Question before I sell my 590 and get a stick burner

sel1005

Member
Messages
17
Location
Niceville, FL
Grill(s) owned
  1. Stampede
Have a 2 yr old 590, have had a number of mechanical issues with it but support has always come through extremely well.

My question though is regarding performance.

After dozens of cooks, all sorts of meats, mostly RT wood blend pellets, and every recipe and technique I can find on this forum and others, my opinion of the 590 is that its really just a big oven that produces a tiny bit of smoke. I have tried low temps, 225-250, long hours, varying temps and hours, butcher paper wraps, you name it. But never any serious bark unless I leave meat on so long it just dries out. Different pellets, dual smoker tubes, you name it and I have tried it.

Have cooked big box meats, custom meats and cuts, a huge variety of things but at the prices we have to pay these days, I am just not happy and looking for any advice as to what I may not have yet tried or if that's just the way a 590 cooks.

Honestly, I get better bark and flavor cooking on my gas grill with two smoker tubes than the 590. Yes, the wi-fi and set it and leave it is great, but not for what I end up with.

Any suggestions or thoughts before I put this thing up for sale and move on? BTW, live in FL where temp and high humidity are constants.

Thanks in advance
 
Thanks, that's pretty much where I am unfortunately, given the large amount of $$ invested in the 590 and accessories.
 
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Reactions: Kim
Thanks, that's pretty much where I am unfortunately, given the large amount of $$ invested in the 590 and accessories.
I'm sure it will sell, post here on the forum.
Good luck 👍
 
appreciate your opinion: great shape, 40 lbs of Ultimate Blend pellets unopened, some spare parts/ accessories, and cover. Is $250 a reasonable price to ask for it, picked up here at my house / no delivery obviously?
 
I’m sorry your 590 isn’t working out for you. When you first turn on the smoker do you find you get a lot of smoke at the extremely low temperatures? Mine starts to lighten up substantially above 225. But then I never smoked at 250, nearly always at 225
 
appreciate your opinion: great shape, 40 lbs of Ultimate Blend pellets unopened, some spare parts/ accessories, and cover. Is $250 a reasonable price to ask for it, picked up here at my house / no delivery obviously?
How far are you from Jax? I sent my son-in-law your post-he may be interested.
 
Two thoughts come to mind. First, I have been very unimpressed with the results from RT pellets, as well as other blends. My strong preference is unblended Hickory pellets and, surprisingly, the best I’ve found so far are Kingsford Hickory. I just purchased a bag of Bear Mountain Hickory and will try them next.

Second, the level of “smoke” in food is definitely a personal preference. What is good for one person is too much or too little for another. If you are in the “heavy smoke” category, you probably won’t ever be satisfied with what comes out of a pellet smoker.

Here’s a photo of a brisket I recently did on the RT-340 with Kingsford Hickory pellets. In my opinion, it had good bark, a nice smoke ring and a great, smoky flavor. YMMV

24E13DC9-E8E9-413C-A5AF-B65A3DD49A98.jpeg
 
You may be able to get a little more than $250 look in the for sale area here and see what others are selling them for.
 
Pellet grills aren't for everybody. I'll sacrifice the extra smoke flavor from a stick burning for the hands off convenience, predictable results and versatility of a pellet grill.
 
Personally I've never had a problem getting a nice bark on brisket or butts. I do use additional smoke tube for the first 2 hrs. Love the flavor off a stick burner but "way" to much babysitting, better things to do with my time, plus gathering wood, splitting, mice attraction not my gig. 590,set it and go about your business.
 
Second the Kingsford pellets. They have performed well for me. Ive been happy with the smoke ive got off my 700 and 1250. I personally just love the damn thing and convenience, cook on it about 4-5 nights a week.

One thing Ive always been puzzled by is RecTeqs advertising how exact their temps are, as in holding it. Every stick burner pro ive spoke to over the years all say that what helps create that flavor are the temp changes when adding a log, one burning down, another log on, etc. I have heard there are some pellet grill companies who are now changing up their PID software to fluctuate more, trying to duplicate the swings of a stick burner. So RecTeq always taking pride in their exact temps being help really does just make it an oven, it would be interesting to see if the new trend of temp changes becomes popular for other pellet grill companies
 
Second the Kingsford pellets. They have performed well for me. Ive been happy with the smoke ive got off my 700 and 1250. I personally just love the damn thing and convenience, cook on it about 4-5 nights a week.

One thing Ive always been puzzled by is RecTeqs advertising how exact their temps are, as in holding it. Every stick burner pro ive spoke to over the years all say that what helps create that flavor are the temp changes when adding a log, one burning down, another log on, etc. I have heard there are some pellet grill companies who are now changing up their PID software to fluctuate more, trying to duplicate the swings of a stick burner. So RecTeq always taking pride in their exact temps being help really does just make it an oven, it would be interesting to see if the new trend of temp changes becomes popular for other pellet grill companies
The Rec Teq temps are not nearly as exact as their advertising claims. I started using a Fireboard for cooks due to app failures and the temp swings are way more than what the RT temp reporting is. Since Fireboard is close to the gold standard in temp reporting I am far more willing to trust its data versus RT who can't even make an app work. My last cook showed temp swings of 15+ degrees on the Fireboard and no change on the RT controller. Draw your own conclusions.
 
