A few weeks ago, Dave DeWitt put Kingsford’s new wood pellets to the test with, as you may have guessed, a wood pellet grill. Not all of us peasants have one of these expensive beasts and have to satisfy our grilling needs with the much less hoity-toity gas or charcoal grills while wood pellet grillers cook for their country club buddies while tailgating an opera or some such. Hence why I ran Kingsford’s Premium Hickory Wood Pellets through their paces in my much cheaper gas grill.
All kidding (and jealousy) aside, smoking on a gas grill is good for smaller projects that take an hour or two to cook (or less), like tri-tip roasts and big ol’ chicken breasts. It’s kind of a waste to go through the trouble to prep your smoker for something quick like one of these cuts. I used a set of Adam Raichlen’s Grill Pucks filled with the hickory pellets over both of those cuts of meat and I was not disappointed.
The smoke had a very pure hickory aroma to it which for me is the first thing I look for in chips or pellets because that’s the first thing your senses encounter. It’s as if the pellets were fresh, versus being stale. That’s because there’s no filler in them. They’re pure hickory (or cherry, apple, oak, or Competition Blend, depending on what you buy).
A little bit of pellets went a long way; the half a cup I used (a quarter per puck) made smoke for a good hour. In the end, they did their job pretty well, imparting that clean hickory flavor into the meat as I wanted. Cleanup was pretty easy also; the pellets mostly held their shape afterward and I just had to dump the ashes out of the pucks. There was a little residue that came out when I opened the puck up for the “after” photo, but that was it. Overall, I was very satisfied with the results!
You also get a lot of pellets for your money, too. My local Lowes carries the 10 lb bag for $12.98; compared to a 2 lb bag of wood chips for $5.09, that’s pretty damn good. If you want to find out more, visit the Kingsford pellets website.
Latest posts by Mark Masker (see all)
- 2024 Scovie Awards Call for Entries - 07/07/2023
- 2024 Scovie Awards Early Bird Special: 3 Days Left - 06/29/2023
- 2024 Scovie Awards Early Bird Deadline Looms - 06/25/2023
