Best Grills for Smoking
Based on our tests, these are the best grills for smoking—charcoal, kamado, pellet, and yes, even gas grills hit the mark
By Paul Hope
You don’t need to buy a separate smoker to make mouthwatering barbecue. A great grill equipped for indirect cooking can perform double duty—from grilling brats and burgers to smoking a beef brisket or pork shoulder.
That said, some grills are inherently better suited to the task of smoking.
With charcoal and kamado grills, you can add wood chips or chunks into the charcoal at any point to create plumes of flavorful wood smoke.
Pellet grills impart smoke almost by default because the wood pellets they use for fuel also add flavor.
Gas models don’t have an advantage here, but they can still get the job done.
“Grill manufacturers have noted that over the past decade, there’s been a lot of interest in smoking foods in the backyard, so they’ve added features like smoker boxes for wood chips to their gas grills to make them more adept at smoking,” says Mark Allwood, CR’s market analyst for grills. At the same time, they’re also branching out by adding pellet, charcoal, and kamado grills to their lineups in order to capture more of the barbecue market.
Here, we’ve highlighted five of the best grills from our tests for smoking, including gas, charcoal, kamado, and pellet grills. For gas and pellet grills, that means the model earns top scores for indirect cooking and temperature range—so it’s capable of holding the low, steady temperature needed for smoking. For charcoal and kamado grills, it means the grill has thoughtful features that make it easy to control the temperatures or add wood.
Just getting started? You can also learn more about different types of grills in our grill buying guide—CR members can jump right to our ratings of grills.
Best Gas Grills for Smoking
Best Charcoal Grill for Smoking
Dyna-Glo DGN576DNC-D
CR’s take: This barrel-style Dyna-Glo charcoal grill makes smoking a cinch. Sure, you can add smoke to any charcoal grill by tossing wood onto the lit coals. But this model has a dedicated door for accessing the coal bed during cooking. That means if you want more smoke midcook, like when you’re making multiple batches of the same thing, you can simply open the flap and add wood chips or chunks. It also has an adjustable coal bed, so you can keep whatever you’re smoking far from the heat by lowering the coals. These two unique attributes help this model earn a rating of Excellent for convenience.
Best Kamado Grill for Smoking
Kamado Joe Classic II 18" KJ23RHC
CR’s take: The Kamado Joe Classic is our top-rated ceramic kamado and comes packed with features, including a few that make it a stellar smoker. It has an elevated rack and comes with a heat deflector for smoking meats, both of which allow you to easily slow-cook, say, a brisket, without drying it out. It also has adjustable dampers and a locking lid, which help control the flow of air so that you can maintain a low and slow smoke for hours on end. It excelled at slow-cooking a pork shoulder in our tests, as well as at cooking a thin-crust pizza over high heat, helping it earn a rating of Excellent for cooking performance.
Best Pellet Grill for Smoking
Traeger Ironwood 650 TFB65BLE
CR’s take: Any pellet grill is great for smoking because pellet grills burn wood pellets for heat and flavor. But this Traeger pellet grill is unique in that it’s the only model in our tests to earn a rating of Very Good for temperature range, meaning it’s adept at holding low temperatures required for smoking. A nice plus: You can change up the smoke by using different pellet varieties, like mesquite and hickory if you want more smoky flavor, and oak or pecan if you want less.
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