Background

At some point I was introduced to the wonders of the pellet grill. Moving from a typical gas grill to a pellet grill spoiled me, and when I changed living situations, I was without one. This post has some of my thought process in how I selected the Grilla Grills “Chimp” as my first pellet grill.

If you’re not familiar with what a pellet grill is, how it works, and the difference between smokers, gas grills, pellet grills, etc. Pit Boss has article that explains it well.

Up to this point, I had been able to use two different pellet grills: the Yoder YS640S, and the Traeger Ranger. These two grills are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size.

My Requirements

I was looking for something that was portable, but large enough to feed a half-dozen people. I considered the following parameters, with no particular priority:

• Weight / Dimensions
• Cook Space
• Hopper Size
• Power Source / Consumption (for traveling)
• Temperature Range
• Connectivity (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.)
• Available Maintenence Parts / Diagrams
• Price (obviously)

Comparison

After perusing reddit/ random forums/ other websites, I concluded that the strictly “table-top” / no external hopper style pellet grills wouldn’t fit my bill (ex: Traeger Ranger). I narrowed it down to these options:

• Green Mountain Grills “Davy Crockett” / “Trek”
• Traeger “Tailgater”
• Rectec “RT-380 Bullseye”
• Camp Chef “Pursuit 20” / “Portable”
• Grilla Grills “Chimp”

Green Mountain Grills “Trek”

This grill would be a great option to feed 3-4 people, and only use in a table-top scenario. The fact that you need to purchase separate legs or a cart if you want to use it outside a table-top scenario was one of the deal-breakers for me. The other deal-breaker was the hopper size and cooking space. I did like the price point, coming in $100-200 below the other options (I guess you could use that extra money to buy the legs).

Pros

• Price: At $400, this came in as the lowest-cost selection
• Power: I thought it was cool that you can use either 12VDC or 120VAC to power the grill, meaning you may not need to use a power inverter to power it using a cars battery.
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi control (LAN and Remote?) is a plus.

Cons

• Portability: Unfortunetely, Green Mountain Grills doesn’t make the “Davy Crockett” grill any longer – it was replaced with the “Trek”. The old model had legs that when folded up provided a carrying handle, and when folded down provided short legs for the grill.
• Size: This grill fell on the edge of the “table-top” style grills I was trying to avoid with its 219 sq-in cooking space, and small-ish hopper size. For an additional cost, you can get extension legs or a cart to use.

Traeger “Tailgater”

This grill is mentioned in all the “portable pellet grill” comparisions I found, and often is the top option listed.

I checked this grill out in person, and I don’t feel like there are really any pros or cons. For the price ($530), I felt like some of the other options had better construction and may have better customer service / maintainability than this big-name-brand. I also instinctively avoid big-brands because of those reasons, so that may be apart of it. Maybe the Tailgater is great, it just didn’t speak to me.

Camp Chef “Pursuit 20” / “Portable”

This was a very close second option with the best portability. The only real downside was the connectivity, having no WiFi enabled controller.

Pros

• Portability: When folded up, the wheels on the legs can be used to drag this grill “suit case” style, which is pretty handy
• Ash Cleanout: The ash tray from the fire pot is removable, so you can easliy clean it out without having to use a vacuum.

Cons

• Connectivity: The controller does not have WiFi or Bluetooth, which is a bit of a downside when compared to all the other options that do have one and/or the other

Grilla Grills “Chimp”

This is the grill I went with. Maybe it was the primate-themed logo and naming that got me, or maybe it was some of the features this grill had. One thing is certain, this option hurt the wallet a bit more coming in as the most expensive option ($600).

Overall, the specs checked out. This has a large hopper size, good cooking space, not too large size when the legs are extended or folded, and good connectivity. The weight is the heaviest of all the options, coming in at 90 lbs, but this didn’t bother me for two reasons:

1. Heavier design means thicker, stronger, better materials are being used in manufacturing
2. I’m not a wimp, so 90 lbs isn’t a big deal to me for moving around

From just looking at the above spec comparison, it isn’t very obvious why I chose this option. The Grilla Grills brand doesn’t appear to be well-known – I found out about this grill and company on some Reddit posts, but all the comments and replies about this grill were very positive. Watching some of the product demonstrations on their website, and looking deeper into the company and this grill in particular made it stand out to me.

The Chimp has double wall insulation. I didn’t see this mentioned in any of the other grill features, so I imagine this is the only one that has this. On the lower half of the grill, there are two walls, providing much better insulation in colder temperatures. I plan on using this grill year-round, and live in a colder climate, so this was a huge plus for me.

Grilla Grills currently has free-shipping within the U.S. (maybe Canada as well, but I don’t care about them) and the grill arrived within a week or two to my front door. It comes with the everything you need to grill out-of-the-box, except a grease bucket (I used a cut-up aluminum can at first), and pellets.