My uncle's $60 offset smoker beat my $900 pellet rig at a family cookout in Amarillo
I always figured pellet smokers were the future and stick burners were just nostalgia for old guys. My uncle Ray has run a cheap Oklahoma Joe offset for like 8 years, and I got my pellet rig about a year ago thinking I had upgraded. At a family cookout in Amarillo two months back we both did brisket, mine set to 225 overnight and his on the offset with splits every 45 minutes. His bark was darker and the smoke ring on his slices went almost a quarter inch deep, while mine tasted fine but kind of flat next to it. The part that got me was he pulled his at 12 hours and mine ran 16, and his still had better juice in the flat. Now I'm wondering if I should pick up a cheap offset just to learn fire management, has anyone here run both and stuck with charcoal over pellets long term?