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smoking Chipotle smoke: wood v pellets

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Fatalii Attraction

Extreme Member
I keep a bunch of my Jalapeno harvest every year to smoke and dry for chipotle. We use it a ton in our cooking, and it's one of my favorite preservation options for our garden.

I use a Primo xl for all my pit/grill work, and I use traditional Pecan wood for Chipotle smoke.

A couple years ago, I bought an Amaze N Tube for cold smoking my bacon, and it worked great. This year I figured it'd be way easier to make the Chipotle with it rather than tending a low cool fire with wood chunks. I'm using the traeger all wood pecan pellets.

Does anyone find that the pellets don't add a ton of smoke flavor? Compared to a low wood fire, I'm finding it takes 2-3x the amount of time to get any meaningful flavor to impart on the end product. The tube makes a ton of smoke. So it's not a quantity thing.

The Chipotle still smells great, just really, really light on the smoke. I'd really love to figure out how to stick with the pellets, but I won't be able to if I can't amp it up a bit.
 
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When they make the real thing I think the jalapenos are smoked until dry - that's a long time smoking! I've never smoked jalapenos but have done both rocotos and habaneros and find that the thick walled rocotos are less smokey once made into powder. With a thick walled pepper like a jalapeno, perhaps it's gonna take longer for smoke to penetrate and with cold smoke even longer (I use an electric smoker at about 150 for 3+ hours).

A short cut may be to dry them first - perhaps until leathery, not brittle - and then cold smoke and dry completely after.

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Take them out of the trays. There's no way they are going to get smoke all over. They will never dehydrate. They will cook
 
The type and brand of pellets make a difference. Traeger brand pellets are just cheap hardwood with natural oils added from other species. I cold smoked most of my ripe serranos for five hours with Lumberjack brand pecan/oak pellets in a smoker tube. they are still drying, but the smoke odor is intense. I'll let you know if the mission was successful after I get a chance to try them.
 
I have a popular pellet smoker and it’s convenient. A friend of mine has a traditional homemade smoker. His always has the upper hand on flavor but he has to tend to it every 3 hrs or so. I do believe I am sacrificing flavor for connivence.
 
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