2025 model (or 2026) pellet grill recommendations?

What are you wanting to use it for?

If you mostly grill hamburgers and steaks, a pellet grill is not your best option and you are going to be underwhelmed. While you can grill on them, it’s more of a side feature that you can make work vs its actual function. (Although the Recteq FirePro series has bridged the gap some)

Where pellet grills are better is low and slow/smoking. If that’s what you are looking for they are great.

I’ve had a bunch of them. an old Traeger, a RecTec (before they changed to Recteq), a Grilla Grills, even a cheap Zgrill. They all basically work the same, but you are paying differently for build quality, quality parts, etc.

Now I use a Masterbuilt gravity that I like for smoking and just use my Weber performer for grilling. The Masterbuilt gravity is just easy since it uses charcoal and I don’t have. To buy pellets. But it works just like the others.

I have a Pit Boss Competition Series. Love it.

Recteq is still a great brand, but the Lone Star Grillz pellet grill is my recommendation. It's expensive, but it will last a long time.

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My Reqtec bullseye pro gets to 1000 degrees

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The bullseye is different than pretty much all other pellet grills. It’s a direct fire grill that was purpose built for grilling. Almost all others the “grill” part is secondary because it’s basically a big oven fueled by wood pellets.

Newer model pellet grills are making changes with their firebox so that you can get more of a flame, but if your main use is grilling then there are better and cheaper options than getting a pellet grill.

I just got a Weber Searwood 600 pellet grill/smoker. I've long had a Weber Genesis gas grill, Weber kettle, and Weber Smokey Mountain.

I wanted a pellet grill primarily so that I could do a quick smoking job, say a last minute decision to smoke a rack of ribs on a Saturday, without the slight hassle of getting the WSM out of my shed (and returning it later) or fooling with the charcoal of the kettle.

It is good for that so far. Plug in, fill with pellets, turn on, and cook. It's up to temp in a few minutes, and the app is pretty good for monitoring and adjusting temps and timers.

The pros are ease of use and cleanup, and decent (but not heavy) smoke flavor. The cons are that the temps don't seem to run as high as the screen indicates (common complaint per videos out there), and the wheels Weber put on it suck.

The Searwood is supposed to go up to 600 degrees, and it has manual mode to cook wide open with the lid open for grilling (as opposed to smoking). My experience so far is that it is just fair for grilling. My gas grill with GrillGrates will put a MUCH better and quicker sear on a steak. I do want to experiment with putting a couple of GrillGrates on the Searwood to see if that helps it.

The Basement Hangout is a YouTube channel by a group of regular guys in Virginia that is fun to watch and features several cooks with the Searwood, several in competition with the Reqteq Flagship 1100 or Masterbuilt Gravity. The tasting results were usually neck and neck, but the Searwood got the final nod over Reqteq based a lot on versatility (ability to use rotisserie griddle, etc.) and smaller footprint on the deck.

The Searwood comes in a XL size, but the regular 600 was plenty for my needs, and I figure it also burns less pellets than a bigger one.

Here is one of the videos from The Basement Hangout competition series.

Camp Chef Woodwind Pro series has the same capabilities of adding wood chips.

I appreciate everyone's feedback.

If you’ve got the scratch, I recommend a Yoder. Pricey, but built like tanks. I have a R640 that has been awesome. Recteq is still a damn good brand too.