Hot take: pellet grill vs offset for a 14 hour brisket cook

Tbh I ran the same prime packer on my Traeger and then on my buddy's offset smoker in Waco last month. The pellet one was set and forget, but the bark came out soft and the smoke flavor was pretty weak, like barely there after 12 hours. The offset took constant babysitting, feeding logs every 45 minutes, but that bark shattered and the smoke ring went a full half inch deep. Honestly the flavor difference was night and day, my crew ate the offset one in 10 minutes flat. Has anyone else found that pellet convenience just cant match real wood for long cooks, or am I just bad at running my Traeger?

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tessa_carr15d ago

Whoa hold up, first off congrats on getting to try both side by side, that's a solid experiment. But I gotta point something out, the smoke ring thing is mostly a myth for flavor anyway. That pink ring is just a chemical reaction from the combustion gases, it looks cool but it doesn't mean the meat is smokier. You're probably tasting the difference because the Traeger uses those little pellets that are basically compressed sawdust with a uniform burn, while your buddy's offset is burning actual wood splits with all that variation in the smoke. Also, soft bark on a pellet grill usually means you're running it too hot or you didn't let the surface dry out enough before wrapping. Can't say you're bad at it, but the two cookers just work different, and if you want that deep smoky hit, you gotta either boost the smoke setting early on or accept that pellets are a whole other flavor profile.