The Best Pellet Smokers Reviews for 2021 – Your Complete Guide

If you’ve made it to this page and you’re still wondering what a pellet smoker is, you’re not alone. Pellet grills and smokers are not quite as ubiquitous as their traditionally powered cousins. We also created a beginner’s guide for BBQ enthusiasts out there.

After all, they haven’t been around nearly as long. While pellet stoves and heating have been around for a while, Traeger Grills did not introduce the first pellet smokers until the mid 1980s

Rather than relying on charcoal, propane, or other fuel sources, pellet smokers burn wood pellets. The pellets are made of compressed saw dust and tend to burn longer than regular firewood.

Pellet burning smokers look pretty similar to other smokers and grills, the design and size are very similar. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you’d have a hard time telling the difference if you put a propane grill next to a pellet grill.

If you’ve ever had a perfectly smoked rack of ribs, I forgive you for never wanting to eat these beauties any other way. It’s like a roundhouse kick straight to the face of taste, zest, and earthy “goodness” that you just don’t get with other styles of cooking.

Pellet smokers (or pellet grills), are the best way to reliably cook any type of meat to perfection. The latest innovation in grill technology, you get all that smoky taste, with a simple turn-of-a-dial. It’s an upgrade to your outdoor cooking you simply have to make.

Imagine a classic smoker, but instead of the firebox there’s a hopper mounted on the side. This is for the fuel, because instead of charcoal or gas, you’re cooking with hardwood “pellets” that burn clean, the secret ingredient adding all of the wonderful taste.

But that’s not even the best part. Pellet smokers run on your standard household current, feeding the pellets from the hopper into the fire pot automatically, with electronically controlled thermostats constantly adjusting to maintain the cooking temperatures you need.

Which means you get delicious barbecued meat, every time. Because you and your family, deserve to eat well.

Our Top Choice

• Provides a reliable smoke every time
• Extremely easy to set up
• Design gives you more grilling space
• Perfect for your outdoor kitchen

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How We Test Our Products

Our Editorial Process

Why You Should Trust Us

Image	Product	Price
Camp Chef SmokePro DLX	Camp Chef SmokePro DLX BEST CHOICE Exclusive Ash System Makes for Simple Cleanup Electric Auto-Start to Easily Start Grilling LED Display Monitors Cooking & Temperature	Check on Camp Chef
Traeger Pro Series 34	Traeger Pro Series 34 RUNNER UP Easy to use LOW MAINTENANCE Excellent value for the price The original wood-fired pellet grill brand	Check on Traeger
Z GRILLS ZPG-7002E	Z GRILLS ZPG-7002E VALUE CHOICE SUPER EASY Cooking even for Beginners EASY To Assemble and Use Great ALL AROUND Smoker & Grill	Check Price on ZGrills

Top 11 Best Pellet Grills Reviewed

1. Best overall – Camp Chef SmokePro DLX Pellet Grill and Smoker

Why you’ll love this:

“Set it and Forget it! Perfect for beginners”

With a ton of quality of life features (like the viewing port for easy monitoring of your remaining pellets), this pellet grill makes smoking easier than ever. Even better, you get top level performance at an entry level price

While it may not look like much, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and the classic, simple layout and easy to use temperature meat probe controls more than make up for any aesthetic shortcomings.

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What We Liked

• Large Hopper Capacity: An 18 lb pellet hopper capacity give you freedom to only load this pellet grill once for an entire grilling or smoking day, making it an efficient use of your time and effort.
• Electronic Ignition: Easily ignite and keep aflame the pellets with the electronic heat rod ignition from just one twist of the knob. Other internal components keep the flame hot and pellets cycling through for long term, no hassle smoking and grilling.
• Convenient Side Table: Attached side table give you a place to sit your utensils and sauces without needing another table, though there is not enough space for full prep work to be done just on the grill’s attached table.
• Ash Catcher: Ash catcher is bottom mounted and slides out to easily empty and replace without getting in the way.

What We Didn’t Like

• Poor Smokestack Placement: The position of the smoke stack makes it likely for your lid to bump it when opened, reducing the range that the grill’s top can open. It also makes it more likely that even a slight wind could send your pellet grill top crashing back closed.
• High Temperature: Variance: Average temperature variance is between 15 and 30 degrees, making it less accurate than many other pellet smokers on the market. This increases the amount of monitoring you need to do to make sure your food doesn’t over or under cook or get scorched.
• Quality Control: Some users report problems with shipping and the grill arriving damaged or defective in other ways (such as faulty electronic ignition). While the pellet grill is under year warranty, it is still a hassle to ship back a product this large and heavy (140 lbs).

