Pellet grills

Super_Dave wrote:
As a person that smokes a lot of food, a pellet smoker is good but doesn't compare with "real" smoking. Pellets give a different smoke flavor than chunks or chips.

But how do you burn those chunks? If you use anything but wood fire you're imparting whatever else you're using. Gas, charcoal, etc. significantly change the wood flavor. With a pellet grill, if you use quality pellets, they are 100% wood, and you're burning only 100% wood (not charcoal, which can include a lot of other stuff, or gas). I don't know, as someone that has used gas, charcoal and electric smokers, I think the pellet smoker does a better job of any of the one's I've tried...by a very long way. I can say without a doubt, chips suck compared to pellets. Chunks...maybe are better if you can find a "clean" way to burn them.

Now, grilling with only wood (not smoking), I can see the value of a 100% chunk wood fire that you can control with more/less wood. But trying to get a 100% wood fire low enough to smoke...it's tough, unless you have a commercial smoker that can burn only wood without being so big you have to smoke 100 lbs of meat at a time. With chunks though, wood only fire, you have to tend a small fire so often I can't see making a single pork butt at a time.