Observations on pellet/ wood chip mix in Bullseye Deluxe

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SweaT-rex

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Location
Metro ATL
Grill(s) owned
  1. Bull
  2. RT-B380X Bullseye Deluxe
One of the commonly stated shortcomings of pellet grills is the lack of smoke flavor compared to offset stick burners. I've previously tried a smoke tube-like device with wood chips or chunks with satisfactory results but wanted to try another method that had a longer "burn time". I had recently seen a video where a 50-50 mixture of pellets & wood chips was used in a Lone Star pellet grill with good results with the admonition that this was only suitable for Lone Star grills. Nonetheless I ordered 40 lbs of hickory chips from Lone Star & mixed them 50-50 by volume with RecTeq Ultimate Blend pellets & did a baby back rib cook on my Bullseye Deluxe today.
The chips are very finely chipped & mixed easily with the pellets. Here are a few observations: 1) the smoke production was noticeably more at 225-250 degrees than with any brand of pellets used alone ( Recteq, Lumberjack, Traeger) in my experience. 2) the grill operated as usual with one outlier- there was a flame out 4.5 hours into the cook with the grill running at 225 degrees with the temp falling to 150 degrees. It took the grill 18 minutes to recover back to baseline & I could hear the auger functioning normally. I made no adjustments during this time. It took the grill 9 minutes to again reach 225 & then it overshot to a high of 275 degrees for 9 minutes before settling back in at 225. 3) the smoke flavor was more than with a smoke tube, but not bitter or obnoxious. 4) the overall volume of consumption of chips/ pellets was more than with pellets alone.
I will continue to experiment with this process on other cooks both hot & slow. I don't think the auger jammed during the flameout but I did note the hopper was almost empty when it happened, so it may be that more weight on the chips/pellets entering the auger is beneficial to prevent voids in feeding the firepot.

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An awesome idea! I consistently use wood chunks in my Bullseye for every cook, a practice I've maintained for a solid seven years. This involves initiating the grill at 400° to activate the wood chunks. Subsequently, I typically grill at no less than 350° for whole chickens and similar items to keep the chunks going. I also exclusively use 100% wood flavors for both my 700 and Bullseye, avoiding any blended pellets. I believe this method yields the most distinctive smoke flavors. I'm certainly open to experimenting with your wood chip mix suggestion. Appreciate your post, research, and idea.
 
Another observation regarding the pellet/wood chips mix is that for a fast cook at 600 degrees it takes 22 minutes to reach temperature instead of 18 minutes with RecTeq Ultimate Blend pellets alone. There was no change in the smoke flavor of a flat iron steak with the pellet/chips mix. No feeding/auger issues were experienced during the short, hot cook/sear. This was as expected given the reduced thermal efficiency of wood chips vs wood pellets .
 
Interesting!

Where did you get the fine wood chips?
 
I tried my first overnight butt cook with the pellet/wood chips mixture this past Friday night/ Saturday and experienced an auger jam 5 hours in. Unfortunately, this happened at 5 AM & I either didn't hear the notification or the app failed to notify me audibly. I had to scoop out the hopper & found the jammed rectangular shaped wood chip on the top edge of the auger tunnel entrance. It required needle nosed pliers to remove, then all was well with pellets only for the remainder of the cook which took 3 hours longer than expected due to not discovering the jam until 8 AM.

Therefore, I cannot recommend the pellet/ wood chip mix in the RT 380-X due to having issues both times trying it.
 

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