My First Smoker – Pit Boss 850 DX

Wellp, it finally happened! We stumbled onto the Memorial Day sale on the Pit Boss 850 DX at Lowe’s that weekend and my wife agreed to buy it for me for Father’s Day. It took two and a half weeks for Lowe’s to get it to my door, but last night I got to cook on it for the first time. The result was thoroughly delicious! I can’t wait to do more.

First Impressions

This thing is big and solid. Despite the much smaller cooking volume, the overall size of the Pit Boss 850 DX is only a tiny bit smaller than my Weber Genesis II 3-burner gas grill. The hopper and auger on the left (for feeding wood pellets) and the smoke stack and shelf on the right add to the footprint.

I had debated size for a while, but specifically wanted this kind of “smaller” size for my first pellet grill as we don’t have a ton of space for multiple cooking units outside and I am not replacing my gas grill with this. While you can use a pellet grill as a traditional grill, my plan is to primarily smoke in the Pit Boss and do any grilling (or final sears, etc.) I need to do on the Weber. Two sides of the grilling coin working in unison.

Despite being heavy, the big caster wheels on the right side of the grill make it super easy to roll. The smaller wheels on the left lock into place so you can keep it right where you want it.

First steps were to peel off all the stickers and then give it a good burn off to get rid of any machining gunk inside. Plug in the unit (yes, it requires wall power, keep this in mind for your planning) prime the auger (basically let it start turning), shut it off and add pellets, then crank up the temperature to 350-400 and let it go for about 30-40 minutes.

Important note here: You want it to burn at that temperature for 30-40 minutes. It may take that long just to get up to temperature, however, so this burn off step may take closer to an hour or more to actually complete. This… threw a wrench in my plans for timing.

This seems obvious, reaching temperature by firing wood pellets is a lot less immediate than just cranking up burners on a gas grill – but being used to the latter, I had not yet considered that time shift.

Once it was cleaned off, I dropped the temp to my desired cooking temp (had to leave the door open to help it lower the temperature faster) and began cooking.

First Cook

For my first smoke, I went with a pork loin. My wife got a giant 7.52lb log from Costco on sale – so I divided it into thirds, vacuum sealed and froze two of those chunks and got the third ready to eat.

• I set the Pit Boss to sit at 275F for this cook.
• I brushed olive oil over the whole loin, seasoned it with Killer Hogs A.P. Seasoning Rub, then some italian herbs on all sides. The loin sat for 15-20 minutes soaking in the seasoning while the pellet grill came to temperature.
• I stuck my wireless meat thermometer in the center of the thickest part of the meat, then placed it fat cap down in the center of the smoker rack and closed the lid.
• While I did end up checking on it a few times (first time, okay?) you can mostly just leave the loin alone until it hits the desired temperature.
• Once the pork loin reached 135F, I checked more thick spots with an instant read thermometer to verify doneness, then moved it to a tray and wrapped in aluminum foil to rest for 15-20 minutes and come up the rest of the way towards 140F.
• While the meat was finishing and resting, I peeled, cut, and boiled some potatoes for mashed potatoes. Generous amount of salt in the boiling water, then Kerrygold butter and more A.P. seasoning along with a splash of milk in the potatoes when mashing.
• Slice the meat and serve.

I was really worried this wouldn’t turn out. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was rushing around, food was done way later than we normally eat dinner, and I usually cook pork tenderloin rather than just loin. While it wasn’t melt-in-your-mouth tender like a tenderloin would have been, it was still easy to eat, juicy as can be, and very delicious. The potatoes was a perfect pairing with this.

Picky Eater Notice

When you smoke meats (especially pork) you will notice a “smoke ring” around the outside of the meat, after cutting into it. This will be a different color than the rest of the “done” meat. In this case, the center of the pork slices was white (as it was fully cooked) but there was a light, pink-ish ring around the edges. My wife was initially a little spooked by this, having had some really bad luck with food poisoning lately. Pink usually = bad for pork and chicken.

But it’s important to remember: The center of the meat is what reflects doneness. The center was right, I verified temperature in many places, the meat was fully cooked through. That coloration is from the smoke itself penetrating the outer layers and forming the crust. It’s a bit like curing the outside.

It might be a bit off-putting to see that difference, but that smoke ring actually indicates that you got good smoke flavor. You want that, or else you might as well not be smoking at all!

Looking Ahead

This was a very encouraging experience. I definitely learned a lot about time management when it comes to prepping for smoker meals. (This definitely explains why my dad always started smoking his stuff super early in the morning, even if we weren’t eating it until dinner.)

You want easily double the amount of lead time and wiggle room than you might normally be planning for if you aren’t used to smokers. Warming up, changing temperatures for different things, etc. all takes a lot more time than you might expect.

Also, don’t be surprised if you don’t see a ton of smoke. You only get the real flood of it when the pellet grill has to fire a bunch more pellets to get the heat back up. It’s still smoking (just more clear) and you’re still getting that flavor into your food.

My only real complaint about the 850 DX so far is that it only supports 2.4GHz WiFi, and the strength of the radio doesn’t seem to be that strong (it is encased in steel, after all) so I haven’t successfully added it to my network yet. This made things a little more annoying trying to juggle everything else I was doing and monitoring as it made it up to temp for burn off time. Overall, using the grill and cooking on it was a smooth first ride, however!

I’ve already stocked up on some pork shoulder butts and rib racks that I can’t wait to put on there, plus maybe doing some potatoes on the smoker as well, and I’ve already planned a whole cast iron desert that’s going to cook on it! It’s going to be a fun summer, if it ever stops raining.