Cooker compare LG700 pellet smoker vs Weber 26" - pork butt

[VetteDoc]

I've had my pellet grill/smoker about 3 years now and with all the research I did before buying thought that pellet smokers were/are the way to go - I even gave a friend crap about buying a smokey mountain. 

I've been doing more and more cooking on my kettle and recently tried a couple short smokes and was amazed how well it holds temps - so much so I figured I would try doing a long cook on it. I bought a couple of bone in pork butts a month or so ago to do on the pellet smoker but decided to do this comparison cook.

I seasoned up the butts and let them chill out in the fridge overnight





I set up a snake with Royal Oak All Natural briqs and some Thaan on top of the briqs - for wood chunks I used hickory and cherry.



Kettle butt


Pellet cooker


For pork butt I let it smoke for around an hour or so then spritz with 1/2 apple juice 1/2 apple cider vinegar every 1/2 hour for 6 hrs - then transfer to the aluminum pans, cover with foil and finish in the oven.

For temp probes I have a couple of Meater probes which I love for these long cooks.

Kettle cook - averaged 252 F with a high of 283 and a low of 221



The pellet cooker averaged 249 F with a high of 280 and a low of 218



So overall the cooks were very similar, the meat was great on both but I really liked the flavor of the kettle butt more - more smoke flavor.

I will also say that the kettle was quicker and easier to get going than the pellet grill - the LG700 when initially started up goes all the way to 450 degrees to do a burn-off as well as making sure you have a good fire in the fire pot - but you have to step down gradually no more than 75 degrees at a time or it will burn out - that's what happened early in the cook. The pellets went out and I had to step up the fan to re-lite the fire and overshot a bit. The kettle by comparison 15 briqs to start it and a little messing with the bottom vent and it's good to go. I added the foil deflector to try to direct the incoming air to the charcoal and I think it did a good job.

Honestly based off of this cook I think I'm going to sell the pellet grill and just use the 26er for all long cooks in the future - I love how easy it is to get going, you can change wood flavors easily and it just tastes better.

[michaelmilitello]

Nice comparison and write up.  I agree with you.   I have used both a Traiger and kettles.   The kettle always produced better smoke flavor.


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