Our full review: Camp Chef SmokePro DLX

With nearly 600 square inches of cooking area, it has plenty of room to cook for the whole family. A large capacity pellet hopper holds plenty of pellets.

It incorporates an easy to use automatic starter and a dual LED temperature meat probe readout that allows users to monitor both the temperature of the grill and the food being cooked.

Camp Chef also incorporates a unique ash removal system. Users simply pull a lever to remove old ashes.

2. Runner Up – Traeger Grills Pro Series 34

Why you’ll love this:

What We Liked

• Versatility: The Pro Series 34 is an all in one grilling machine, able to smoke, bake, roast, braise, barbecue, and (of course) grill to perfection. If you wanted you could use the Pro Series 34 as your only means of cooking and do just fine, which is what we like to see in a product.
• Electronic Ignition: The Pro Series 34 ignites pellets with a hot rod deep inside its mechanism, making the usually tedious task of lighting pellets as easy as flipping a switch.
• Huge Capacity: Both the grilling space (a whopping 844 square inches of cooking area; enough to cook eight whole chickens side by side) and pound hopper (18 lbs of pellets; about 36 hours of smoking and 7 hours of grilling before needing a refill) are huge, and make large batch grilling a breeze.

What We Didn’t Like

3. Best Budget Pellet Grill – Z GRILLS ZPG-7002E Wood Pellet Grill & Smoker

Why you’ll love this:

What We Liked

4. Best freestanding pellet grill – Traeger Timberline 1300 Wood Pellet Grill

Why you’ll love this:

What We Liked

• Construction: Stainless steel construction is sturdy and built to stand the test of time.
• Temperature Controls: Digital temperature controls are easy to understand and use, and provide a consistent and easy grilling experience every single time.
• Drive Train: The D2 direct drive is an advanced drive train that makes the grill start up easy, heat up faster, and provide a more consistent temperature throughout even long cooking sessions with automatically controlled variable airflow.
• Capacity: An enormous 1300 square inch grill capacity provides enough grilling space for the largest meals. Perfect for light to medium commercial use and heavy personal use for large gatherings like neighborhood-wide barbecues and family reunions. 

What We Didn’t Like

• Price: This is an extremely expensive grill. While well worth it for what it offers if you need the large capacity, if you don’t it’s insane overkill. In that case you’d be better off buying a smaller grill.

Our full review here: Traeger Timberline 1300

While many grills are large, this one puts pretty much any grill you could think of to shame, with an enormous 1300 square inches of cooking space to play around with. That’s enough for an almost mind boggling amount of food; 12 whole chickens, 15 racks of ribs, or 12 pork butts, simultaneously.

Enough food to feed the largest gatherings and then some, this is the perfect grill for someone who need to feed a lot of people often, whether for commercial reasons or personal ones. If you’re running a small business or are frequently roped into cooking food for your family reunion or something, you’re going to want a grill as large as this.

Traeger and Z Grills both have terrific company backgrounds. Considering their histories together, it’s very little wonder why both create high-quality products that folks love and recommend consistently to their friends and family who are looking to start grilling themselves.

Did you know?
“When Z Grill’s involvement with Traeger became common knowledge, folks flocked to stores to purchase Traeger-quality grills at the reduced price that Z Grill offered. Quickly, the Z Grill brand became one of the most popular wood pellet grills on the market.”

Z Grills vs Traeger Grills: The Throwdown

5. Best portable pellet smoker – Green Mountain Davy Crockett Pellet Grill

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Small and Portable: The Davy Crocket weighs only 68 lbs, and is designed for tailgating, camping, and similar pursuits. This makes it a unique and interesting pellet grill that can really vary up your mobile grilling experience.
• Huge Pellet Hopper Capacity: The Davy Crocket holds 17 lbs of pellets, an enormous amount for its small size (only 1 lb less than the Traeger grills above, which are four times the size). This makes it easy to fill it once, throw whatever you want to smoke on, and relax to enjoy the game or whatever pursuits your campsite has to offer, freeing you a bit from the role the grill master usually plays where cooking detracts from you having fun with everyone else.
• Extremely Adjustable: The Davy Crocket has a temperature range of 150 to 550 degrees, and can be adjusted in 5 degree increments, making it an extraordinarily precise smoker.
• Convenient: This smoker can be controlled via a mobile app that gives you an accurate mobile readout of the internal temperature, and can be controlled via wifi connectivity!

