Smoke Tube - wood chips or pellets?

[mikefinleyco]

I recently added a smoke tube to use with my Traeger.

Do most people use wood chips or just use pellets? Any difference?

 

[Dcgunman]

Pellets only in a tube. That’s it.

 

[Slimpicker]

Pellets only in a tube. That’s it.

Nope, I use chips and pellets and it works fine in fact it's awesome
Apple or cherry pellets mixed with bourbon barrel chips and either apple or cherry chips.

Do it, you'll love it!!

 

[mikefinleyco]

So pellets and wood chips are basically the same thing it sounds like for smoke and flavor. It is weird because the pellets just don't seem to have much smell to them when I pick up a handful, but the chips have a lot more smell

 

[Dcgunman]

Nope, I use chips and pellets and it works fine in fact it's awesome
Apple or cherry pellets mixed with bourbon barrel chips and either apple or cherry chips.

Do it, you'll love it!!

View attachment 6911

Still learning.

 

[Slimpicker]

So pellets and wood chips are basically the same thing it sounds like for smoke and flavor. It is weird because the pellets just don't seem to have much smell to them when I pick up a handful, but the chips have a lot more smell

Exactly... and the smoke is very sweet and makes me stand next to my stack for long periods just soaking it up!!!

 

[Slimpicker]

Still learning.

So am I.

 

[Wayne55]

As you can see from my avatar, I have extensive experience cooking tri-tip on a Santa Maria style grill. Yesterday was my first attempt at tri-tip on the Pro 780 I got for retirement. I had started with a 6 hour cook for baby backs and the last hour added the tri-tip. I used Costco's Gourmet blend of pellets, which is the same as Traeger's Signature blend. I used a smoke tube with the Gourmet blend for the first 4 hours or so. The last hour I used Hickory pellets for both ribs and tri-tips.
I must say the ribs turned out fantastic! I will definitely use that technique again (3-2-1). The tri-tip was just OK. Tender, tasty, but not Santa Maria Style.
Today I experimented with oak wood chips. I have some red oak lying around and decided to cut and chip some up. I filled the tube half way and lit it off to see how long it would smolder. The half tube took about an hour, so I figure I have a two hour tube, maybe less because my experiment was with the tube on the ground. In the grill it will be at 200ish and will probably burn faster in a hotter environment. As Slimpicker said above, I could just stand in the smoke and take it in!
Next tri-tip I'm going to try the oak chips I've made and maybe get a bag. Hate to waste $20 on a bag of oak pellets if I don't like the smoke.

 

[RoadRunner18]

Pellets and wood chips work fine for me