I purchased my Traeger Junior in Dec 2014 at a Costco Road show. It was an Impulse buy. I never enjoyed cooking on gas and my wife didn't like the mess of Charcoal. Wood pellets seemed a great compromise.
I never intended to cook anything but burgers, chicken legs, pork steaks or an occasional Ribeye. I have cooked so much more.
Search Traeger Recipe if you are only interested in Recipes
Smoking meat has some great recipes this is where I got my idea for grilled lobster. I havent purchased his sauce or rub which he pushes in almost every recipe.
Thermoworks the maker of Thernapen and Thermopop among many other Thermometers has a blog. It has many topics including grilling and maintenence of your Thermometers
The Traeger Recipe page is amazing. It's recipes are purpose built for use on the Traeger and they have a huge number of them and are constantly adding more
The great thing about hot dogs and other Tubular Meat (Sausages and Brats) is you can always seem to squeeze a few on the grill. I like that best at a high Temperature 375 or more to get a good char
but pretty much any cooking method works as long as your get the proper internal temperature.
Most of the time I just cook them as is but every now and then I do prefer a Beef Hot Dog like Nathans. The Brats and Sausage are often Pork Products
I do something special like wrap with bacon, or better yet stuff with cheese then wrap with bacon.
I have seen other Beef charts like this before and have always found them to be extremely helpful.
I enjoy the fact that you can easily tell which cuts of meat come from which parts of the cow. It also gives you recommended cooking methods for each cut of beef. I have slow smoked many of the cuts that indicate pot roast or just roast.
When I cook pulled pork on my Traeger Jr I normally cook a pair of 7 to 8 pound butts. It doesn't seem to take more pellets to cook that 2nd butt so why not have leftovers.
Pulled Pork Omlette
Pulled pork sandwiches are great, but there has to be more. My wife makes a mean pulled pork omelette (my favorite) and a pulled pork hash. I also love pulled pork on a cheese burger. Pulled pork would make an outstanding filling in a beer can burger. Click here to see How I cook Pulled Pork
Here is a compilation from google on pulled pork leftovers including pizza, won tons, mac and cheese, shepards pie, waffle sliders and many more.
Labor Day a Long Weekend of Smoke - Traeger Recipes
Labor Day SmokeFest
The wife left town for a few days to wish her mom a happy birthday in Iowa, so its just me and the dog, It Looks like I have a Long Weekend of smoke ahead "Traeger on". Here is what the proposed menu looks like.
Saturday Dinner
Dinner is Ready
Bacon Wrapped Filet
Lobster Tail
Pineapple
Corn on the Cobb
Traeger Recipe
The beauty of cooking the Lobster Tail, Bacon wrap Filet, Pineapple and Corn on the Cobb Together is that all start and finish at the same time, I go into greater detail about the cooking methods elsewhere in this blog but the Readers digest version is Pre Heat to 225 cook steak and Lobster to an Internal Temperature of 135 to 140 about 45 minutes
Sunday Lunch and Leftovers Pork Steaks, Brats and SweetPotatoes
Pork Steaks
Cheddar Brats
Sweet Potatoes
Traeger Recipes:
Pork Steaks:
These pork steaks are pre-seasoned with Bobs BBQ seasoning. Cook them at 350 on the Traeger till an internal temperature of 140 to 145. About 10 Minutes on each side
Cheddar Brats
Cook them at 350 on the Traeger till an internal temperature of 140 to 145. About 10 Minutes on each side
Sweet Potatoes
I wash the Sweet Potatoes
Cut them in half wrap in tin foil
Cook at 350 on the Traeger until soft about 60 Minutes.
Start Traeger on smoke for 10 minutes with lid open'
Preheat lid closed to temperature 225
Some People smoke for first 3 hours either using 180 or the smoke setting
then raise to 225.
The Cook
Right before placing on grill spray with apple juice all over
Place Pork Butt on Traeger
Spray with apple juice every 30 minutes or so
After about 3 hours you can move to shallow pan with enough apple juice to cover bottom of pan
At about 6 hours place temperature probe in Traeger.
Continue to cook till an Internal Temperature of 203 degrees
The Wrap and Rest
Once desired temperature reached removed from grill double wrap in foil and place in cooler to rest for 1 to 3 hours. Pull and enjoy. We use a light coating of Jack Daniels BBQ sauce after we pull
Recipe Notes
I delay putting the Probe in because its going to take 10 hours or more to cook and the probe gives the smoke a few more places to escape.
