Best Portable Pellet Grill Smoker For Camping, Tailgating, & Small Spaces

Looking for the best portable pellet grill for camping or tailgating? We tested 8 popular tabletop and portable pellet grills to see how they perform in real-world cooks.

Quick Links to the products mentioned in this post and video:

• Grilla Chimp 2.0 portable pellet grill (Save 15% on select Grilla products: BBQLAB)
• Grilla power station (Save 15% on select Grilla products: BBQLAB)
• Cuisinart portable pellet grill or here
• Pit Boss Battery powered pellet smoker or here or here
• Halo Prime 300 or here
• Halo Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery Pack
• Z Grills Cruiser 200A
• Traeger Tailgater 20 or here
• Traeger Ranger or here
• GMG Trek Prime 2.0
• Trek Prime cart
• Essential Equation SPG rub
• Feathered Formula chicken rub
• Pork Protocol BBQ rub
• Smokin’ Pecan Pellets (First Time Customers save 10%: BARBECUELAB)
• Thermoworks Signals
• Thermoworks Timestack
• Fontana Elysia outdoor kitchen (Access our negotiated VIP Pricing with code: BBQLABVIP) 

Whether you’re out camping or heading to a tailgate, you don’t have to give up great barbecue. Portable pellet grills have come a long way—you can even run them on battery power now. The problem? There are a ton of options, and it’s not always clear which one is actually right for you.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• Which grill is best for tailgating crowds
• The best pellet smoker for camping off-grid
• Which models can actually grill (not just smoke)
• Battery vs inverter vs DC power—what really works
• Which grills are worth the price (and which aren’t)

Disclaimer

Before we dive in, a quick note. These grills came to us in a few different ways. Some we bought, some we already had, and some were sent in. But once they hit The Lab, they all get treated the same: the same real-world tests, no marketing fluff, just performance. That keeps things fair. Let’s check out the lineup.

Comparing Portable Pellet Smokers

Finding the Best Portable Pellet Smokers

If you’re looking for a portable grill to throw in your truck bed or car trunk for your next tailgate or camping trip, you need a unit that is compact for easy transportation.

These portable smokers range in weight by 50 pounds, some with folding legs, and others meant to sit on a tabletop. Let’s see how these 8 pellet grills compare when it comes to portability.

The Z Grills is the lightest of the group at 40 pounds, and the Chimp is the heaviest, coming in at 90 pounds.

The Grilla Chimp 2.0 and the Traeger Tailgater both have folding legs and can be used either in tabletop or stand mode. Each model has wheels on 2 legs to tow the grill around, but we found the Grilla Chimp to be much more stable as we pulled it around because of the wider leg base. The Traeger’s narrow base meant that we had a couple of close calls trying to pull it around.

GMG also offers a cart that can be purchased separately for the Trek Prime 2.0 if you want to maybe use it in your backyard but also be able to take it on the go with you. However, the cart does not fold up in any way. You just pull the grill off the cart and leave it behind.

The easiest pellet smoker to move by myself was definitely the Z Grills Cruiser. It weighs the least and has 2 side handles, making it easy to grab.

The Cuisinart and Pit Boss models were also quite doable by myself, although I would have preferred handles on the Cuisinart to make it easier since it is pretty bulky.

The Halo Prime was incredibly awkward to move by myself. I struggled for a while to find a good place to grab hold of it and ended up awkwardly hugging it up into place. It wasn’t that it was heavy; just awkward with no good place to grab.

The Traeger Ranger was a LOT heavier than I expected, so I struggled a bit to get it up on the table. Probably removing the griddle plate before moving would have made it easier. Handles also would have been helpful.

The Chimp and the Tailgater were both easy to roll into place by myself, but to actually fold up or down the legs or lift them by myself wasn’t really possible. And I definitely had to call for help to move the GMG Trek Prime. I like that it has 2 handles, but it’s just too bulky and large for me to move it alone.

Powering Your Portable Pellet Grill

Since pellet smokers require electricity, depending on where you want to use your portable pellet grill, this could be a major consideration to help you select the right portable model for your needs.

Let’s start with the obvious, all 8 of these grills can be powered by a standard wall outlet. If you’re using them at home or at the campsite with power, you’re good to go.

On the DC power side of things, the GMG Trek Prime has a DC port right next to the AC port, but doesn’t come with a DC cable. You can buy it separately, and it has a cool option for alligator clips as well to hook it up to a 12 volt battery. The GMG is the only portable pellet grill in this roundup that can do DC power directly. All of the others will need a power inverter if you want to use DC power on the go.