What we didn’t like

• Grease Catcher: Its grease catcher is a simple bucket attached to a grease chute. This one fares even worse, as it is precariously perched on the clope of the chute and likely to slip once the bucket gets heavy enough.

Great smoked flavor doesn’t have to stay home.

Whether it’s tailgating or camping, grilling on the go is often part of the experience. This model is also one of the best pellet grills for searing.

Read the full review here: Green Mountain Grills Davy Crockett.

6. Traeger Pro Series 22-Inch (Gen 1) Wood Pellet Grill

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Pellet Hopper Capacity: While the grill itself is small, the Series 22 shares the same 18 pound hopper capacity as the Pro Series 34, giving it the same 7 hour grill capacity and 36 hours of smoking time as its larger brother.
• Electronic Ignition: The twist of a knob heats the electric heating rod inside the grill, safely and quickly igniting the pellets inside. As an added bonus the temperature of the grill interior can be adjusted with the knob to within 20 degrees of the ideal temperature, increasing your control over how the meal is cooked and ensuring it will never be over or under cooked.
• Versatile: The twist of a knob heats the electric heating rod inside the grill, safely and quickly igniting the pellets inside. As an added bonus the temperature of the grill interior can be adjusted with the knob to within 20 degrees of the ideal temperature, increasing your control over how the meal is cooked and ensuring it will never be over or under cooked.

What we didn’t like

• Price: The Pro Series 22 is about half as good as the Elite 34, at decidedly more than half the price. The price difference is small enough that serious consideration should be given to just going up to the Elite 34 if you feel you are ever (even if only rarely) going to be hosting barbecues with a large enough number of guests. The time and hassle saved in those situations with the almost double grill space is well worth the bump in the long term.
• Primitive Grease Bucket: Similarly to the Elite 34, the simple “bucket next to a chute” design is strange and unwelcome. Particularly if your grill is set in some high traffic area, the design could lead to a lot of frustration and unnecessary cleaning.

7. Cookshack PG500 Fast Eddy’s Pellet Grill

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Electronic Ignition: A single button flip is enough to ignite the pellets, and electronic temperature control allows for easily adjustable and accurate interior temperatures for grilling and smoking.
• Large Doors: Doors easily open from the sides at the perfect height to easily view and adjust the meat inside.
• Storage: Side table and under grill drawers provide convenient storage and prep space for utensils and other grill accoutrements.

What we didn’t like

• Overall Design: The Fast Eddy PG500 is bulky, jagged, and ugly. More than appearance it takes up far more space than necessary for what it provides. It is unwieldy to move, difficult to properly store or permanently place (it is too large for most porches and still unsightly for patios). It is also horrendously heavy (330 lbs!), being made entirely of stainless steel. This in itself is an issue as the steel is unfinished, leaving it highly reflective. Cooking in the summer heat and brightness is a nightmare with a grill this shiny, and overall makes using this grill an unpleasant, irritating experience.
• Small Grilling Space: Despite this grill’s insane bulk, it still only boasts a 504 square inch grilling space. It attempts to claim an over 700 inch space, but that deceptively includes the warming racks in the total estimate.
• Chute Fed Pellets: Most modern pellet smokers feed the pellets via an auger and induction fan to properly maintain temperature and speed of pellet use. This grill does not, leaving it less efficient than its competitors.
• Finicky: The proper temperature range for smoking is narrow, and results in small miscalculations in temperature dissipating most of the smoke, leaving your meat less flavorful than it should be.
• Price: This grill has a price as monstrous as its size, despite the myriad flaws plaguing every aspect of the grill’s design. Were it a cheap and simple grill the other flaws could maybe be forgiven, but this is the final nail in the coffin.

8. Best large pellet smoker – Louisiana Grills Country Smoker Whole Hog

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Unmatched Capacity: The Whole Hog boasts an unparalleled 1750 square inches of cooking space, enough to live up to its name. It also has two hoppers, necessary for the two independent grilling spaces (separated by a removable partition).
• Versatility: Due to the design, you can use the Whole Hog as either two separate grills, only using one, the other, or both as needed, or as one enormous grill with the partition removed. This makes it excellent for both huge crowds of people or simply grilling for your family.
• Grease Catchers: The grease catchers are under mounted and out of the way of easily being bumped.
• Wheels: The wheels are large and lock easily, perfect for the size and weight of this grill.
• Electronic Ignition: In addition to electronic starting, this grill can independently control the temperature of both sides, so you could cook two entirely different meals at different temperatures with the partition up.
• Sleek for the Size: The Whole Hog is huge, but handles its weight well. While taking up the expected amount of horizontal space, it still manages to make itself easy to fit along any standard wall, fence, or railing and isn’t too tall to use either. It’s well designed to take up exactly as much space as it needs to and no more.

