Charcoal and wood pellet

Wood pellet smokers are all the rage these days, and for good reason! A wood pellet smoker is easy to use, and they’re great for maintaining a constant low temperature, perfect for smoking. But people often ask, “What is the better option?”

Compare the difference between a wood pellet smoker and charcoal smokers.

Ease of Use
Wood Pellet Smoker:
Using a wood pellet smoker is as simple as filling the feed system with pellets, and setting the cooking temperature. To turn the the temperature up, you’ll need to add more pellets to the fire at a faster rate. Doing so will create a hotter fire, and visa-versa.
Charcoal Smoker:
With a charcoal smoker, it’s not quite as easy as just lighting the grill. You’ll have the added prep time of lighting the charcoal which can take about 20-30 minutes. Controlling temperature with a charcoal smoker can be a bit of a learning curve. In order to increase or decrease the temperature, you’ll have to learn how to control the air flow.

Versatility
Wood Pellet Smoker:
Pellet systems are designed to be more like smokers than a grill. They’re great for cooking meat at constant lower temperatures. This is because higher temperatures are usually a bit harder to reach and maintain with pellets. Pellets burn quicker in comparison to charcoal.
Charcoal Smoker:
With charcoal, you can easily cook at high or low temperatures by controlling the air flow. You can grill hot and fast, or smoke low and slow.

Taste
While there is still a nice smokey taste that comes from the wood pellets, when it comes to taste, most people still prefer charcoal over pellets. The rich smoke-infused flavor no matter what you’re cooking with charcoal is hard to beat.

Clean Up
Wood Pellet Smoker:
When it comes to cleaning up, pellet smokers are a little less maintenance. In general, they require a regular cleanup after every couple of cooking sessions.

Charcoal Smoker:

While with charcoal, you’ll need to clean up the ashes after each time you use the grill. However, the firebox in our models are designed with damper plates and a slide-in drawer with a charcoal/wood basket and ash pan. This feature also makes loading fuel and dumping ash quick and easy with less mess.