If you like your power in battery form, there are three options.

The First is the Pit Boss battery powered, and like the name suggests, there is a hefty battery included in the box. It’s integrated right into the design, so it’s clear that Pit Boss plans on this grill to be run from the battery as the primary option. We didn’t measure how long the battery lasts, per say, but I will tell you that a single charge got us through all 3 of the cooks we did for this roundup.

The Halo Prime 300 also has an optional battery, but it’s a separate add-on. There’s a placeholder where the battery normally goes when you get it out of the box, and you can run this grill entirely on AC power, but battery powered was how it was meant to be. There’s a separate battery charger, so you can keep the battery plugged in and ready to go, or if you’re like me, bring the grill and forget the battery in the charger at home. The Halo battery almost got us through all of our test cooks; I think we had to plug it in for the last grilling test.

The third option is the Grilla Chimp 2.0 and the optional Grilla power station. It’s basically a portable power unit that is designed to hang from the bottom of the Chimp 2.0 pellet grill. Think of it like a Jackery battery that can hang from your grill and be pulled around with it.

Pellet Hopper Considerations

The length of time you can cook on these grills is determined by both power and hopper capacity.

The Cuisinart portable model has the smallest hopper at 4lbs of pellets, and the Grilla Chimp has the largest at 15lbs. Since we’re talking portable pellet grills here, we probably don’t need a 20 or 30 pound pellet hopper, but it is nice when I don’t have to check in on my pellets as often, and the larger hoppers allow that.

The Grilla Chimp 2.0 is the only grill of the bunch to have a pellet dump, allowing you to change pellet flavors or dump pellets before you throw the grill in the trunk.

Half of the grills have locking lids on top of the pellet hopper, and those are the Cuisinart, Pit Boss, Grilla Chimp 2.0 and the GMG Trek Prime 2.0. The others don’t have a locking lid, so if the grill tips or rolls in transit, pellets may not stay inside.

How much food can fit on a portable pellet grill?

When we talk about food capacity in a portable pellet grill, we’re not just asking how many burgers and hot dogs it can fit, but we’re also asking how large the food itself can be. Since the cooking chamber is considerably smaller than traditional pellet smokers, and the cooking grates are smaller, we are more limited in height and length than we may be used to cooking at home on the back patio.

First, I wanted to see if any of them could handle a standard bone-in pork butt. We borrowed a butt from the freezer, placed it on the grates and here’s how it went. The only grill that struggled to fit a pork butt was the Halo, due to the retracting warming rack and the slope of the lid. After I removed the top shelf and placed the pork butt as far back as possible, I was able to get the lid to close without hitting the pork. There were a few that could have actually fit 2 pork butts, and those were the Chimp, the Tailgater, and possibly the Z Grills and the Trek Prime.

For the last test, I wanted to see if any of these grills could handle a whole rack of pork loin back ribs without cutting them in half to fit the grate size. I bought 8 racks of ribs and followed our BBQ Basics method to cook a rack of ribs on each pellet grill.

I was surprised to see that more of these grills could fit a full rack than I thought, but we had to get creative and use the entire grate, often diagonally, to make it happen. The Chimp 2.0 had no problem since it’s the largest in the bunch. The GMG also had no difficulty with a whole rack, and likewise for the Traeger Tailgater that found room to spare.

Where we had to eke out every single 1/4 inch of space was on the Z Grills Cruiser, the Cuisinart, the Traeger Ranger, the Pit Boss Battery Powered, and the Halo Prime. We squeezed a full rack on each of those, but had to get creative in placement and saw the ends get a little toasty on a few of them where the meat extended beyond the heat deflector.

Low and Slow Smoking Test

While we’re on the subject of ribs, we did actually cook all of these racks of ribs on each grill to see how well they could handle a 6 hour low and slow test. We had questions like, “Will these batteries last an entire cook? Will the hoppers run out of pellets? How stable are the temperatures in these grills? So we started with full batteries, filled the hopper to the very top, and set up a Thermoworks Signals air temp probe to track internal temperature for the cook.

We ran these cooks at 225° Fahrenheit, and we opened the lid at various stages to follow our rib recipe for butter basting, spritzing and all the goodness that recipe calls for, and here’s how it went.

The Halo overshot the starting temperature by about 150°, but once it dialed in it held steady. The Traeger Ranger had a bit of a stutter start, and quite a bit of fluctuation compared to some of the other models in the testing group. The GMG took the longest to get to 225, and it’s kind of strange how this grill operates, but more on that in a bit.

