- Can a pellet smoker cook a brisket
as good as a stick burner?
That was the question I asked a few weeks back
and it drove the internet insane.
I have cooked some pellet grill briskets
that I thought were phenomenal and amazing
and the people that tried it,
also thought it was phenomenal and amazing
so in this video I'm gonna share with you
my experience and my thoughts on cooking
a pellet smoker brisket
and a stick burner brisket at the same time.
Bought two briskets, both of them were Prime,
I trimmed them both, I seasoned them the same
with my soon to be released APC brisket rub,
I put 'em both in at the same time
and at the same temperatures to begin with,
and I spritz them at the same time
and did my best to maintain consistent temperatures
on both pits all day long.
Now, it was a lot easier on the pellet grill.
So with that said, let's fire it up.
That one tasted a little better to me. (laughs)
Don't get mad, man don't throw stones I'm telling you.
So a little history about why we're even having this debate,
stick burners are traditional,
they set the standard and created all barbecue mythos.
Now pellet grills are the new tech
and indeed do have their place in barbecue
and yet they seem to be a natural enemy
to the stick burner crowd.
Now this debate seems to be the biggest around the briskets
since traditionally briskets have been cooked
low and slow in big smokers.
You see it all the time, all the arguing
and the fighting and the debating on social media
between the stick burner crowd and the pellet crowd.
Now the fact that most and major
barbecue pit manufacturing companies
have made a huge shift to pellet grills and smokers
tells us that there's a huge demand
even some previously only-stick burner
dedicated manufacturers have shifted
their focus to pellet grills as well.
In fact, if you were to walk into the typical barbecue store
you would ask the owner or the sales people there
what is their number one selling smoker?
It would probably be pellet grills.
Part of the reason is
the super busy hustle and bustle lifestyle of all of us
in the day and age that we live in plus,
not everybody has a big backyard to store cords
and cords of different flavored woods
to power their stick burner.
Pellet grills have been accused of being easy-bake ovens.
I'm gonna have to agree with that comment
I am gonna say it is indeed an easy-bake oven
but yet the stick burner is no different
it is in fact what I call, the hard-bake oven
take it how you like it
it's a hard-bake oven because it takes a lot of hard work
to get that brisket to be so amazing
and incredibly tasty and smoky,
and that's assuming you know exactly what you're doing
and you know how to run a good clean fire.
With pellet smokers,
you don't have to come out every 15, 20 or 30 minutes
and check your fire and your temperature,
reload another stick,
and basically work your tail off all day
on that hard-baking oven.
You can run off of WiFi and Bluetooth
however, with those pellet smokers
there are some disadvantages
you must have power at all times
and if you lose power, you know what?
You're gonna lose that amazing brisket
that you thought you were gonna have
from when you got home from work that afternoon
and in order to run that pellet cooker
through WiFi and internet,
well, you need internet too in addition to power.
It's drizzling so I'm getting a little bit of drizzle
on the side of the pellet grill
and if you know anything about electricity and water
they don't go very well together
so I'm gonna move it right now.
Stick burners produce that nostalgic amazing barbecue flavor
that dreams are made of.
The stick burners have no moving parts
other than their hinges and they're generally built
of extremely good, heavy duty quality.
Now, if all the conditions are right,
you have the right wood size,
the right moisture in the wood,
and if you actually know how to run a stick burner
with good clean fire, good clean smoke,
you will be rewarded with that amazing barbecue brisket
that dreams are made of.
Honestly that amazing stick burner flavor cannot be matched
and that's one of the reasons why
all the big barbecue houses particularly in Texas,
cook on stick burners
some of these places have 5,000 gallon stick burners
it takes a lot of wood
and a lot of labor to cook on these cookers.
Don't you really think that if
they could do that with a pellet grill
and save thousands of dollars
and increase their profit on a pellet grill,
wouldn't they be using a pellet grill?
Now, these big barbecue houses with these giant smokers
and the enormous amounts of wood that they use
is in fact part of the reason
why barbecue wood has gotten so expensive
for the little guy like you and me
that's another video though.
Now, stick burners in general,
particularly the smaller ones like the one I have back here
they tend to be cantankerous temperamental
you gotta have that firebox
pointed in just the right direction for the airflow,
the conditions have to be just right,
in order to produce some amazing barbecue.
