Comparisons · Two kinds of barbecue
Offset smoker or Pellet grill
The argument at the centre of modern barbecue: a fire you manage against a fire a controller manages. Both burn wood, and both smoke well. What differs is who is doing the work — and what happens when the power goes off.
What each one is
Offset smoker
Built for one job and unapologetic about it. The fire lives in a separate box and the food never sees it, which is what allows very long cooks at low temperature — and demands fire management for the whole of them.
Pellet grill
The cooker that proves why energy and smoke are separate fields. It needs mains electricity to run its auger, fan and controller, and it burns wood pellets for heat and smoke — so it is simultaneously an electrical appliance and a solid-fuel fire, and both facts have safety consequences.
Where they overlap
- Both do indirect heat — designed for this.
- Both do smoking — designed for this.
- Both do low and slow — designed for this.
What actually differs
| Aspect | Offset smoker | Pellet grill |
|---|---|---|
| Shape and how it works | Offset smoker | Pellet grill |
| What heats it The energy source sets the ceiling temperature and how quickly the cooker answers a change. | Wood, Lump charcoal | Wood pellets, Electricity |
| What smokes it Separate from the heat, and deliberately so: one cooker in this catalogue draws its heat from the mains and its smoke from wood pellets. | Oak chunks | Pellet combustion |
| Cooking surface | 50–120 cm | 50–90 cm |