Better Pellet Grill: Pit Boss or Traeger

Experimenting with different flavors of pellets is half the fun of investing in a pellet grill. I’ve attempted to be as unbiased as possible and to simply provide background information on the various brands and ideas out there on Pellets used for smoking meat. That also includes the various nuances and silly arguments people in the barbecue community get into. A number of resources and reviews will state they had a significant amount of ash production. You can actually visually see this in the bag itself as the bags will tend to have a lot of pellet dust.

They’re most known for being one of the only pellet brands that use only the hardwoods labeled on their product. To be frank, i’ve never had issues with excessive ash production through the use of these pellets. My pellet smoker (Grilla Grill Silverbac) also never spikes in temperature. Visit Ace Hardware online or in-store today to shop our selection of Pit Boss products. Then, find everything you need to become a master pit boss by browsing our offerings of Pit Boss grill covers and grilling accessories, too.

The only part where it was helpful to have another pair of hands was when we needed to turn the grill on its head to assemble the legs. One person steadying the grill while another puts each leg on was very helpful. The 820 D3 offers about 850 square inches of cooking area total with about 593 square inches of space on the main grate level. There are 8 and a half inches of vertical clearance if you take out the upper rack, which is more than enough room for whole chicken and turkey. This Pit Boss pellet grill has a large hopper capacity and I really like that it includes a hopper viewing window so I can visibly monitor the pellet level without opening the hopper lid. To note, there is no such thing as a “food-grade” pellet – at least there is no “standard” that I can find.

Not only will moisture break down the product, but it will also become a mold or fungus’s new habitat. Additionally, once opened, use the opened bag of pellets first before opening the next one. Bags of pellets that are opened and unused for an pit boss flat top extended time will become oxygenated. You also get a good choice of wood types, with all the usual plus alder, bourbon, and two different gourmet bbq blends. They are a little more expensive than some of the other pellets we’ve cooked with.

Connected to probes, the app let us monitor and adjust the heat, and it prompted us when the time came to turn the meat. Finally, the EX4 costs about as much as the average pellet grill, which makes it a great value overall. Speaking as someone who’s been voted most likely to dig a pit, build a fire, and slow roast meats on a spit on a random Tuesday, just because I can, and have, doesn’t mean I want to. Sometimes, I just want to grill some food quickly with the wood fire taste that’s unachievable with a gas grill.

For both, connectivity packages that allow you to monitor temperature from your phone can be very useful. When it comes to choosing a pellet grill, one of the main specs to consider is the size. For large parties, large families, or events, you will want a grill that has a large cooking capacity. Generally, most people can get a mid-size model, around 24 inches, that will do everything they need it to do. To consistently serve a crowd, we recommend upsizing to a 36-inch model.

Get delicious, wood-fired flavor every time you grill with a Pit Boss pellet grill from Ace Hardware. Combining the benefits of a standard grill and a smoker, these top-rated products are a perfect addition to any home. Cook up delicious burgers, steaks, hot dogs, and other grilling favorites during family get-togethers, tailgates, and special pit boss flat top occasions with your very own wood pellet grill or smoker. Read on to learn more about the features of our Pit Boss selection to choose the best one for your home. This might be controversial to say but depending on how you’re cooking, I’m willing to bet most people wouldn’t be able to make a distinction between brands of pellets.

Pit Boss wood pellets are one hundred percent natural and sourced from North America. High pressure is applied to the sawdust during production allowing the natural juice in the wood to bind the pellets together creating a unique flavor for each blend of pit boss pellets pellets. Since food grade wood pellets are made specifically for cooking, certain hardwoods are chosen due to the flavor and aroma they produce when smoking. We’ll get into which flavors are produced and how they pair with certain foods a little later.

I feel like it’s worth mentioning that this was by far the longest warranty of all the grills we reviewed at this price point. That tells me that Pit Boss has built a quality grill and they have confidence that it’s been built to last a while. We took a whole chicken and spatchcocked it by cutting out the backbone and laying it flat so it would cook evenly.