And again, that's assuming you know how to run
a stick burner with good clean smoke
and once again, if you do get it just right
you will be rewarded with some incredibly
amazing briskets and barbecue.
We lost quite a bit of temperature
like I've kept saying,
you gotta really watch the temps on these stick burners.
We're down right around 225 right now in 220 to 225
so gotta stay on it.
Now, the technique that I use to cook pellet grill briskets
is to start with the meat side up, give it 3, 4, 5 hours
and get some amazing smoke at a low and slow temperature
like 225, then I'm gonna flip that guy over
and I'm gonna just continue to develop
a new bark on the fat side
and it may be another 5, 6, 8 hours
before I actually wrap it
and I'm gonna keep it fat side
wrapped in butcher paper in a pan,
sometimes I'll put a little beef broth
or a little bit of water in the pan
to maintain that moisture level.
I am gonna wrap it in butcher paper,
I do find the butcher paper helps retain
more of that stick burner-like flavor
on your pellet grill brisket.
Now on the stick burner, I find that I can run hot and fast
and develop my bark a lot quicker
I don't necessarily need to cook it on the meat side up
and then flip it over to fat side
because I find that I can run higher temperatures,
develop that bark a little bit quicker
at 300 to 325 degrees,
when I wrap that brisket I'm gonna slow the temperature down
to 250 to 275 to help maintain and keep all that moisture
collagen and connective tissue inside the meat.
Now, in order to keep things fair for this video
I did treat the stick burner brisket
same ways I did on the pellet grill by using a pan
so I did lay 'em on at the same time,
maintained consistent temperature on both of them
again, it was easier on the pellet's
I spritz them at the same time, kinda looking for color
and seeing if there was a lot of difference
at different points in the color of the briskets
and after three hours, I approached for temperature
for you to kinda see where we were at on that.
I went ahead and wrapped each brisket between 165 and 175
when it was time to wrap each of the individual briskets.
Now, by using this cooking technique on both briskets,
getting smoke on the meat and then getting smoke on the fat
remember, there were several hours
where I was not smoking the top fat side
so we did have to sacrifice some of the bark
however as I mentioned earlier,
you do tend to get a good smoky flavor
all the way around the brisket doing it this way.
Now, after I got 'em both wrapped
I did my best to maintain 275 consistently
on my stick burner throughout the rest of the cook
and it was really hard,
but I did manage to maintain 225 on the pellet grill
by switching that button to 225.
And one of the reasons I like to lower the temperature
to 225 on the pellet grill is because
if you get too hot and you have the meat on the bottom
that deflector plate on the bottom
will kind of roast and toast the bottom of that brisket
and I don't like that crispy bottom
I like it to be nice and soft.
Now, I needed to use a sheet pan on my stick burner
because I was using butcher paper to wrap my brisket
and this particular stick burner has some very rough grates
so I wanted to use a sheet pan
in order not to tear up my paper
so I did use a sheet pan in my pellet grill as well.
It only took about 11 to 11 and a half hours
to cook the pellet grill brisket,
the stick burner brisket took a solid 14 hours
but remember it did weigh five pounds more
than the one I cooked in the pellet smoker.
We're gonna reheat 'em, soon as they're ready to go
we're gonna pull 'em and get 'em onto the cutting board
and slice and do their final comparison.
There you go,
it comes down to this.
Some cooks, particularly these stick burner crowd
love to play with fire,
and they don't mind playing with that fire
and loading them sticks every 20, 30, 40 minutes
all day long.
It's part of the fun they say,
and if you're an old school cook like that
there's probably nothing I can say here today in this video
that's gonna change your mind
but I have seen some hardcore stick burner guys
that used to bash pellet grills,
do a 180 when they actually gave the pellet grill a chance.
If your idea of fun is feeding that stick burner sticks
every once in a while for 14 to 18 hours,
more power to you man,
I love doing it myself once in a while.
But then again there's some folks that are just so busy
and/or live in small townhouses or apartments
and just don't have room for cords of wood
or even the time to babysit a stick burner
for 14 to 18 hours
so for these folks a pellet grill just makes more sense.
We've been running at 250 on this one all day.
Stick burner's been pretty inconsistent,
and a little challenging
blowing about 20 miles an hour outta here
and the air's starting to get really cold
that affects both pits quite a bit but
let's see what we got here.