The Pit Boss ran quite a bit under the set temperature the entire time and took the longest to finish out of all grills. I even kicked it up to 250 to finish when our guests started to arrive and it continued to run under temperature.

In the end, every grill in our testing lineup produced a delicious rack of ribs that our guests enjoyed helping us eat.

Hot & Fast Cooking Test

My favorite hot and fast cooking test for pellet grills is to do chicken wings. Probably once a week, we cook pellet grill wings for the family, and we season them with our Feathered Formula chicken rub and put them on the pit at 400 degrees.

We flip the wings at the 15 minute mark and again at the half hour mark, and here’s how the wings looked on each grill when they were ready to eat.

All 8 grills made a serviceable chicken wing, and the differences between the grills was almost not discernible. Really, the only difference came down to how many wings we could have fit on the grates.

Can you grill on a pellet smoker?

These are called pellet grills, but I admit that most pellet “grills” are really pellet smokers first and foremost. It’s how they’re designed. With a deflector plate between any fire and your food, most operate more like an oven than they do a grill.

There are a few notable features that give an advantage here. The Cuisinart has an integrated sear zone, so fire can reach the food directly. The same goes for the Pit Boss, as long as you decide ahead of time that this is how you want it. You’ll need to remove the grate to make the changeover, and once it’s hot, you’ll need a good pair of heat proof gloves.

The Halo has the same functionality, but with a side control arm that allows you to open and close the hatch while the grill is lit.

The Traeger Ranger doesn’t have an opening to the pellet cup to grill over, but it does come with a griddle top in the box that gives is griddle capability. If versatility is what you’re after, you’ve got to take this into consideration.

The Grilla Chimp has the most space for grilling, and you can get burgers and hot dogs done on the Chimp. It’s not flame broiled, but it does work.

The GMG has a higher temperature to work with, but it’s still grilling over a deflector plate, and in our test it performed similarly to the Chimp. ZGrills struggles as a grill, better as a smoker. Traeger Tailgater doesn’t compare to the open grill versions, but if you put cheese on burgers, they’ll pass.

Which Portable Pellet Grill Gives The Best User Experience?

Whether you’re grilling or smoking on these grills, it’s worth talking about the user experience for each.

The ZGrills has just 10 temperature settings and an old school dial controller. I really appreciate the side handles for carrying it around, but it’s so close to the Traeger Ranger design it’s uncanny, but minus the griddle.

The Cuisinart has 10 temperature settings as well, and locking pellet storage. The second level grate is something I’ll never use, and the grilling handle under the grate is fine as long as you remember to activate it before the grill is not. There are no side handles which is disappointing, so you need to hug it to pick it up.

The GMG Trek Prime 2.0 has a quirk, and that’s during startup. The instructions say to let the grill get to 150 degrees before you set your cooking temperature, but it seems to like to take its time to get to 150, which I found frustrating. There are dual carrying handles, which is a necessity since it’s heavy. It’s the only grill in this testing group with an actual exhaust stack and cap. The grease bucket can get you into trouble since it doesn’t hang from the clip when on a table, and if you don’t make sure it’s lined up, it makes a mess. The cooking chamber door can get caught on the hinge on the way down and lock open, but just lift it up and it works fine.

For the Traeger Ranger, I absolutely love the included griddle. I wish the pellet door latched instead of just had a gravity close. The controls aren’t very intuitive, and even though it’s the same on both Traeger models, I had to break out the manual to figure out how to turn it off a few times. I do like that it’s controllable in 5 degree increments instead of 25-50 degree single settings like you find on some of the others. There are no handles to move it on the sides, and I miss those.

The Traeger Tailgater has dual carry handles, and that makes sense if you want to carry this beast around. The wheels are okay on concrete, but anything uneven and it gets tipsy with a narrow wheel base. Folding the legs is more difficult than the Chimp, and I recommend two people. The cooking chamber has a good amount of space and reminds me of the Chimp.

The Pit Boss Battery powered is another with limited temperature options at only 10 settings. The battery displays limited information with 4 bars, so it can leave you guessing if you’re doing multiple cooks on the same charge. I don’t really see a good reason for the upper rack, but I guess it’s nice that it’s included. There’s the manual flame door, so no handle to open the flame access which is under the cooking grate. The biggest thing for me is that it ran under set temperature for the rib cook and took MUCH longer than all of the other grills.

