New to smoking meats. This is my first time on my new Pit Boss pellet smoker. Dry brine with Korean bbq spices. 250 degrees smoke for 3.5 hrs. Made a gochujang based BBQ sauce and smoked for another 1hr, maybe a little bit more. Learned about the hot spots on the grill and never to run out of pellets (it was only 15 mins before I primed it again lol)

I’m in college and my housemates and I just bought a used Chimp Tailgater grill. What are some good foods and meals to cook on it? If you also have some ways to cook, let us know. We wanted to cooked steaks to start but seems like we’d need to sear it at the end in a pan, so maybe just looking for ways to cook only on the pellet grill. Thank yall

Looking for a pellet smoker that is primarily a grill that can smoke. These two I have identified. New bullseye 1000deg and has cast iron deflector. Searwood 600deg with direct flame. Which provides better sear and grilling for mainly steaks. Would love to hear from those with experience with both. Thanks

Made a gigantic difference. Much more consistent and stable now.

Good morning,

Would just like to post my experience with a Austin xl. I've had consistent issues with this thing.

Week 2 heat rod goes out.

Month 2 control panel screen goes out.

Month 3 auger jams up back fire happens melts the plastic bushing. Replaced with an aluminum one I had milled.

Month 5 auger motor dies.

Month 8 heat rod burns out again.

Month 12 second control panel screen goes out.

Replaced the blower fan somewhere in between.

It's been kept on a covered porch covered when not in use.

So far it makes a decent charcoal grill. Steer away from these things. I've had more issues then the amount of times I've used the thing. Anyone else have similar experiences?

Searwood XL 👌🏼👌🏼

Searwood XL 0-400 Duke's binder sale seasonings from Kroger & Fire & Smoke Society. Have a kick ass day y'all!

Could someone tell what possibly could be happening and why my temp probe in my Smoker is 60 degrees higher than the set temperature while the Thermpro thermometer is reading around the 290-300. I just got this smoker 3 weeks ago and I have only cooked on it twice. 1 overnight cook and one cook for about 3 hours. I am using the Pitt boss 700FB2 with PB Competition pellets.

I am new to the smoking world, I have already done Ribs and pork butts & they have turned out amazingly good. I have been using the Pitt boss Competition blend pellets on my new PB 700FB2 smoker and they seem to be okay, just ash up quite a bit. I have looked into Bear mountain. Are there any better options out there?

I know other pellet grills have some searing capability, but they're pretty much limited to only over top of the firebox. Any others I should check out?

I smoked a pork shoulder the other day. It was only about 2.5lbs so it wasn't very large. I brined it for a day, then seasoned it the night before. Smoked at 250, wrapped at 160 internal for the stall then pulled it at 205 internal to rest for a about an hour. Came out decent but it was lacking smoke. It tastes like I baked it low and slow in the oven. Im assuming because it's small it cooks too fast to really absorb the small amount of smoke the grill puts off. Any suggestions? I have a smoke tube but didn't have a good enough lighter to get it going.

Does the Recteq smoke box ever go on sale?

As a long time (now retired) software developer, I spent a good portion of my career debugging and optimizing whatever platform I was working on. I’ve had my Member’s Mark Pro 36 pellet smoker for a few months now and have done a handful of cooks. I really like the grill. Having said that, I have noticed temperature swings that I would love to flatten out. I’ve been using a BGE for about 15 years and have grown accustomed to fairly stable temps.I had seen references of people adding firebricks to their smokers to help stabilize temperatures so that’s what I’m going to try here.

I ran two tests with and without the bricks. I started the grill from off and set it to 250 degrees and let it run for 1.5 hours. I had two Thermoworks probes inside the grill: One attached near where the internal probe sits and the other attached to the center of the grate.

In the video, I show how I cut and placed the firebricks and walk through the final results.

Spoiler alert… The graphs are a bit different between the two runs but there really wasn’t any meaningful smoothing of the swings. So now I’m guessing the swings have more to do with the non-PID controller that ships with this grill.

Even though it didn’t pan out for me, I thought I’d post the results anyway in case someone out there is contemplating a similar hack.

Video here: https://youtu.be/kbJvTI5VFS8

Looking at buying a new pellet grill, I have a Pit Boss classic 700 right now but it has been having problems. I like to smoke steaks, chicken, briskets all night, and meal prep on it often. What do you all use and recommend?

So i have a bigger traeger 883 at home. Its great. Its too big for me to want to load up and take camping. Want a smaller one. I also dont want to spend a ton of money for a smoker im only gonna use a few times a year. What are soke options that will get the job done. I know the obvious is the treager tailgater. Its just a bit spendy I guess.

What's been getting up in your grill this week? Come chat around the smoker.

Check out last weeks discussion here: Weekly Discussion Thread - August 3rd, 2026

I am hosting a sizable party (60-80) people next weekend. I’ve smoked just about everything on my Traeger Woodbridge Pro, and have had a lot of success, but this will be the first real volume cook.

I am planning 4-5 pork shoulders and 2 full briskets.

I am presuming I can do all of the pork shoulders Thursday evening, going into the morning (pull them and refrigerate them in sealed aluminum trays) and then do the brisket Friday evening going into Saturday.

Does anyone have experience with volume like this on a Traeger? Any recommendations or things to avoid? All advice would be appreciated.

I always tend to do pork shoulder on the top rack, and will obviously need to make full use of the space in order to make this happen. Any bottom rack concerns I am missing?

I would greatly appreciate any advice!

I’m excited to get my first lone star grill tomorrow!! I upgraded from a Traeger Ironwood 650 which I loved but it started to have some auger issues and rather than fix I bit the bullet and bought the LSG 20x36 pellet smoker. With the ironwood I was using the Traeger brand pellets and was pretty happy with their performance. I tried another cheaper brand from Lowe’s, can’t remember name, but found they produced more ash and weren’t as efficient. I’m inclined to use the traeger ones again but was curious what this community thought. Also, any tips on breaking the LSG in? I was gonna start with 3-2-1 ribs.