Meet the Pellet Grill

A pellet grill operates by burning hardwood pellets, made from otherwise-wasted sawdust. The sawdust gets compressed at high pressure into pellets held together by a material already present in the in the sawdust itself – lignin - the same natural substance which holds a tree together.

The pellets get fed into a firebox where an igniter automatically lights them on fire, and a fan blows across them to maintain combustion. A heat deflector covers the firebox and disburses the heat evenly throughout the cavity of the pellet grill. A computer controls the quantity of pellets and air in response to data from a thermostatic sensor located within the grill chamber which results in even cooking temperatures independent of ambience.

Food cooked on a pellet grill tastes remarkably better than its rivals, gas and charcoal, because the hardwood pellets impart true wood flavor to the food. Gas has no flavor whatsoever, and the process of manufacturing briquettes removes all the natural wood smoke by burning the wood used to make them into ash.

Additionally, the ease of use of bagged pellets over dusty charcoal, foul-smelling lighter fluid, and explosive gases militates for the decision to cook with pellet grills.