Can You Use Weber Pellets in a Traeger?

Has your Traeger pellet grill is run out of pellets, and currently you have got a bag of high-quality Weber pellets in your kitchen? Aren’t you able to find your desired wood pellet flavor in Traeger pellets? You might be thinking to try other branded pellets, such as Weber wood pellets. This blog post will give you some insight into this matter.

So, can you use Weber pellets in a Traeger? The quick answer is, yes, you can use Weber pellets in your Traeger grill. However, if you look at the inside of the Traeger grill hopper, it is mentioned that the Traeger grill warranty will be void if you use other brands’ wood pellets. But, many users are using wood pellets of other famous brands in their Traeger grill to get a better flavor and smoke ring. So, Weber pellets are suitable for Traeger grill. Both Traeger and Weber pellets are almost identical in size and shape. Traeger wood pellets are around ¼ inch in diameter, and Weber wood pellets are around 0.22 inches in diameter. In addition, Traeger pellets contain a small amount of soybean oil for the lubrication of machinery parts.

Must Read: Temperature fluctuations in pellet grill

How Are Wood Pellets Made?

Wood pellets are made from small pieces of wood that are heated and then compressed into pellets. The heat and pressure soften lignin protein in the wood, which causes the wood sawdust to bind together, forming a pellet that can be burned for fuel. The compressed sawdust is screened in the form of pellets, which are then packaged for sale. When the pellets are cooled, the lignin protein is converted back to its glassy state which imparts a shiny coating around the pellets.

Why Different Wood Pellet Brands Have Different Prices?

High-quality wood pellets do not contain any chemicals. They are made of 100% natural wood, with no adhesives, chemicals, or binders. Such wood pellets are a bit expensive as compared to other wood pellets.

Inferior quality wood pellets are made of cheap materials, including recycled wood, sawdust, and other types of biomass. They may also contain binders, chemicals, and adhesives. This is why they are cheaper than high-quality wood pellets.

The reason why some brands add adhesives in the sawdust of wood is that the adhesives and chemicals cut down the production costs. For the natural binding of sawdust into pellets, the moisture content of wood should be eliminated and a sufficient amount of heat and pressure is applied to activate the lignin protein, which acts as a natural binding agent. As a result of chemicals and binding agents, low-quality wood pellets end up producing more ash content when they are burnt and are jammed up in the auger of a pellet grill.

Some brands of wood pellets may also be more expensive because they are made in a specific location. For example, a brand of wood pellets that are made in the United States may be more expensive than a brand that is made in Canada. This is simply because the cost of production is higher in the United States.

What is Wrong about Traeger Wood Pellets?

Traeger wood pellets are expensive compared to the quality of wood pellets they are offering. Many users have complained that instead of using natural flavored wood, Traeger adds flavored oils to impart the desired flavor. The disadvantage of adding oil to wood pellets is that it would affect their combustion. So, if you’re using Traeger pellets for low and slow cooking, it would produce a lot of ash.

The other thing that people don’t like about Traeger pellets is that the company has a near-monopoly on the market. This gives them a lot of power to charge high prices for their products. In addition, because Traeger is the only major player in this market, they have no incentive to improve the quality or lower the price of their wood pellets.

Traeger vs Weber Wood Pellets

Traeger and Weber wood pellets are almost the same in shape, but the diameter of Weber pellets is a bit smaller compared to the Traeger wood pellets. Weber pellets labels are marked as 100% flavored wood, which means the flavor oil is not added to Weber pellets to enhance the taste.  

Weber pellets do not contain any filler wood or chemical. Trager wood pellets contain filler wood and oil. If you buy apple or mesquite flavor, Traeger wood pellets are not made from natural mesquite wood.

According to users, it is an oak wood in which flavored oil is added to give off a strong flavor. Traeger uses cheaper alder wood as a filler material in its mesquite/hickory flavor. Since alder is a pretty light wood, several people complain about the smoke flavor.

