Where is Becker or even Fast Eddy (he knew this stuff too) when you need them?  Again, limited knowledge, so assume that all I post is hearsay.  I though that any hardwood pellet produced 8500 BTU.  They are not the same as a hardwood species in it natural form.  Don't ask me why as I am not a scientist.

I believe we determine the BTU by how much heat is needed to raise 1lb of water 1°...So if you can figure out how to do that we are golden!

Bentley - didn't you used to test the pits with Traeger pellets because they used alder which burned hotter than the oak based pellets? I may be remembering this incorrectly but I thought that was the case.

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The only reason we used Traeger was because at the time it was a the only one we could reliably "always" get.  Really had nothing to do with wood species, but more just trying to be uniform across each unit Performance Tested!