The Best Pellet Grill of 2024

If you're on the hunt for the best pellet grill, you've come to the right place. We've spent hundreds of hours researching and testing all the pellet grills we could get our hands on, and have compiled all our findings here to save you the trouble.

How we picked and tested

In the world of pellet grills, there are far more grills available than we could ever include in this post. Please understand that we are well aware that there are many "contestants" missing from this contest. What we have done here is collected first-hand data from all the pellet grills we were able to get in our possession to actually test. Some of the pellet grills were provided to us by the manufacturers. Some of the pellet grills were borrowed. Some of the pellet grills were purchased by us.

In the end, we can't and won't tell you which wood pellet grill you should buy. We don't know you, your budget, your outdoor space, your backyard cooking style, or your preferences. What we will do is test and compare all of these pellet grills as fairly as possible and share our data with you so that you can make an informed decision. Following, are some of the many categories we're considering when testing pellet grills.

Build Quality & Design

For the most part, build quality is directly related to the price point. A wood pellet grill costing $2,000 is obviously going to have a better build quality than one costing only $600. The real test comes when we're looking at multiple grills at the same price point. That's when we begin to notice the differences that matter. Do moving parts function the way they're supposed to? Are metal parts coming out of the box dented and bent?

Cart Function & Usability Test

How easy is it to move? Lock and unlock the wheels? Are there cabinets for storage? Is there a bottom shelf? Is there a front folding shelf? Are there any side shelves? Are there any tool hooks?

The Grilla Grills Silverbac is available with an all-terrain cart which is a complete game changer. This is by far the most mobile of the bunch, easily transitioning from the patio to the grass and back. The rest of them all move around on the patio ok, except for the Weber Searwood which has 2 stationary legs and is admittedly more difficult to move with the bottom shelf blocking your legs when you lift and pull the grill.

Speaking of bottom shelves, 6 of these pellet grills have a bottom shelf that can be used for storage. They are the Traeger Ironwood, Camp Chef Woodwind Pro, Weber Searwood 600, Brisk It Origin 940, Grilla Grills Silverbac AT, and GMG Peak Prime 2.0. The Grilla Grills Silverbac without the AT upgrade comes in a cart with a cabinet.

In addition to bottom shelves, 3 of these pellet grills also come standard with a front shelf, and that includes the Z Grills 11002B, Brisk It, and the GMG... You'll probably notice that we do have front shelves on the Ironwood and the Silverbac, but those were additional accessories that were added onto those wood pellet grill packages.

In most cases the hopper is used as a side shelf where you can set things down, but 5 of these smokers have an additional side shelf for added convenience and that includes the Traeger Ironwood, Camp Chef Woodwind Pro, Brisk It Origin 960, GMG Peak Prime, and the Halo Prime 1500, which has 2 folding side shelves because the Halo hopper is in the front.

Pellet Hopper Test

What's the pellet capacity? Can wood pellets be emptied? Is there a window?

On that note, let's talk about pellet hoppers for a minute. The Halo hopper, like I said, is the only one located in the front of the smoker and it is a divided hopper, meaning you could use 2 different flavors of hardwood pellets and they'll blend evenly as they are fed into the burn pot. 

The Halo wood pellet hopper has a total capacity of 27.5 pounds, only 1/2 pound less than the ZGrills 11002B, which has the largest hopper of the group at 28 pounds. The Traeger Ironwood, Camp Chef Woodwind Pro and Brisk It Origin all have 22-pound hoppers. The Weber Searwood and Grilla Grills Silverbac both have 20-pound hoppers, and the GMG Peak Prime has the smallest with only an 18-pound hopper.

I mentioned blending pellet flavors with the Halo, but let's talk about changing flavors altogether. 6 of these pellet smokers have a pellet dump feature that allows you to empty out the hopper with ease. Those are the Ironwood, Brisk It Origin, Woodwind Pro, Searwood, Silverbac, and Z Grills 11002B.

Controller Test

Is there a digital control panel or is it analog? How easy is it to read the temperature in full sun? Are the controls user friendly? How many food probe ports are there? How many temperature probes are included?

All of these pellet grills have a digital control panel, but some are easier to read than others. The Traeger Ironwood has the brightest, and easiest-to-read display with a very user-friendly interface. The Woodwind Pro controller display was probably my second favorite of the group. The Halo display was probably the most difficult to read due to the orientation of it facing more upward toward the sun. We frequently had to shade the display with our hands in order to read the temperature.

