Can You Grill On a Traeger Without Smoke?

So you don’t like smoked food? Or you’re cooking food that doesn’t need smoking? In this case, you may wonder whether there’s a way you can cook with your Trager pellet smoker without producing smoke.

Many other Traeger owners are also asking the same question on whether you can grill on a Traeger without smoke.

The answer is, yes, you can grill on a Trager without smoke by cranking up its temperature to a non-smoking range. This is essentially the high temperatures, from 350F, where the pellets fire instead of smoking, thus producing a minimal smoke effect.

In this guide, you’ll learn more about grilling on a Traeger without smoke, helpful tips and tricks for making your Traeger produce less smoke, and more.

Table of Contents

How to Use a Traeger Without Smoke?

BEFORE we get into more details, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Traeger is a pellet smoker. This sets it apart from a grill in that it’s more oriented to imparting smokey flavor to your food.

With that said, using a Traeger as a grill (without the smoking part) is all about tricking it into minimizing the amount of smoke coming from the pellets. Below are the most effective ways to help you achieve this.

Cook at High Temperatures

The MOST effective of using a Traeger without smoke is cooking at high temperatures.

The 165° to 225°F is the temperature range offered by the Traeger manual for more smoke. If you want to get less smoke, you shouldn’t set your unit anywhere near this range.

Instead, you should tune up the temperature to higher settings to greatly minimize the smoking yielded by the pellets. This comes from the simple fact that pellets are simply compressed firewood. And they act as a wood fire at high temperatures, so they burn with less smoke.

You may want to start at 350F or higher, depending on what type of food.

Note that this trick won’t completely take away the smoke. But it will produce less smoke that won’t have any big impact on your food flavor. Mild is the term here. An added benefit of grilling with a Traeger pellet smoker at high temperatures is that it cooks your foods faster. This means the food will have less interaction with the little smoke produced by your pellets.

Power Your Smoker With Quality Pellets

You may set your unit to high temperatures as recommended above. But if you’re using low-quality wood pellets, it won’t help make the smoke go away.

As experienced smokers agree, high-quality pellets produce cleaner and better quality smoke. This makes them the best candidate when you want to grill with your Traeger.

So, how do you ensure you get high-quality wood pellets? It’s pretty simple. Get your next pack from reputable manufacturers only. Or simply stick to the Traeger brand pellets, which they recommend you to use with their units.

While still at it, the type of pellets you use can also affect how much smoke you get. Pellets can be divided into soft and hardwood pellets. The former type is less dense and likely to produce less smoke.

DON’T forget to store your remaining pellets properly if you want them to perform well in your next grilling session. For instance, keep them in a dry place with no moisture content.

Use a Clean Traeger

Another measure to help you grill with a Traeger smoker without the smoky flavor is always cleaning your unit before grilling on it.

When you use your unit to grill foods without cleaning it, grease and ashes accumulate. These mess with the ventilation and prevent the pellets from undergoing complete combustion due to poor airflow (caused by blocked ventilation).

Incomplete combustion stops the pellets from producing excessive heat when the unit is set at high temperatures. Poor airflow will also cause the smoke to turn back and stay inside the grill, causing stale smoke that adds a smokey flavor to your food.

What’s more, the grease spattered inside the Traeger grill walls will undergo combustion and produce undesired smoke inside your grill. This will affect your food taste.

Can I Use My Traeger As a Grill?

A Traeger is essentially a smoker and is more about slow and smoke cooking. On the other side, the grill is intended to cook food faster (at high temperatures). Thus, using your Traeger as a grill means less smoke and faster cooking.

But is it possible to use your Traeger as a grill?

To answer that question, we need to understand how a smoker and a grill works.

A smoker lets you cook food at a temperature range of 180 to 350 F while imparting smoke flavor to your food from the burning pellets. While some modern smoker models let you cook over open flames or hot coals bed, most models do not have open flames.

A grill is designed to help you cook different foods at extremely high temperatures over a bed of hot coals or open flame. A typical grill can get as hot as anything from 500 to 700F.

This temperature is way ahead of a Trager smoker as most models have a maximum temperature of 400F. However, the latest models can get as hot as 500F. This is simply the lower end of the hotness range of a grill.

From this view, we can agree that a Traeger qualifies as a grill when set to high temperatures. Using Traeger at high temperatures also helps dramatically reduce the smoke generated by the pellets, further qualifying it as a grill.

Remember, though, that the Traeger smoker still falls short of a grill since it doesn’t let you cook directly over hot coals or open flame. Picture a Traeger grill more like an oven when using it to grill foods. Nonetheless, it will still let you grill that steak or any other of your favorite foods.

Can You Cook On a Traeger Grill Without Pellets?

Now that we have mentioned that pellets give out smoke in a Traeger, you may ask yourself whether you can just leave them out and avoid the smoke.