The Halo Prime 300has the folding second level shelf, and for me it’s in the way a lot. I love the external handle for the fire door. This model is really difficult to move, especially with one person. It’s probably the most difficult of the bunch. It overshot the temp by 100+ before settling down on the rib cook as well.

The Grilla Chimp 2.0 has dual side handles, and if you want to pick it up and carry it, they’re really great. The folding legs are solid, but it’s a heavy grill for a portable. I wouldn’t take it for just myself, since moving it really takes two people. It’s awkward to get the legs up and down with 1 person. I love the ample cooking space, and it has a huge hopper compared to the rest. The controller lock screen is frustrating, but I do know that they’re working on a patch for that.

What’s the best portable pellet grill for tailgating?

We’ve covered a lot of ground on these grills, and if I’m going to pick which grill I’d most like to take tailgating, the choice is easy for me. I want to cook for a crowd at a tailgate, so I want a larger capacity. It needs to be portable, but not single person portable since there will be people everywhere. I would prefer a grill with a battery or DC power, but a power inverter makes any of these a real option.

If I could take any of these to a tailgate as my primary grill or smoker, I don’t have any hesitation. I would take the Grilla Chimp 2.0 over all of the others. It’s the capacity winner, it has a good high heat ability for brats and dogs, I like that it has a stand and wheels so I’m not forced to take a table, and the handles are great for a friend to help me get it setup. I have to give it a knock for only having AC power, but the Grilla Power Station solves that problem for power on the go, and it attaches to the bottom of the grill.

What’s the best portable pellet smoker for camping?

I can’t say that I’d necessarily choose the same grill if camping was my goal. If I’m taking a camping trip, I’m probably cooking a variety of different meals on the same grill, and while hot dogs are great, they’re not as amazing for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’d prefer a grill that’s lighter, and I’d like if it had a battery for power. I don’t need as much capacity, because I’m probably not camping with 20 people who need me to cook for them, so smaller is fine.

To me, there’s not a single grill in this roundup that checks all of the boxes I laid out above. You could argue that the Pit Boss or the Halo are the best choices, and I could see the argument there.

I don’t think they’re the most versatile grill though, and the fact that the Traeger Ranger comes with a full griddle in the box makes the difference for me. Griddle for breakfast, smashburgers, and so many options along with smoking for bbq and grilling for easy quick meals. The Traeger Ranger is what I’d take camping with me, even though it doesn’t have a battery and I’d need to address the power problem if my campsite didn’t have a hookup. Since I have the Grilla Power Station, that’s how I’d solve it for the Traeger.

What’s the best tabletop pellet grill for small spaces?

If I was picking just one of these for a small apartment balcony or a patio where space is at a premium, it would depend on how I would plan on using it. If you want both a griddle, smoker and a grill, the Traeger Ranger is a great fit, but it needs a table to sit on top of.

The Grilla Chimp is the largest of the bunch, but it’s still much smaller than other pellet grills, and it comes with built in folding legs, so no stand or table needed.

If you don’t have power available and battery is the way you want to go, the Pit Boss is complete with battery when you purchase, and the Halo is an addon, so there’s a price difference there. They both have the sear zone, so I’d choose between the two based on if I needed to move them in and out each time I used them. If it stays in place, I’d go with the Halo, and if it needs to move, I’d go Pit Boss.

Final Thoughts

But, maybe you disagree, and you can let me know down in the comments which one would win for you. I look forward to chatting in the comments. If you’re thinking about making a purchase of any of the grills or items from this article, you can support our channel when you use our links below. It’s supporters like you who keep our testing going.

Quick Links to the products mentioned in this post and video:

• Grilla Chimp 2.0 portable pellet grill (Save 15% on select Grilla products: BBQLAB)
• Grilla power station (Save 15% on select Grilla products: BBQLAB)
• Cuisinart portable pellet grill or here
• Pit Boss Battery powered pellet smoker or here or here
• Halo Prime 300
• Halo Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery Pack
• Z Grills Cruiser 200A
• Traeger Tailgater 20 or here
• Traeger Ranger or here
• GMG Trek Prime 2.0
• Trek Prime cart
• Essential Equation SPG rub
• Feathered Formula chicken rub
• Pork Protocol BBQ rub
• Smokin’ Pecan Pellets (First Time Customers save 10%: BARBECUELAB)
• Thermoworks Signals
• Thermoworks Timestack
• Fontana Elysia outdoor kitchen (Access our negotiated VIP Pricing with code: BBQLABVIP)