Now there are either horizontal or vertical pellet smokers to choose from, each with its own abilities and limitations. However, all pellet cookers have the same core strength of making cooking with real wood as simple/easy as it could possibly be.

The wood is just milled and compressed to form a pellet. I say ‘just’, the process is a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the general gist of how wood pellets are made.

Good Food Takes Time And Many People Don’t Have A Lot Of Time To Spare

So when people/media outlets discuss pellet grills/smokers you will often hear and see phrases such as ‘set and forget’. This really gets to the main reason pellet grills and smokers are growing in popularity, they’re a time saver.

For instance, slow cookers in kitchens have become popular for a similar reason, put in the meat and sauce in the morning before you go to work, you come home and that slow cooker has produced amazing fall off the bone meat.

Slow cookers are great for making stews, but you don’t want to eat stew all the time. Sometimes you want brisket, sometimes you want pork butt, hence sometimes you want a pellet smoker.

Who wouldn’t want to be able to produce meat this good while you’re at work?

Therefore, you can really just view a pellet smoker in the same terms as a slower cooker in your kitchen, it just has different abilities. You can prep the meat in the morning, chuck it on the pellet smoker before you go to work etc, come home and enjoy fall off the bone amazing meat with a nice smokey flavour.

Granted, typically the smoke flavour produced by a pellet smoker is not as intense as a charcoal smoker. However, that more subtle smokey flavour comes with the benefit of being able to taste a wide range of smoke flavour options with many different pellet flavours available.

You cannot leave a charcoal smoker unattended for over 8 hours or so when you go to work. Well, you could, but who knows what the results would be. The point being, one of the key reasons for the popularity of pellet smokers is they are a time saver.

So that’s it really, the main appeal of pellet smokers is they can save their owners time while still consistently producing great tasting food. However, some pellet smokers are more independent and produce more consistent results than others.

Look For A PID Temperature Control Panel

Every pellet smoker features a digital control panel that will regulate the temperature inside the pellet smoker. However, some control panels are smarter than others. The cheaper/budget pellet grills typically feature a time-based control panel that turns the pellet feed auger/fan on and off based on an estimated period of time to achieve a set temperature.

Typically, this type of time-based control panel will be able to keep the actual temperature within 25 degrees of the set temperature. The better option is a PID control panel that can regulate the temperature within 5 degrees.

However, while PID temperature controllers are better at more precise temperature control on calm days/nights, they are also much better at adapting to changes in weather conditions such as a change in wind speed/direction for example.

Hence, if we consider the scenario again that you will be away from the pellet smoker for several hours while you’re doing other things a PID control panel will do a better job of keeping the internal temperature constant/accurate, especially if the weather conditions change.

Look For WiFi (Not Bluetooth) Functionality

If you are going to leave a pellet smoker to do its things unattended for several hours it would still be nice to be able to keep an eye on what’s going on remotely. In that case, you should really consider a pellet smoker with WiFi functionality.

You can then use an app on your phone to not only check the internal temperature within the pellet smoker but with the attached meat probes you can see how far along the meat its self has cooked.

You can then adjust the temperature or even turn off the pellet smoker when the meat is done. Or just turn the temperature right down to keep the meat warm until you get home to enjoy it.

Typical examples of WiFi integration is Traeger WiFire and Camp Chef Connect. Now, if you do want to monitor and adjust your pellet smoker while you are away from home you need WiFi and not Bluetooth. Examples of Bluetooth only pellet grills is the Pit Boss Platinum range and Cuisinart pellet grills.

Bluetooth is only capable of short-distance communication. For true WiFi functionality from anywhere with a WiFi/Cellular connection, you need to set up the pellet smoker with your home internet router.

Now, in some cases, this can be a bit tricky, and some pellet smokers have been known to have software gremlins. However, in general, many of those issues seem to have been resolved by many of the pellet smoker manufacturers.

Conclusions On Why Pellet Smokers Are So Popular

So really, there are two key reasons why wood pellet smokers are so popular. Yes, they let you experience the benefits of BBQ smokers. However, they also do that in the most convenient/least time-intensive means possible.

The level of precise control/adjustment you can achieve with a pellet smoker while you’re not even stud next to it (via WiFi) is not achievable with any other BBQ smoker.

So yes, while pellet smokers generally cost more than something like an electric smoker, they are actually cost comparable (often even cheaper) than several kamado charcoal smokers.