Pellet Grills and Pellet Smokers
Pellet smokers, also referred to as pellet grills, are a great way to crank things up a notch for your next backyard barbeque session. They are versatile appliances that give you an array of cooking options like braising, smoking, roasting, grilling, baking, and barbequing.
If you like the smoky aroma of BBQ lingering in your backyard, we sail the same boat. In a market flooded with some powerful pellet smokers, choosing your ideal smoker can feel daunting. Especially with wood pellet smokers quickly becoming the talk of the town, how do you know which one is the best for your BBQ parties?
My team and I fired up some of the most intriguing pellet smokers to see if we could help our readers select one for themselves. We have just the things you need to know, and more. Let’s dive right in.
BEST ALL-AROUND: SMOKEPRO DLX FROM CAMP CHEF
Our top pick is an appropriate choice for almost all buyers. The SmokePro DLX Pellet Grill from Camp Chef will take your barbequing game to an entirely new level. Let’s look at what it brings to the table.
The grill sports porcelain, non-stick grates that make cleaning far easier than their steel or chrome counterparts. Camp chef claims that the grill is able to maintain a temperature range of 20 degrees from the set temperature – and fortunately, it does as promised. In fact, during our test, the temperature did not breach the 12-degree range-threshold from the set temperature.
The ash-clean out system on the SmokePro is an absolute delight that is common only on much pricier grills. While other grills require dismantling and vacuuming to clean the grill after about 40 odd hours of usage, the SmokePro’s ash clean-out system does away with this hassle.
The only shortcoming our tests revealed was the pellet hopper’s resistant pellet delivery when pellets ran low. While this can be easily fixed by loading up the pellets and letting gravity work its wonders, the error message did come off as annoying on an otherwise well-designed grill.
BEST PORTABLE: DAVY CROCKETT FROM GREEN MOUNTAIN
If you are not familiar with Green Mountain, it is probably because they only just started making grills in 2008. Even with their relatively brief experience, they make grills that surpass Traeger’s grills by a decent margin in terms of performance.
While it may seem rather odd for a pellet grill to be portable given that you cannot plug them outside where there are no sockets and fire them up like charcoal grills, the grill does offer a few fixes for this. The grill includes several adapters that can draw power from different sources in addition to the power sockets indoors – like your car’s cigarette lighter or battery, and a generator. The materials used seem fairly heavy and should last for a good number of years.
The foldable legs double as a carry handle when folded. The grill is an excellent combination of portability and features that none of the grills at this price point can beat. Our team was pleased with how the grill lets you regulate the temperature wirelessly using a smartphone. Get this – the smartphone app can do more than just regulate the temperature; it lets you specify unique instructions, too. For example, you could set the grill to cook at 200-degrees for the first hour, and then 230-degrees for the next 2 hours.
However, you may need to set up the grill such that you do not lose connectivity. This issue did creep up when the team was soaking in sun by the poolside. This is not a deal-breaker by any means, though. Also, the grill maximizes at about 425 degrees, which is noticeably lower than other comparable pellet smokers.
BEST FOR BEGINNERS: PRO 780 FROM TRAEGER
While the Pro series does not even come close to the Timberline series in terms of advanced offerings, it is perfect for beginners and still loaded enough to click with grill masters.
The Pro series features 2 size variants, the Pro 575 and the bigger Pro 780. The numbers represent the size of the grill’s cooking estate. The 575 is as good a choice, but if you plan on cooking family dinners or hosting friends for a BBQ party, the 780 is the way to go.
Yes, the Timberline is the more tech-intense cousin of the Pro Series. However, the Pro Series makes up for it with Alexa connectivity. That’s correct! You can use voice commands to control the grill using Alexa. To regulate the temperature and monitor the pellet level, you get Traeger’s WiFIRE app so you never have to interrupt your binge-session to go check on the grill.
Traeger’s versatility and power need no vouching for, but I will go ahead and give you an overview anyway. The Pro 780 cooks any piece of meat easily with its 270-degree wide range of temperature (180 – 450 degrees F) and an auger driven by a brushless DC motor. The grill’s hopper accommodates up to 18lbs of pellets – enough to fuel the grill for 18 hours on low heat or 9 hours on high heat.
BEST VALUE: 700D WOOD PELLET GRILL AND SMOKER FROM Z GRILLS
Even though it seems as if the company emerged out of nowhere and started making grills, it turns out Z Grills has been a grill manufacturer for Traeger and other companies for several years.
Identifying a decent budget grill comes with its own set of challenges given how much technology is involved. Finally, our team settled on the 700D.
Z Grills products like the 700D match Traeger’s quality and come at a much lower price. The grill’s 700sq.in. cooking estate is divided into a primary 513sq.in. grate and an elevated 187sq.in. grate. While the grill excludes all the often unnecessary, fancy add-on features, it does give you a large 20lbs pellet hopper for uninterrupted cooking.
The 700D does not have Wi-Fi capabilities but makes up for it with other features like a larger cooking territory, a storage cabinet, and a well-constructed build that matches Traeger products – all of this at a significantly lower price.
If you want to go further down the budget ladder, you do have the option to choose the basic variant 7002E which comes without the storage cabinet.