Last night's smoked chicken breasts were a rousing success, I'd say. I took
@betarhoalphadelta 's advice threw them on about 2 hours before I wanted them ready. I tried the Smoke setting, which Traeger's webpage tells me is supposed to be about 160, floating between 160 and 180. That was a bust, because for some reason the temp just kept climbing and climbing. So after I realized it wasn't working as I expected, I switched it to 180, and the temp duly dropped and stayed there. And indeed, that seemed to be the magic number on this model for lots of smoking.
I kept them there about an hour and a half before knocking it up pretty high to go ahead and finish them off.
Real smokes, the ones where I can just slow-cook them the whole way, will probably be weekend affairs....not something I can pull off on a weekday, because we eat pretty early.
Anyway, they came out great, I thought. I could really taste the hickory flavor of the pellets, and a nice amount of smoke flavor, although I could've done with a little more of that. I'm sure they can be better.....since I'm not much of a griller of any kind at this point, I wondered if basting them up front might've helped some. They weren't dry, but they were a little dry
er than I am ultimately aiming for. I was wondering if basting sooner would make them more moist and also if the sauce would help retain more of that smoke flavor. I dunno.
Anyway, good run to gauge how long that particular meat takes to do what it does at that temp, and got a pretty good sense of how many pellets will be required for smoking that long at those temps. All good info. And....I ain't mad at the chicken breasts. Definitely better than just baking in the oven or doing them on the stove.
Family liked them as well, and the wife did some good sides to go with. Success!