"Tinman" > wrote in message
> What I find interesting is that most, if not all, Traeger's rubs contain
> smoke flavoring. Indeed one friend who recommended Traeger uses the
> chicken rub on most everything. It contains smoke flavoring. I don't quite
> understand why a wood-fueled cooker, with a seemingly abundance of smoke,
> would need the help of added smoke flavoring... unless it's to cover
> something up <g>.

> For the record chicken seems to impart that lumber taste the most. Yea I
> suppose chicken ain't real Q, but I have had decent chicken cooked on a
> smoker before--and it didn't taste like a 2x4.

I was thinking about this after my last reply. I mentioned about the
temperature of the wood burning itself. I wonder if it is not heating up as
well as it should because of the very high ambient temperature you have.
Instead of a clean burn, you'd be more likely to get smoldering, thus the
lumber taste. Chicken can take high temperatures. Can you crank up the
heat higher? That may force the pellets to burn cleaner when the ambient is
110, or about 30 degrees higher that what many of us have as normal.