At the beginning of the summer, my gas grill bit the dust after 13 years of dutiful service.
So I was in the market for a new outdoor cooking apparatus.
I figured I’d just get another gas grill, but my brother-in-law suggested a wood pellet grill. His family had one and really liked it. I did really enjoy the burgers he grilled up for us on his pellet grill; they just tasted better than the ones I made on our gas grill.
But at first I was pretty dang resistant to the idea.
I liked gas due to the convenience. You just turn the knob, ignite, and grill. I didn’t have to worry about stocking a fuel source, and I didn’t have to worry about my flame going out (my gas grill was connected to my home’s natural gas line.)
My conception of the pellet grill was that it would just complicate things. I’d have to buy pellets and fill the grill with them. While grilling, I’d have to constantly check the grill’s stock of pellets to see if it needed replenishing and monitor the grill’s temperature. Then I’d have to clean out the ash.
I thought of myself as a set it and forget it kinda guy when it came to my outdoor cooking and didn’t want the hassle.
But after a few weeks of fruitlessly searching for a new gas grill that seemed like the right pick, I started to reconsider the pellet grill. So I asked my buddy and AoM’s resident BBQ consultant, Karl Engel, what his opinion of the wood pellet grill was.
Here was his response:
“Oh man, they’re awesome. I love mine. It’s a game changer for your outdoor cooking because they’re so dang easy to use, and they’re versatile. You can grill and smoke with them. I even use mine to cook pizzas. It just opens up a lot of options for you.”
The prospect of smoking meat, in addition to grilling, especially intrigued me. Ever since I did the videos with Karl a decade back about smoking meat, I’ve wanted to get into BBQing, but didn’t pull the trigger on it because I didn’t want to have to buy a separate smoker. So the idea that I could have an appliance that allowed me to both grill and smoke was enticing. And his praise of the wood pellet grill’s ease of use made the idea all the more appealing to this lazy outdoor cook.
I asked Karl which wood pellet grill to get. He said they’re all pretty good. Traeger is a popular brand and will get you good results. I’ve got several friends who have Traegers, and they’re happy with them. I’ve had some mean pork butt smoked on a Traeger.
I then asked him, “Which pellet grill do you own?”
“Oh, I got a Yoder. It’s a beast, but I love it.”
After researching the Yoder, I decided to become a Yoder owner myself. I liked its quality and heft. (This isn’t a sponsored post; Yoder is just the brand I personally decided upon.)
After a summer of cooking meats with my Yoder, reader, I can stand before you this day to testify that I know the pellet grill is the one true outdoor cooking apparatus.
Here’s why you, too, might consider getting yourself a pellet grill/smoker.
The Benefits of a Pellet Grill/Smoker
It’s a jack-of-all-trades (and master of most). Karl was right. You can do pretty much anything with a pellet grill/smoker. It’s the Swiss army knife of outdoor cooking.
You can crank it up to 700 degrees to sear a steak or grill a burger, or you can set it at 225 degrees to smoke brisket low and slow.
I’ve also used my pellet grill to roast veggies like corn, potatoes, and asparagus.
The pellet grill has significantly increased the dinner options in the McKay household.
I still haven’t scratched the surface of what I can cook with this thing. On my to-cook list are pulled pork, turkey, and pizza. Karl says you can even bake cookies and pie with it. (When you bake with a pellet grill, you’re running the temperature hotter, so there isn’t as much smoke, so you’re not smoking your pies. They’ll still have a bit of a smokey flavor, though; it gives your desserts a little twist.).
You can only grill on half of your pellet grill/smoker.
The one downside of grilling with a pellet smoker is that your grilling space is more constrained; you’re limited to grilling over the firebox since that’s where the flame is at. With my gas grill, I could use the entire length of the grill to grill; with the pellet grill, I have half that.
It hasn’t been too much of a problem, though, at least with cooking just for my family. I reckon if I were to have a cookout for a big group of people, I’d have to break up the grilling into segments in order to get it all done on the smaller space. It will just take a bit more planning.
It’s easy to use. My fears that a pellet grill would be more complicated to use than a gas grill turned out to be unfounded. Modern technology has mitigated many of the former downsides.
Yes, you’ve got to buy wood pellets, but they’re readily available. Most grocery and hardware stores carry them along with Kingsford charcoal. And a bag of pellets lasts a while, so I haven’t had to restock that often.
The grill/smoker itself is super easy to operate. You just load the pellet hopper with pellets. Set the digital control to the temperature you want, and that’s it. The onboard computer takes care of the rest. It will feed the burner with pellets to keep it at your desired temperature. This allowed someone like me, who had never smoked a brisket before, to smoke a first brisket that was amazing. I’m still getting compliments from my father-in-law about that brisket. You don’t have to spend all day tending to a fire to make sure it’s at the right temperature. The computer does it for you.
Most pellet grills also have an accompanying app that allows you to control the temperature of your grill while you’re away from home. You can also monitor the temperature of your meat using internal probes. This feature comes in handy when you’re smoking a brisket because you can keep tabs on when you need to foil it or take it out to let it rest.
Now, cleaning a pellet grill does remain a bit of a pain. If you’re using it regularly, you’ll want to deep clean it once every two to three months. The big thing to clean out on the regular is the ash. If that gets too full, it can cause an explosion when igniting your grill. Also, if you’re doing a lot of smoking, your grates and heat diffuser will accumulate a lot of grease and gunk that you’ll want to scrape off every now and then. One hack I picked up from Karl to make cleaning a bit easier is putting a layer of foil over my heat diffuser. The grease falls on that, so cleaning is just a matter of removing the greasy foil and replacing it with a clean sheet.
It imparts flavor! Ever since I’ve switched to the pellet grill/smoker, everything I cook has this amazing smoky flavor. No more bland, gas-grilled chicken breasts.
There’s also a variety of wood pellets you can use to customize your flavor profile. I haven’t tried them all yet, but it’s cool to know that I can experiment with hickory, apple, or mesquite as I please.
Cooks meat evenly. While I liked the convenience of the gas grill, one of my biggest complaints about it was that it didn’t cook evenly. At least on my gas grill, some burners burned hotter than others, and I’d get a lot of flare-ups. The result was burgers and steaks that were a motley mixture of burnt and undercooked. I’d get a lot of complaints from my family about this.
This was a typical burger night conversation at the McKay dinner table:
Scout: “Dad, my burger is all burnt on the outside.”
Gus: “Dad, is it safe to eat a burger this red?”
Ever since switching to the pellet grill, I haven’t heard those complaints. That’s because pellet grills use convection heat, which circulates hot air evenly around the food. This results in more efficient and uniform cooking, preventing hot spots and reducing the risk of burning or undercooking.
Makes meal prep easy. You can cook an entire meal for your family in a pellet grill/smoker. A favorite in the McKay household is roasted chicken and corn on the cob. I put the whole chicken in the smoker about five hours before dinner, and then about an hour and a half before we eat, I put in some ears of seasoned, foil-wrapped corn. Bam! A meal! (Just add tater tots.) And I tell ya, corn on the cob has never tasted so good.
It’s also given me another option for my personal weekly lunch meal prep. Just today, I smoked some burgers and sweet potatoes that will last me a week.
If you’re in the market for a new grill that can do it all, check out the pellet grill/smoker. I like my Yoder, but you can’t go wrong with a Traeger or one of the other brands out there. BBQ aficionados will praise/criticize various idiosyncrasies in each, but for the average joe, they all pretty much work the same. Which is to say, game-changingly great!