All right now here's my conclusion
after prepping, cooking, slicing,
tasting both briskets side by side,
and keeping in mind, this is my experience
and my experiment and your mileage may vary from mine
so at the end of this experiment
after tasting the pellet grill brisket that I just did
I was super amazed at how incredibly good it really was.
Now, when I took that first bite
of the stick burner brisket, I was shocked
but then I realized I had taken a bite of the meat side
which had been on the bottom during the wrap
so it didn't have that smoky bark on it.
But when I took a bite of the top
that had the smoky bark on it, then I was like,
okay, you've been redeemed you little brisket (laughs)
that smoky stick burner flavor did indeed shine through
and I'm gonna say that it definitely had a slight edge
and the smoky flavor lingered and danced on my tongue
little bit better than the pellet grill smoker did.
I am gonna say this that in all honesty,
I don't think the average person
that if you put 'em side by side
is gonna be able to know the difference.
In fact, I had some family come over
and we gave them some side by side taste test
and I was shocked but 4/10 picked the pellet grill brisket
40% of them thought that pellet grill brisket
was better than the stick burner brisket
so I rested my case so the question again is,
can a pellet smoker cook a brisket
that taste as good as a stick burner?
40% of my taste testers thought it did
so at the end of the day, it really depends on your pellet
and/or experience with stick burner briskets.
I honestly, when my taste testers get here,
it's gonna be interesting to see what they say because
I honestly thought this one taste a little bit better,
the pellet grill right off the bark
and I had to do a second bite on the stick burner brisket.
so what did I think after all the dust settled?
What did my wife Terry think?
Well, to be honest with you
we're kind of stick burner snobs too
and when we want a really, really amazing brisket
we're usually gonna use the stick burner.
As I said earlier, once in a while
I don't mind sitting out there for 14 hours
feeding that little stick burner to get that amazing flavor
however, there are many times, more times actually
that I actually use my pellet smoker
and using the technique that I use,
it's almost as good as that stick burner.
And I think that at the end of the day
they'll never be exactly the same
because from one week into the next,
even a stick burner brisket may not taste exactly the same
and from one stick burner to another,
it may not taste exactly the same
because there's so many variables
the logs you're using, the moisture content,
the wind, the humidity, there's so many variables
that can affect the ultimate flavor
of your stick burner brisket and again,
that's assuming you know how to run a stick burner properly.
They can, and indeed are both amazing at cooking briskets
but they are definitely different at the core
and of course the whole process is a little bit different
it's kinda like comparing Domino's to Pizza Hut
they're both pizza, but they're different.
Kinda like the difference between a red salsa
and a green salsa, both can be amazing
I still like the red better though.
You see barbecue is, always has been,
always will be about personal preference.
You see the stick burners in the Carolinas
think their briskets are the best.
The stick burners in Kansas
think their briskets are the best.
The stick burners in Oklahoma think they're the best,
we Texas guys, we know we're the best
so at the end of the day,
it does really come down to preference.
I'm just ribbing you guys okay,
don't get all worked up about it
I know you think yours is better and I think mine's better
it's okay we can still be friends.
So the whole thing about the pellet grill cookers,
smokers and grills is that they're very easy to use,
they're very convenient and they do have their place
in this new age of barbecue particularly for very busy folks
or for folks who don't have the space to store a lot of wood
or the time to babysit a stick burner forever.
You see those folks still wanna cook some great barbecue
for their families and their friends,
and I'm gonna say, that they can indeed do it
on this new age of pellet smokers
but if your choice is to cook on a stick burner,
that's okay too.
I like both trust me,
this is a $100 brisket, this was a $80 brisket
I wasn't gonna cook 'em just for the heck of it
I wanted to do a really fair comparison to see
how they would turn out
and they both turned out phenomenal,
this probably just made the debate rage even more.
Let me know what your experience has been
with pellet grills or stick burners in the comments,
tell me what your thoughts are,
tell me what you thought about my experiment here.
If you're not a real experienced barbecue cooker
and you want to up your barbecue game
and/or learn how to cook barbecue,
I do have an online barbecue class @pitmasterclass.us
there I cover all the different types of smokers,
fire controlled, everything you need to know
to cook amazing barbecue
and if you're interested in by barbecue rubs,
the WOW! and the OG, you can find those @pitmaster.us.
Thanks for watching folks
don't forget to like, comment and subscribe
keep the smoke light and make it work.
Boom!
Wow!