The answer is NO! You can’t cook on a Traeger grill without pellets. Remember, it’s called a pellet smoker for a reason; the pellets are the primary fuel source for this unit. The unit has an ignition system designed to heat pellets (and only pellets) to give out smoke and heat that make your unit functional.

No pellets, no Traegering!

Some folks argue that you use charcoal in a Traeger grill. But this is far from the truth. It’s like saying that you can use a propane grill without propane—which is just not possible.

What matters most is your choice of pellets. As we discussed earlier, some pellets produce more smoke than others. If you don’t want your food to get too much smoke, go with softwood pellets like applewood. For more smokey flavor, get the dense hardwood pellets like hickory, mesquite, etc.

But most importantly, remember to get high-quality pellets made by reputable manufacturers. This will ensure you cook your food without producing unnecessarily high smoke quantities.

You can check this video for details info about Traeger grilling:

Does All Food Cooked On a Traeger Taste Smoky?

All food cooked on a Traeger doesn’t taste smoky. It all depends on the temperature it is cooked at.

If you cook your food at lower temperatures (say 180 and 225 degrees F), the pellets will produce more smoke, and your food will have a strong smoke flavor. The low temperatures also mean longer cooking hours, which increases the time the food is exposed to smoke. This means increased smoky taste.

A perfect example involves smoking brisket. It will develop a strong smoke flavor if you leave it to smoke in your Traeger pellet smoker for 6-8 hours.

However, food cooked on a Traeger at higher cooking temperatures of 350F or higher doesn’t have a smoke taste. The simple explanation is that pellets tend to burn as wood fire when exposed to higher temperatures (remember, pellets are simply compressed sawdust). Thus, they produce less smoke and ensure the same isn’t transferred to your food.

Higher temperatures also facilitate faster cooking results and less exposure to the little smoke produced. This further helps ensure you get grilled food with a smoke-free taste.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Will a Traeger smoke at 350 degrees?

Answer: A Traeger will still smoke at 350 degrees. However, the amount of smoke produced in this setting is little and less likely to impart a strong smoke flavor to your food. The Traeger generates maximum smoke at the highest temperature of 225F. For higher temperatures than this, the smoke quantity significantly drops.

2. How do you grill on a pellet grill?

Answer: Grilling on a Traeger or any other pellet grill is different from a typical charcoal or propane grill since you need to ensure you keep the hood closed. This is because the heat produced in the pellet smoker is indirect, and opening the lid can lead to fluctuating cooking temperatures, thus affecting your overall cooking results.

Here are the steps to follow to grill on a pellet grill:

1. Set the smoker grill to your desired temperature (anything from 350 degrees F is perfect for grilling).

2. Give the smoker 10-15 minutes to pre-heat. Be sure to keep the lid closed in this step to enable the grill to achieve the desired internal temperatures.

3. Now open the lid, and brush the grates

4. Put your meat onto the grates and put the lid back on.

5. Let the meat cook to the recommended internal temperature. Periodically check it as it cooks, and be sure to flip it when it’s ready.

3. How long does it take to grill on a Traeger?

Answer: It takes 10 to 20 minutes to grill on a Traeger. However, the exact time it takes to grill on a Traeger depends on the types of meat you’re cooking. Just like in the case of a grill, a thick steak will take longer to grill than a thinner one. That said, grilling on a Traeger set at high temperatures and cooking is faster than the low smoking temperatures.

4. How fast can you cook a burger on a Traeger grill?

Answer: The time you can take to cook a burger on a Traeger grill is pretty much the same as that of a direct heat grill such as a charcoal or propane grill. With the Traeger set to the highest temperature, a 1 ½-inch thick burger should take 8 minutes to cook (i.e., 4 minutes for each side).

5. Do you flip meat on a Traeger?

Answer: You should only flip meat on a Traeger if you’re grilling it. In this case, let the steak cook for 4-6 minutes on one side and then flip it to allow the other side to cook. However, you shouldn’t flip meat when smoking it in a Traeger. Remember that a Traeger pellet smoker cooks the meat indirectly, and you should keep the lid closed until the meat is finished.

Final Verdict

While Traeger smoke pellets are good for adding smoke flavor to your foods, not everyone likes smoked foods. Some foods also taste better when they’re not smoked. This is why most Traeger owners try using their smokers as grills while avoiding the smoke aspect.

As discussed in this guide, it’s possible to use your Traeger as a grill without adding smoke to your food by increasing the temperatures. This will reduce temperature and allow for faster cooking time, meaning your food will interact less smoke. Additional methods to minimize smoke production in a Traeger include cleaning the grill after every use and feeding it with high-quality pellets.

Now that you know how to grill on a Traeger without smoke, we’ve no doubt that you’ll be in a better position to use your unit to grill your foods and make your desired cooking results.

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