Pellet Grills, such as those manufactured by Traeger and Campchef, heats and flavours food with hardwood pellets. Unlike gas or charcoal grills, wood pellet grills don’t cook food over an open flame. Rather, pellet grills cook food via indirect heat and smoke. With indirect heat, food cooks evenly with no need to worry about shifting around your chicken to avoid flare-ups and hotspots.

Best Foods for Grilling

Some of the most popular foods to cook on a pellet grill are smoked meats like pulled pork or brisket. However, since a pellet grill functions like an oven, you're not limited to barbecue. With a pellet grill, you can cook steaks, casseroles, sides, desserts, and more. You can even bake bread on a pellet grill.

Cost of the Grill and Fuel

A pellet grill ranges from €500 to €2500. The wood pellets required to fuel a pellet grill typically cost less than €30 for a standard-sized bag of pellets (less than a gas tank).

Pros and Cons

Pros: Grilling is generally considered a healthy way to cook food. That’s because grease and fat melt away from the meat whereas a pan-fried burger cooks in its own grease. However, char from charcoal grills and some gas grills is carcinogenic. That puts pellet grills and smokers ahead of open flame grills since you’re less likely to burn or char your food.

Pellet grills are a versatile cooking tool. They preheat quickly, you can easily change the temperature, and your food cooks evenly and gets a delicious, smoky flavour. Plus, pellet grills can be used with a variety of cooking methods, including smoking, grilling, braising, roasting, and even baking. Plus, you can put your cooking on auto-pilot with Traeger’s GrillGuide® and the WiFIRE® enabled controller with advanced grilling logic and dual meat probes. Just choose your recipe, download to your grill, and you’ll be creating favourites such as juicy roasted chicken, fork-tender smoked pot roast and bread pudding in no time. The Traeger Pellet Sensor will even alert you to add more hardwood pellets if you start to run low. Monitor the entire cook cycle from anywhere at any time through the Traeger App on your smartphone.

Cons: Pellet grills require an electricity source which can make taking them camping or to the beach difficult unless you have a generator or inverter. Some folks will tell you that you can’t get a good sear on a pellet grill, but that’s not true. You can get a traditional or reverse seal on Traeger wood pellet grills because they can reach temperatures of 500 degrees.