I use the tube mostly for specific flavored pellets. Those were hickory. I only use blended pellets in the hopper because it's a PITA to change the out.Do you like using the smoke tube? I have never had any issues getting smoke flavor from just my pellet grill, but I start my butts at 180 for 2 hours to get a heavy smoke on them and then bump up the heat to 250. I have the A-maze-n smoke generator for cold smoking, I've never tried it for hot smoking.