What we didn’t like

• Price: The Whole Hog is fairly priced for what it is; it’s the size of three grills and cost three times as much as a normal pellet smoker. This is fair enough, but may make most balk at the cost considering the vast majority of people have no use for quite this much huge space, and would be better off with a cheaper option.
• Simplistic Pellet Feed: No augers or induction fans here; just a simple chute and pellets sitting in the bottom of the smoker. This can make it cook more unevenly without careful tending, so you’re less able to light it up and then forget about it for hours on end.

9. Memphis Grills Elite Wood Fire Pellet Smoker Grill

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Convenient Storage Cart: The Memphis Grills Elite has a lot of under grill storage space and can easily store your utensils, pellets, and other accoutrements when not in use. The added tables are sizable and convenient as well, adding a lot of utility to the grill.
• High Temperature Range: This grills burns up to 700 degrees, higher than many of its competitors, and burns as low as the standard 180 degrees. This high temperature range make sit excellent for any kind of grilling, being able to go low enough for perfectly slow smoked meats and high enough for even the most aggressive searing necessary. This temperature range is hard to match, much less beat.
• Wifi Enabled: This grill can have its temperature controlled via phone app and wifi connectivity, and can be adjusted quite accurately within it, with electronic ignition to boot.
• Huge Hopper Capacity: A 24 pound pellet hopper capacity puts other grills to shame, and offers up to 62 hours of smoking on a single load, or over 9 and a half hours of grilling.
• Good Grill Capacity: 658 square inches of cooking space make this grill more sizable than most, and makes it perfect for larger than average crowds.

What we didn’t like

• Price: While everything looks good on paper, for the asking price (6 times the price of our best choice, the Traeger Grills Lil Tex Elite 34) it is actually quite basic and unimpressive. Most of its features are shared by other, cheaper grills, and its raw stats both in capacity and storage space don’t justify such a baffling price, with the grilling space being far smaller than one that costs nearly half (and only a bit bigger than one which cost 6 times less) and the storage cart being reliable but nothing special.
• This grill is costed at roughly 3-4 times what it’s actually worth, which is a shame because otherwise it is a very high quality pellet smoker…just not for what Memphis Grills is asking you to pay for it.

10. Best professional-grade pellet smoker – Traeger Grills Select Elite Pellet Grill

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Easy to Use: The Select Elite is a pellet smoker with the ease of use of an electric or electronically started propane grill. Ignition is performed with the simple turn of a knob, saving time and reducing risk of burns. The temperature can be controlled with 20 degrees Fahrenheit of the ideal temperature, ensuring perfect and thoroughly cooked meat every time.
• Versatility: The Select Elite can grill, bake, braise, barbecue, roast, and smoke, making it an entire kitchen in one convenient package.
• Storage and Counter Space: The Select Elite has enough counter space to do all your prep work right by the grill with no other tabletop necessary, and the under grill storage capacity is just enough to tore all of your grilling utensils and materials out of the way and neatly arranged.
• Spacious: 589 square inches is larger than average, and enough to cook meals for multiple families on one grill space. 20 burgers, five whole chickens, six racks of ribs, or any combination of other foods of similar size can be cooked all at once. The 18 lb pellet hopper capacity provides longevity and reduces the need for refilling it with pellets constantly (one of the worst chores involving a pellet smoker).

What we didn’t like

• Price: The Traeger Select Elite charges a premium for the storage cart and table space, prompting a question on whether the reduced hassle is worth the vastly increased price point over similar Traeger grills like the Lil Tex series, which are simpler and cheaper.
• Wheels: The wheels are simple caster wheels which lock, and are quite small for the grill’s size and weight. This makes it portable but prone to wiggling when you don’t want it to.

