I called pellet grills cheating at my brother's grad party in Wichita, then ate my words by the second rack
He did two racks of spares and a pork butt on a $400 pellet smoker and the bark beat my offset cook from the same weekend. Anyone else get humbled by a set it and forget it rig, or am I the only one still feeding sticks out of spite?
Switched to a pellet tube plus a water pan on my offset for long cooks and it helped a ton with bark without babysitting all night. What got me was spritzing every 45 minutes instead of every 90, that tacky surface really grabs smoke. Also ran a cheap A-Maze-N tube for extra smoke since pellets alone can be light on flavor. My last brisket finally had that dark crust I was chasing for years. Still run sticks when I have the whole day free, but no shame in the easy button when life gets busy.