Pellets

In Southern California, we had an event at 29 Palms Marine Base, which we've done for the past several years. This year, there were 3 people with FE-100's out there (me, Walt Norwood, and Jim Gold). Bentley Meredith was also there with his Traeger pits. We compared pellets and found that: Traeger pellets had broken down into small chunks of pellets and dust (these were mine). I've had them for a couple of year, but kept them in plastic 5 gallon buckets. Bear Mountain pellets had sort of a shiny gloss to them, and were harder than pellets from Eddy, which were not broken up and were a little softer than the Bear Mountain ones.

My conclusion is that: Traeger pellets are junk, don't buy them. The other two brands seemed fine, depending on if you want a pellet that is slightly harder to break or slightly easier to break apart.

As usualy, the FE-100's performed like champs, going about 24 hours nonstop. Mine did a load of briskets, then pork butts, then chicken, then sausage. After the pork butts, I cleaned them out real good, changed the foil on the drip pan, and was careful not to overload it with the chicken (thanks to Walt for several good tips on FE operation).

Also, I found out another BBQ-er from California is being assimiliated (resistance is futile!) - John Richardson has ordered an FE-100 with the new controller (he says there is already a waiting list).

I showed him the secret handshake and told him about Miracle Whip, so he's ready for his FE to arrive.

Here's another tip I learned - if your unit seems to be running hot, but the temperature readout is low, look inside to see if the brisket is touching the temperature probe.

Smokin' up the night at 29 Palms.