Traeger pellet grills light fast compared to Weber pellets. That’s why Traeger pellets are only suitable for high-temperature cooking. So, Weber pellets hold steady, while Traeger pellets blow up faster.

Moreover, Weber wood pellets burn cleaner with very less ash content. So, for slow and low cooking on a Traeger grill, you can use Weber wood pellets. Moreover, Weber wood pellets have the least sawdust compared to Traeger wood pellets.

Traeger wood pellets are easily available in all flavors on Amazon. Weber wood pellets are not available on Amazon. But, you can buy GrillMaster Blend from Walmart, HomeDepot, and all other flavors from official site of Weber. The flavors composition of Weber wood pellets is shown in the table below.

	Weber Wood Pellets
Hickory	40% Hickory60% Oak
Cherry	40% Cherry60% Maple
Mesquite	40% Mesquite60% Oak
Apple	40% Apple60% Maple
Signature Blend	34% Maple33% Hickory33% Cherry

Weber brand is pretty much honest about the compositions of different woods in their wood pellets flavors. For Traeger brand pellets, you’ll find that they claim 100% wood for every flavor i.e. 100% applewood for apple flavor, 100% hickory wood for hickory flavor, and 100% maple wood for maple flavor. In reality, that’s not true. The bags of hickory are majorly consisted of oak or alder wood, flavored with hickory oil for Traeger pellets.

Weber and Traeger wood pellets are only available in 20lb packets and have the same pricing. So, if you have easy access to Weber wood pellets, you should use them in your Traeger grill.

Is There Any Other Wood Pellet for Traeger Grill?

Apart from Weber pellets, you can also use Cookin and Lumberjack wood pellets in your Traeger grill. Before changing wood pellets for your Traeger grill, make sure that there are no Traeger grill errors.

Before diving in, I’ve found this great video in which this guy has tested different brands’ wood pellets in a Traeger grill. You should surely check out this video to get all your answers.

Now, let’s discuss Lumberjack and Cookin pellets in detail.

Lumberjack Pellets in a Traeger Grill

Lumberjack pellets have a very strong flavor as they are made of 100% flavor wood. Their hickory flavor is made of 100% hickory wood.

There is no composition of oak wood in their hickory flavor. Similarly, the mesquite and apple flavor of Lumberjack pellets are made of 100% mesquite and applewood respectively. Due to this reason, Lumberjack pellets are suitable for shorter high-temperature cooks for an extra kick of smoke.

The diameter of Lumberjack is around 0.22inch, which is a bit smaller than Traeger pellets which ensure less Traeger auger jamming and even burn. Lumberjack pellets are available in 20lb to 80lb bags. You can check them on amazon.

On local stores, such as Dicks Sporting Goods, 20lb pack of Lumberjack pellets is being sold at a price of around $15, and on Rural King, Lumberjack pellets are currently being sold at the price of around $9.

Cookin Pellets in a Traeger Grill

Cookin pellets are available in 100% hickory, 100% Cherry, 100% Apple Mash and Perfect Mix Blend. Cookin pellets are only available in 40lb of the bag. Cookin has not revealed the exact proportion of woods in the Perfect Blend wood pellets bag. The brand has just mentioned that the perfect mix includes Hickory, Cherry, Hard Maple & Applewood. You can read more about Perfect Mix of Cookin pellets on Amazon.

Cookin pellets are perfect to use in a Traeger grill as they produce less ash content as compared to Traeger pellets. Moreover, the diameter of Cookin pellets is the same as that of Traeger pellets i.e. 6mm. According to users, the Hickory flavor of Cookin pellets might run slightly hotter. So, you need to carefully look at the temperature controller of Traeger when using Hickory flavor.

The Perfect Mix of Cookin pellets is more suitable to use in Traeger as compared to the Hickory bag to maintain the consistent temperature. However, the temperature in a Traeger grill does not go above 450 Fahrenheit for Cookin Perfect Mix blend.