I ordered a Traeger Pro 34 this weekend. I’ve been wanting a smoker for a while and the current sale was too good to pass up. This will be my first experience with a pellet grill. Up until now, I have been limited to using a smoker box on my Weber.

Does the Forum brain trust have any tips or suggestions for a newbie?

Stock up on meat.

7-10 lb slab of pork belly.
Score on the fat side.
Teaspoon to a tablespoon of Kosher salt spread on fat side.
Lay in grill, fat side up

Smoke 10-12 hrs.

Edit: needed a "dash" between the 7 and 1 for the weight of the slab LOL

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LS1 GTO,

Apple pellets and Johnny's Seasoning for pork chops!

Congratulations! Be sure you experiment to find the balance of pellets/temp/cook time that works for you and your tastes. I started with the basic recipes my first Traeger came with, and ventured off from there. One of the great things about pellet grills is that they are very forgiving, it is hard to truly ruin a meal.

Have fun! BTW, try cooking some bacon on your Traeger, it will put a smile on your face.

ETA: make sure you keep the pellets burning. What I mean is, I tried cranking down the settings to get the most smoke I could, but it turned out the controller didn't feed enough pellets to keep the fire going. I suspect that it is due to the high relative humidity where I live, but it took a few tries to get the settings to keep the fire burning. Restarting the grill mod-cook kinda sucks.

Another thing, tube fires suck. On my pellet grill, if I run a high temp, say 400 degrees, to cook hamburgers, I can't just turn off the grill. I open the lid, turn the temp down to, say 225, and let it run for a few minutes. Then I set it to shutdown mode with lid open. Once I developed that procedure, I have not had a tube fire.

Get a Smoking tube
Traeger’s add less smoke the higher the temp. Stick smokers will still add smoke with higher temps.
The tube will add smoke no matter what the temp!
If you like a heavy smoke flavor, get a tube. If you like a lighter smoke flavor, the Traeger will do just fine.
I NEVER do baby back ribs without adding a tube full of pellets for the smoke phase. My wife and I love us a heavy smoke ring!

We have a 34Pro and love it. My son is the one who does all the cooking with it though so I don't have any tips to offer.
I did ask him this morning if a "smoking tube" is something he thought we needed. He said no, not for the 34Pro, which is not burdened with all the electronic bells and whistles of newer models. He is well satisfied with the amount of smoke imparted to proteins, as am I.
Bottom line try out your new unit with Traeger hickory chips first (you can experiment with other types later but this has become our standard go to...some pellets produce much more smoke than others too) and then once you have some experience decide if you think you aren't getting enough smoke flavor needing a smoke tube.
Enjoy!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

To extend the life of it as much as possible get a grill cover and protect it from rain/moisture.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
710 lb slab of pork belly.

Tell me that's a typo?

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
710 lb slab of pork belly.

Tell me that's a typo?

Yes it was. LOL

Time is the most important ingredient. Always give yourself extra time at each phase of the game.

Don't trust the built-in temp gauge.

Get a quality external digital thermometer with an ambient probe, and use that to gauge and fine tune your temp settings.

For example, depending on other factors, if I want to smoke at 225 I need to set my pellet smoker at ~210. Setting it at 225 results in more like 250.

I use a Fireboard, but you don't have to go that fancy. Prior to that I used a more basic Weber digital thermometer.



I also don't leave pellets in my hopper. Doing so early on, I experienced several auger jams. Now I clear it out after every smoke, and fill it back up at the next one.


If you plan to smoke during the winter, invest in an insulated blanket/cover. Before I bought and installed one of those, I had issues with keeping temps steady in colder or windier weather.

Mesquite Pellets will work on every type of meat (Beef, Pork, Bird & Fish).

Bacon is great to do on the smoker I can put two pounds on at the same time, hamburgers don't shrink up like they do on the grill, steaks are better tasting.

I have never needed a smoke tube, but mine is the older model with the ability to set the smoke level from 1 to 9 so I can get all the smoke, however I can see where a tube would be good for someone that likes really smokey flavoring..

I would start with chicken fryers, they are easy to cook, and really forgiving for first time cooking, then move on to a Boston Butt for pulled pork. Cuts like Brisket take a lot more work, time, effort, once you get comfortable then head in to Brisket territory.

Also remember, you don't have to cook things for 12 hours on the trager, once you have pul 4 to 5 hours of slow low smoke into a piece of meat, you can pan it, cover, and move into a conventional oven to finish cooking. At some point you are just cooking and burning up pellets, but you can do it either way.

As for pellets, the Traeger Hickory is good, as is Apple etc, however if you are a Costco member, they have pellets for Traegers and you get 40 pounds for what 20 pounds of Traeger brand cost, and they are a very good blend.

Get a Kingsford Caddy - Charcoal storage bin, $25 at Ace, once you open a bag of pellets, store them inside this, easy to hold plenty and makes it easy to load the hopper.

Thanks all for the advice. It was delivered today and I plan on doing the initial seasoning burn tomorrow. Big reason why I decided to get this is because I love bbq but have a strict dietary salt restriction. Now I can enjoy it guilt free. I love hickory and mesquite so those will be my initial choices.

Does anyone recommend one brand of pellets over another?


Really appreciate the advice not to store pellets in the hopper. I had planned on keeping them in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. Does the pellet caddy make a difference?

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Don't trust the built-in temp gauge.

Get a quality external digital thermometer with an ambient probe, and use that to gauge and fine tune your temp settings.

For example, depending on other factors, if I want to smoke at 225 I need to set my pellet smoker at ~210. Setting it at 225 results in more like 250.

I use a Fireboard, but you don't have to go that fancy. Prior to that I used a more basic Weber digital thermometer.

Ditto. I found a larger than expected deviation from the indicated temp and my results got better once I adjusted.

I use Home Depot 5 gallon buckets to store my opened pellets. Don’t stock up too much on pellets. Buy just enough to last you 3 months at most.

Instead of a smoker tube, buy a Cameron Flip Professional Smoker Box. Much better.

Also get a Meater block. It gives you ambient and internal temperature and tells you how much time to reach you internal temperature target. Also get a thermapen one instant thermometer.

Do NOT cheap out on the pellets. By that I mean research and listen to recommendations for those that will actually add any meaningful "smoke" flavor to the cook and stick with those.

I have a couple friends who were frustrated with the regular-charcoal-grilliness of this until they figured that out. There is a vast difference between easily recreating the low and slow texture and feel vs. actually resembling traditional smoked meats.

Also, try to store the pellets inside or where they will absorb the least amount of humidity. With or without a fancy bucket and lid setup.

You've already picked the easy button for temp and timing, you have to pay the price somewhere to get a true smoking affect.

And have fun, cook everything there!

Thanks all for the replies!

I just did the initial seasoning burn? After the burn time stated in the manual, I set it control to the shut down sequence. After a short bit of time into the shutdown, I noticed smoke coming up through the pellet box. Is that normal?

I have a Green Mountain Grill Smoker.

I bought it when I was working at the local Hardware store and got a "Smoking Hot" employee price on it.

We sold a few different brands of pellets and I would usually strike up a conversation with customers when they were buying pellets.

The feedback I got was that the Traeger pellets didn't burn cleanly and would leave a lot of ash behind. This would cause failures and required more vacuuming out of the fire box.

Yes, you will need to clean and vacuum the ash out!

Pork shoulder and ribs are my favorite things to smoke...