The Rec Teq temps are not nearly as exact as their advertising claims. I started using a Fireboard for cooks due to app failures and the temp swings are way more than what the RT temp reporting is. Since Fireboard is close to the gold standard in temp reporting I am far more willing to trust its data versus RT who can't even make an app work. My last cook showed temp swings of 15+ degrees on the Fireboard and no change on the RT controller. Draw your own conclusions.
Exactly. recteq grills use a displayed value based on the controller’s algorithm, not an actual reading from the RTD pit probe. Which explains why you might see the set temp and ’actual’ temp on the display usually only vary slightly during a cook. Here’s the graph of a 10 hour pork belly smoke, recorded on the ThermoWorks Signals. The RT-700 was set to 180° and the pit temp is the red line. The grill spikes the temp on startup, then settles into the cook where the first and last 2.5 hours showed the most variation, and the 5 hour span in the middle was quite stable with the variation at around +/- 10° from the set point. I looked at a handful of graphs in my Signals session history today, and this cook was the most stable.

39B4C212-2932-47DA-89BB-ABE9BBCF5374.jpeg
 
Two thoughts come to mind. First, I have been very unimpressed with the results from RT pellets, as well as other blends. My strong preference is unblended Hickory pellets and, surprisingly, the best I’ve found so far are Kingsford Hickory. I just purchased a bag of Bear Mountain Hickory and will try them next.

Second, the level of “smoke” in food is definitely a personal preference. What is good for one person is too much or too little for another. If you are in the “heavy smoke” category, you probably won’t ever be satisfied with what comes out of a pellet smoker.

Here’s a photo of a brisket I recently did on the RT-340 with Kingsford Hickory pellets. In my opinion, it had good bark, a nice smoke ring and a great, smoky flavor. YMMV

View attachment 16605
Thanks for the suggestion, the brisket looks awesome, sure you enjoyed it
 
Second the Kingsford pellets. They have performed well for me. Ive been happy with the smoke ive got off my 700 and 1250. I personally just love the damn thing and convenience, cook on it about 4-5 nights a week.

One thing Ive always been puzzled by is RecTeqs advertising how exact their temps are, as in holding it. Every stick burner pro ive spoke to over the years all say that what helps create that flavor are the temp changes when adding a log, one burning down, another log on, etc. I have heard there are some pellet grill companies who are now changing up their PID software to fluctuate more, trying to duplicate the swings of a stick burner. So RecTeq always taking pride in their exact temps being help really does just make it an oven, it would be interesting to see if the new trend of temp changes becomes popular for other pellet grill companies
appreciate the education on this, have never heard of that being helpful. Always read that it was just the opposite; for example having rain in the middle of a cook cool the grill down. Love learning more detail, appreciate it much!
 
The Rec Teq temps are not nearly as exact as their advertising claims. I started using a Fireboard for cooks due to app failures and the temp swings are way more than what the RT temp reporting is. Since Fireboard is close to the gold standard in temp reporting I am far more willing to trust its data versus RT who can't even make an app work. My last cook showed temp swings of 15+ degrees on the Fireboard and no change on the RT controller. Draw your own conclusions.
thanks, will look at it, not familiar with that item
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kim
Have a 2 yr old 590, have had a number of mechanical issues with it but support has always come through extremely well.

My question though is regarding performance.

After dozens of cooks, all sorts of meats, mostly RT wood blend pellets, and every recipe and technique I can find on this forum and others, my opinion of the 590 is that its really just a big oven that produces a tiny bit of smoke. I have tried low temps, 225-250, long hours, varying temps and hours, butcher paper wraps, you name it. But never any serious bark unless I leave meat on so long it just dries out. Different pellets, dual smoker tubes, you name it and I have tried it.

Have cooked big box meats, custom meats and cuts, a huge variety of things but at the prices we have to pay these days, I am just not happy and looking for any advice as to what I may not have yet tried or if that's just the way a 590 cooks.

Honestly, I get better bark and flavor cooking on my gas grill with two smoker tubes than the 590. Yes, the wi-fi and set it and leave it is great, but not for what I end up with.

Any suggestions or thoughts before I put this thing up for sale and move on? BTW, live in FL where temp and high humidity are constants.

Thanks in advance
Interesting issue. I don’t have the 590 but I have a gasser and other grills including the Bull, that can easily be enhanced to produce more smoke. One cure I have used includes taking aluminum foil (heavy duty if possible) and make about 10 “packs” of wood chips. I use small and medium sized chips, and soak the mediums for 8 hours before use. I can create enough smoke to hide in or, vary it by adding or removing the pouches as needed. The good thing about the packets is that they don’t tend to light and burn out of control changing my temperatures as often as the smoke tubes. I also have some cast iron smoke boxes that do a fine job. Ultimately, you will find some temp instability when using any artificial smoke arrangement, but that can be controlled also.
 

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