CookinPellets 40H BBQ pellCookinPellets 40-Pound Premium Genuine Hickory Hardwood Grill Smoker Wood Pellets, No Bark, Fillers, and Flavor Oils, for Meat and Veggiesets, Brown

Works great with the Ge indoor smoker, saving me tons of money from buying the recommended brand. Was having issues with other top brand pellets not producing enough smoke leaving my meats with little smoke flavor. This thing smokes up like no other and really infuses smoke flavor.

This review is for the CookinPellets Hickory Smoking Pellets. I'll get to them shortly but I want to give some context and advice that I think will be helpful. I'm fairly new to smoking food, having started in the summer of 2015, and my initial experiences with imparting any kind of smoke flavor in the foods I smoked were disappointing. I thought "is this what I get after investing all this time, effort and money?". After researching on various smoking forums I found 2 things to be prevalent in regards to smoke flavor; 1) generally speaking pellet grills BY THEMSELVES don't give you a lot of smoke flavor in your food, and 2) the difference in pellets from one manufacturer to another is significant in the results you get.To help with #1 I highly recommend you supplement your smoke with a smoke tube. Research it, get it and use it. It does make a difference. I burn 100% apple or cherry in my tube while the 100% CookinPellets hickory goes in the hopper.Regarding #2 - A bag if pellets that says "hickory" on them, but does not tell you that it is 100% hickory, is almost assuredly a mix of hickory and a filler wood OR flavor oils and filler wood (like alder). You have no idea if you're getting 30%, 20% or whatever % hickory. This is true with any type of wood pellet. The filler woods generally don't give you any flavor. I went through this when I first started by buying what the local store had to sell: brands like Traeger which do not list their ratios. This is why my food was a dissapointment... There are comments that Traeger uses flavor oils in their pellets but I don't know if that's true because they don't tell you what's in them. Why won't a manufacturer tell you this information? It's because they are hiding something. I went through several brands and they were severely dissapointing. I have 4 half used bags of those various brands/woods types going into the trash (cleaned up my garage yesterday) because it would be a waste of food and time to use them. While it can be difficult to do I no longer buy pellets unless the manufacturer clearly states the mix of woods in the product. No description, no sale.So that brings me to my review of the CookinPellets Hickory Smoking Pellets. I was hooked the first time I used these. You could smell the difference when the food was cooking and the taste of the food was amazing. I currently go through approximately 1 bag a month of these and will continue to do so as long as they keep up the price and product quality. They burn well and I've never had a heat or ash issue out of the norm. I only wish they offered 100% cherry and apple.In closing a little advice from a relative newbie smoker:1) Use a pellet that tells you whats in it. I like the CookinPellets Hickory Smoking Pellets and highly recommend them, but there are a few others out there. Stay away from brands that don't specify. While there's nothing wrong with a mix of wood species (hickory w/cherry for example) they should tell you what your getting.2) Reasearch and read the smoking forums. You'll learn a lot.3) Use a tube smoker and experiment with other wood types than what is in your hopper.

Really like these pellets - add great flavor to my smoked meats.Easy to light and smokes well .

I smoke a lot of meats, must've bought around 500 lbs. of pellets by now. There's a lot of different qualities that you need to shop for when you enjoy this hobby. The way I judge the different brands include:- How much dust is in the bag? The dust is not good at all for the smoker and it can be adjudicated somewhat by just being careful not to dump it in, but it's easier if there isn't much there to sort out from the beginning.- Does the smoker hold temperature steady? Some pellets burn way too hot or leave too much ash and this results in the temperature fluctuation. CookinPellets have been working great and the consumption level seems to be no different than other brands.- Single variety or mixed? This is a personal choice and I honestly can't tell the difference between something smoked with a pure apple or cherry pellet vs. a mix. This mix is a great one though as it has a lot of fruitwoods and avoids the harshness that might come with just a mesquite or similar. Some people really think this matters a lot, but I don't really care.- Value? I burn a lot of pellets, so I don't want to spend a ton of money. This product on Amazon is at a very attractive price point.I should add that I also use these in my pellet pizza oven. Although the pellet pizza ovens are a lot more work than the propane ones, I found that these CookinPellets worked very good in that application as well.