11. Camp Chef PG24STX SmokePro Pellet & Smoker

Why you’ll love it:

What we liked

• Automatic Pellet Feeding: The Smoke Pro STX’s augur system ensures a steady feed of pellets for a more hands off grilling and smoking experience. No need to constantly tend to the pellets and make sure enough are moving in to keep the fire burning.
• Electronic Temperature Control: Just a twist of the knob starts the fire and sets the temperature, making finding the right temperature easier. Combined with the automatic pellet feeding, your meat practically smokes itself!
• Attached Meat Probe: A meat probe comes with the smoker and plugs right into the temperature console. This ensures safe and properly cooked meat every time, so long as you abide by the internal temperature guidelines for meat.
• Ash Catcher: The bottom mounted, screw on ash catcher is unobtrusive and easy cleaning.

What we didn’t like

• Relatively Small Grilling Cooking Area: The Camp Chef Smoke Pro STX only has 429 square inches. Even the pictures on Camp Chef’s website shows meat (in this case, three racks of ribs) needing to be packed very tightly into this small space to cook properly, making arranging the meat a pain to deal with and will cause constant fiddling, particularly if meat ever needs to be flipped.
• No Included Attachments: The Smoke Pro STX has no cooling rack or side table included, making it less convenient to use. Attachments are available separately but are generally not priced well for the overall quality.
• Poor Leg Design: Legs are simplistic and relatively flimsy for the purpose. It is constructed like a camp grill, but too large and reliant on a steady supply of electricity to effectively serve that purpose. This puts the longevity of the smoker in question, as it’s likely to fall apart within a year or two.

FINAL VERDICT

The Camp Chef SmokePro DLX Pellet Grill and Smoker is a great grill for those looking for a good mix of value and features. With the Camp Chef name and features behind it, this a solid performer.

If you’re in the market for a pellet smoker or pellet grill, take a look at at this one today.

How to Choose the Right Pellet Smoker for Your Needs

These model come in a few different shapes and sizes. But they all work—essentially–the same way. But, quality and features do vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

What to Look For—the Thermostat

Models that use wood pellets have a little more going on than your average pellet smoker. Since they use a thermostat and a mechanism to fee pellets into the fire, you’ve got a bit more to consider than size and BTUs.

The first thing you’ll want to consider is the thermostat. Many model fueled grills don’t reach very high heats—with around 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit being the max for many. That’s something you’ll want to consider if you plan to do any searing while cooking.

Don’t Forget About the Pellets

Another big consideration is how the pellets are fed into the grill and what different types of pellets can be used.

Many brands, like Traeger, recommend using only products made by them in their grills. While others may work, performance may not be the same.

Other Features

A lot of models also include other features, like a separate searing compartments or integrated meat thermometers. Other units have fold up legs, perfect for tailgating or camping.

Traditional models have a problem.

It’s not that they don’t make great food—you’ve probably had many a great brisket or side of ribs expertly smoked by a barbeque pro. It’s the skill and time involved in smoking meat and other food with propane smokers, traditional wood fired or charcoal smokers. Unless you’ve invested some serious practice time or learned from a seasoned barbeque cook, getting the temperature and timing right in your smoker is tough. 

Thankfully, if you want to make great food in a smoker, you’ve got options from SeriouslySmoked.

While electric smokers are one way to take the guesswork out of smoking, another—perhaps better—solution is this. See the comparisons here.

The Benefits of Smoking with Pellets

The biggest benefit of using a pellet smoker is the ease of use. Rather than trying to get charcoal up to a certain temperature and keep it there for hours, a using pellets gives you an even consistent heat that lasts for many hours.While the same can be done with a traditional smoker, it takes a fair amount of skill and practice to keep the temperature and conditions consistent.

Safety measures you should know about pellet

Pellet grills are incredibly safe. The key is to use a high-quality grill and fill the hopper with premium food-grade, all-natural wood pellets. While charcoal and gas grills can be prone to flare-ups due to grease dripping into the flames, this is not a problem associated with pellet grills, providing a more reliable and predictable cooking experience.

What is a wood pellet? Are they toxic?

Wood pellets are typically composed of sawdust, wood chips, sticks, and lumber mill scrap. Manufacturers use a hammer mill to ensure the materials are approximately the same size. They then expose the sawdust to high pressure to bind the pieces together. After being in an oven at a temperature of approximately 225°F, the wood pellets are soft. A controlled cooling process allows the wood pellets to harden.

At no point in the process does the manufacturer require chemicals to create their product. Pressure, heat, and cooling do not add contaminants to wood pellets so they are free from toxic pollutants.

See the popular method of building a DIY pellet smoker.