Some people wrap the butt (Texas crutch) at about 160 to get past the stall
Tong Test if you dont cook to temperature --When you can lift the Butt with Tongs and the bone falls out its ready
For more Labor day cooking ideas see the Traeger Blog
Please Note:
Any recipe I make is just a guideline. I am not a big fan of gooey sauces so almost everything is I cook would be a dry rub. You of course should experiment and see what works best for you. I don't often recommend a rub because it is a matter of personnel taste. These recipe would also work well on most other pellet grills or charcoal and gas grill using indirect heat for the low temperature recipes.
When I first purchased my Traeger I joined some facebook user groups on Traeger, I surfed the user groups and went to the web sites of the Guru's. I purchased some things to enhance my cooking experience based on the Limited research. Needless to say some of the things I purchased will make there way into a goodwill bag. Here is a brief Detail on what I would and wouldn't do if I had to do it all over again. I have my top 3 in no particular order and some honorable mention Items again in no particular order. I will also list some of the things I purchased that didn't work as well for me as the items on this list. These are just my opinions and I realize that alot of this is subjective. So if you have something that works for you then I think thats fantastic, its all about the good food we produce.
Top 3
GrillGrates
GrillGrates
I have already written an extensive blog Post on the GrillGrates. These were the 3rd or 4th thing I purchased to help sear meats better. I purchased a cast iron griddle which while it did work it didn't seem to give me the advantages of GrillGrates. I also purchased a few other metal grill baskets that have since been given to goodwill. One Great feature of the Grill Grates is I can use 1 Pannel, 2 Pannels or all 3 pannels on my Traeger Jr. Because of the design of the GrillGrates you can add wood chips, or pellets in the valleys to enhance the flavor. The juices from the meat tend smoke in the valleys adding flavor, I have used the Grates to cook the food from begining to end and becasue of the holes you get the smoke surrounding the meat not just on top.
The Junior Rack is such a great time and Pellet saver. It lets you cook twice as much food at one time without using twice as many pellets. I love to cook on my Traeger but I always love playing with my grand kids or watching a movie with my wife. If I can cook a meal and be done in 45 minutes instead of 1 hr and 30 minutes why wouldn't I. At one time I consider the option of making my own 2nd rack using nuts and bolts and washers and of course some kind of grill rack but decided to give the Junior rack a try. I am happy I did. Its well made works well and I highly reccomend it! The food below the rack is hard to turn. I remove the rack with heat resistent gloves, turn the food and replace the rack,
My Jr came with a Low, Medium, High Controller. After I had it a few months I replaced it with the ortech controller. It is my understanding at one time they produced a similar controller for Traeger. Some people use more expensive PID controllers but this seems to work for me. A few advantages it had over a similar Traeger controller that I considered was an easier method to adjust P-Settings and when you turn it off it goes through a shut down cycle.
Honorable Mention
Insulation Blanket
Fire bricks
Insulation Blanket and Fire Bricks
The Insulation blanket and fire bricks are used to maintain better temperature control, The Fire Bricks line the bottom of the grill and absorb and hold heat so when you open the grill you don't have a huge temperature drop, The Insulation blanket along with the fire bricks help keep the cold air out so you maintain your temperature and burn less pellets in the winter. Some people talk about saving money and using welding blanket instead of the Traeger made to fit insulation blanket. I deciding against using a welding blanket when I found out it had fiberglass fibers,
Thermoworks makes both the Thermopop and Thermapen Instant read thermomaters. The brand new Thermopop cost $29 and reads an accurate temperature within 3 to 4 seconds. The Thermapen is accurate and faster but costs considerable more, Most people should be able to work with the Thermopop just fine. The Thermapen might be overkill. I have both along with a whole slew of other thermomers I dont need.
The Igrill 2 is a leave in thermometer which allows you to monitor your grill remotely. I also purchased a maverick which while many people love I had a hard time with the on/off switch perhaps because of my arthitis. I also had a few cheaper remote thermoneters with only 1 probe and shorter range and various other shortcommings, You get what you pay for. Mamy people enjoy the Tappecue, It works off WiFi and is more expensive then the Igrill 2, Tappecue reveiw from amazing ribs.
These Pellets are 9.95 per 20 lbs with very reasonable shipping charges. I have never used this brand it seems a good price option. Please Comment. If you purchase 15 bags you save $20 till 9/5/2016. This seems like a good option for those who cant find Pellets Locally.
