet grill now if you've never smoked anything before it's not going to be a problem you're going to get a great smoked taste out of your pellet grill i promise all right as promised right here is the video to how to modify your ash pot for a quick clean out and right here once i finish the test you'll have the video where i test the different pellet brands and see if you get a better smoke thanks for watching we'll see you next time

Channel: 1526 BBQ

Views: 555,938

Keywords: bbq, pit boos, pitboss, 1100 pro, 1100pro, pellet smoker, how to bbq right, grilling, new pellet smoker, pellet grill mistakes, pellet grill tips, how to bbq better, whats a pellet smoker, new to pellet smoking, how to use a pellet smoker, pellet smoker or stick burner, pellet smoker vs stick burner, should I buy a pellet grill, pit boss review, pitboss review, pit boss 1100, pellet smoker for beginners, pellet smoker tips, pellet smoker tips and tricks, pellet smoker mistakes

Id: NuFXTPPdnRo

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2020