Best wood pellet grill for under $750?

Check out RecTec, I’ve been eyeing them.

I have some "Pit Master" type friends, and they're really looking at this one: Gravity Series 560 Digital Charcoal Grill plus Smoker by Masterbuilt.

Camp Chef is another one.

Just bought a pit boss Austin XL from Wally World. I did slot of research and it seemed to be the best bang for my buck at $500. Only con I see is the temp settings go from 250-300-350. That’s not too big of a deal for me. It has a sear capability that goes up to 500. That was important to me. The pit boss brand gets pretty good reviews.

Me and my son put together in 45 minutes. I seasoned and ran it for an hour with no issues. It also comes with 2 temp probes. It seems to be pretty well constructed and about as air tight as you would want. It domes with a hopper that holds 30Lbs of pellets and 1000 sq” of cooking space. That includes the upper rack which I probably won’t use.

Just some advice make sure you prime the pellet cup on first use. Most of these grills have a 2 minute timer to shutoff if they don’t detect pellets. Your auger won’t get them to the burner cup on the first use.

I don’t know about the new ones but my Treager gets used a lot and hasn’t skipped a beat in 7 years. I did replace the heat rod. I like the Yoders too.

2nd a pitboss. Love my 820

I have a camp chef with the sear box, And I love it. That said, almost all of the commodity grade grills (traeger, camp chef, rectec, pitboss etc) are made in China or assembled with Chinese parts. Yoder, fast Eddy, and a few other high end brands are actually made in the us. Doing it over again if find the best sale I could on a cheaper brand to see if I liked pellet cooking, then save up for one of the American units.

I can't give you any advice on which smoker. I've had my eye on a 820 pitboss for awhile. But this Masterbuilt 560 looks nice. Love the idea of Charcoal . Not sure which one, i'm going with yet.

I just bought a Green Mountain Daniel Boone Prime with Wifi a week ago. I was pumped to get this thing. Never owned a pellet grill before, but it seems everyone raved about them so I pulled the trigger.

Bottom line, I'm not impressed and have a little buyer's remorse. About the only positive thing I can say about it is that it's very easy to use. But then again so is my Chargriller Akorn and it cost $300.

My biggest disappointment by FAR is the fact that the pellet grill doesn't produce the smoke flavor I expected it would. It turns out this is a pretty common complaint and I should have researched more. In fact, there are a couple of specific products designed to help with this apparent weakness of all pellet grills (A-MAZ-N smoke tube and Don Godke's Downdraft).

I'm hoping I'll grow to love this thing, but we'll see. I considered the Masterbuilt 560 as well but decided I didn't want to be a guinea pig. Awesome idea that other higher-quality manufacturers will copy if the design proves to be effective. Also, you get the flavor of charcoal, which I've come to realize is far superior to pressed sawdust pellets.

Anyway, to answer your question....if you're set on getting a pellet grill, I'd probably go to Lowes and pick up a Pit Boss for $500. If you want to spend right at $700, get a Green Mountain Daniel Boone Prime (Prime Plus model was just released as well for a little more $$$). If you want to up your budget a bit, I'd get a Rec-Tec RT-590.

I have been looking into pellet grills but read reviews about the Masterbuilt charcoal gravity all weekend and now leaning toward that. My reasons, it gets to 700deg so no need for a sear box. You can put wood chunks in with the charcoal and get a better smoke flavor than pellets. I think I am going to get the larger one.

Yuda I have a Camp Chef pellet grill. No matter the brand, I think most pellet grills have the problem of pushing enough smoke flavor.

I knew that before buying. I wanted something easy enough for my wife to use/monitor while I'm at work if there is a butt or brisket on the smoker.

If you want true smoked flavor, you have to stick with a traditional smoker/grill that uses wood chunks.