We didn't need to use them in either of the cooks for our testing, but it's worth mentioning that each of these grills has the ability to plug a meat probe directly into the grill, and here's a chart of what comes with each. The Camp Chef has 4 ports and ships with 4 meat probes to lead the pack. The Halo has 4 ports but only ships with 2 probes, and the rest of the group has 2 probe ports or less.

Technology Test: What tech is available?

Does the pellet grill connect by Wi fi or Bluetooth? Is there an app? How robust is the app? Can I adjust the smoke level?

Every single one of these pellet grills also connects through wi fi and Bluetooth and has an accompanying app. The apps all vary greatly in their capabilities and user-friendliness, but the one thing I do have to specifically call out is the Brisk It app, because it utilizes AI. So if you're completely new to smoking and don't have a clue what to do, this smart grill might be worth considering.

Most of these pellet grills also have the ability to give a boost to the smoke flavor

Temperature Range Test

How low does it go? How hot can it get?

All of these grills get down to at least 180° for a low temperature, but the GMG Prime beats them all with a low temp of 150°. For higher temperatures, most get up to at least 500° but the real star in high temps is the Weber Searwood reaching a top temperature of 600°.

Biscuit Test: Where are the cool and hot spots?

Honestly, we recommend performing the biscuit test anytime you get a new grill. Cooking a can of biscuits according to the directions, but directly on the grill grates will tell you where the hot and cool spots are so you can place your food accordingly.

We bought tubes of biscuit dough at the grocery store and evenly spaced 8 biscuits across the grilling surface of each wood pellet grill. We set the grills to 350 degrees and let them run for 15 minutes and here's what they looked like on the Ironwood, Searwood, Halo Prime, and the Silverbac.

And here's what the biscuits looked like on the ZGrills Multitasker, GMG Peak Prime, Brisk It Origin, and Woodwind Pro.

A few of the grills had more heat in the back or more heat on one side. A few of the grills seemed to run a little cooler, but the one grill that ran evenly all the way around was the Woodwind Pro in this test.

Long Smoke Test: Can we achieve a smoke ring?

Pellet grills get a lot of flack for not actually producing a smokey flavor in meat. Many pellet grills are adding new features to give an extra smoke boost when you want it for a long smoke. We put it all to the test to see if we can tell a difference.

To test the low and slow cooking capability of each of these grills, we smoked baby back ribs. Each grill smoked a rack of ribs, set to 225 degrees for about 5 hours and we wanted to test two things: First, we wanted to see how the ribs looked. Second, we wanted to see if we could taste a difference.

We used some Cherry Cola rub on each, and we activated all smoke enhancers that we're aware of. If there's a super smoke mode, we're turning it on. If there's a slot to add wood chunks to smoke, we're adding wood. If there's a controller behavior change we can activate for more smoke, that's what we did, and here are the visual results for each grill starting with the Traeger model, the Weber, the Halo, and the Grilla Grills:

And here are the visual results for ZGrills, Green Mountain Grills, Brisk It, and Woodwind Pro. 

For the taste results, both David and I took a bite from each rack of ribs and rated them, and here's how they came out. 

The three ribs that had the most visible smoke ring and prominent smoke flavor were the Woodwind Pro, Weber, and GMG.

Grilling Test: Can we achieve a good sear?

We call these pellet GRILLS, but we really should be calling them pellet smokers since that's definitely their primary function. But can you use them as a grill? We do a simple sear test of grilled burgers at maximum temperature to see which models are the pellet grills and which are just pellet smokers.

For our grilling test, we cooked hamburgers and each grill got a shot at 2 burgers. 1 burger went on the factory grate and 1 burger went on the GrillGrate Flavor Zone grill panel. We set each grill as high as it would go and let the burgers get 3 minutes on the first side before the flip, and here's how each grill did. Here's how they looked on the Traeger, Weber, Halo, and Grilla Grills.

And here's how they looked on the ZGrills, Green Mountain Grills, Brisk It, and the Woodwind Pro. 

The Halo was the only wood pellet grill that had the ability to adjust the deflector to allow open flame searing. But without direct flame grilling, the Silverbac and the Searwood seemed to make the best grill marks on the burgers.

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