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Contents
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An offset smoker is a cooking chamber with a firebox bolted to one side: you build a fire of wood splits or charcoal, and you hold the temperature by feeding it and setting the vents, for the whole cook. A pellet grill feeds compressed hardwood pellets from a hopper into a fire pot with an auger and a fan, and a controller adjusts the feed to the temperature you set. Same goal, very different evenings.
The trade-off, point by point
| Pellet grill | Offset smoker | |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | Bagged hardwood pellets, priced per pound ($0.50 to $1.80 a pound in our November 7, 2026 check [calc]) | Wood splits or charcoal, bought by the cord, the bundle or the bag |
| Attention | Fill the hopper; the controller feeds the fire. One hopper lasts the hopper weight divided by the burn rate | Fire tended and fed by hand for the whole cook |
| Temperature | Set on a dial or an app; Pit Boss lists "5° Increments" on most of its controllers | Set by fire size and vents |
| Power | Needs an outlet (Traeger prints "120V AC voltage and 250 watts" on its Ranger and Tailgater pages) or a battery (Pit Boss's portable: "Up to 15 hours of run time on a single battery") | None |
| Smoke | Most at low temperatures, say the makers; smoke-boost modes and smoke boxes add more | From the wood you burn, at any temperature |
| App and alerts | 27 of the 37 grills in our check publish Wi-Fi app control | Only with a separate wireless thermometer |
What a long cook costs in pellets
| Cook (burn rate: Pit Boss rule of thumb) | Pellets burned [calc] | Cost at Pit Boss Competition Blend, 40 lb ($0.50/lb) [calc] | Cost at Z Grills Hickory, 1 bag (20 lb) ($1.80/lb) [calc] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weeknight chicken, 2 hr hot and fast | 8 lb | $4.00 | $14.40 |
| Pork butt, 10 hr low and slow | 20 lb | $10.00 | $36.00 |
| Brisket, 14 hr low and slow | 28 lb | $14.00 | $50.40 |
For the offset side we have no survey of wood and charcoal prices, so we do not put a number on it.
If you want stick-burner smoke from pellets
- Cook low. Traeger: "Food cooked 165° - 225°F will produce more smokin’ flavor to fit your tastebuds than those cooked at higher temps."
- Use a smoke mode. Weber lists a "SmokeBoost setting" on the Searwood XL 600; Pit Boss lists a "P Setting" on most of its controllers.
- Add a smoke box. Camp Chef's Woodwind Pro has a "Smoke Box" that "can be filled with wood pellets, wood chunks, wood chips, even charcoal" (out of stock on November 7, 2026).
- Go vertical. Vertical pellet smokers stack racks above the fire, with big hoppers:
| Smoker | Price (store) | Cooking area | Hopper | Temperature | Connectivity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pit Boss Navigator 3-Series vertical pellet smoker | $649.99 Pit Boss | 1,118 sq in | 50 lb | 130 to 420°F | Wi-Fi: Pit Boss Grills app (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) |
| Pit Boss Sportsman 5-Series vertical pellet smoker | $649.99 Pit Boss | 1,679 sq in | 60 lb | 130 to 420°F | Wi-Fi: Pit Boss Grills app (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) |
| Pit Boss Sportsman 7-Series vertical pellet smoker | $749.99 Pit Boss | 2,015 sq in | 60 lb | 130 to 420°F | Wi-Fi: Pit Boss Grills app (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) |
| Pit Boss Lockhart Platinum pellet grill + smoker cabinet | $899.99 Pit Boss | 2,234 sq in | 40 lb | 180 to 500°F | Wi-Fi: Pit Boss Grills app (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) |
| Pit Boss Navigator 6-Series vertical pellet smoker | $899.99 Pit Boss | 2,224 sq in | 75 lb | 130 to 420°F | Wi-Fi: Pit Boss Grills app (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) |
Either way, outdoors and by the manual. Both burn wood and produce carbon monoxide. Keep the clearances your owner's manual sets, never cook in a garage or an enclosed porch, and follow the manual's start-up and shut-down steps.
Decided on pellets? Compare all 37 grills in the pellet grill comparison and run your cook in the pellet cost per cook calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Does a pellet grill taste as smoky as an offset?
We have not cooked on either for this site, so we will not claim a taste. What the makers say: Traeger writes that "Food cooked 165° - 225°F will produce more smokin’ flavor" than food cooked at higher temperatures, and several brands sell a smoke-boost mode or a separate smoke box (Camp Chef's Woodwind Pro, Weber's SmokeBoost setting) to add smoke.
Is an offset smoker cheaper to run?
It depends on your wood or charcoal price, which we have not surveyed. For the pellet side: at Pit Boss's 2 lb/hr low-and-slow rule of thumb, a 12-hour cook burns 24 lb, $12 to $43 depending on the bag we read on November 7, 2026 [calc].
Can a pellet grill run overnight unattended?
Whether to leave any grill unattended is a question for its owner's manual. What the numbers say: a 28 lb hopper holds 14 hours of pellets at 2 lb/hr [calc]. An offset is fed by hand for the whole cook.