Camp Chef Portable Pellet Review

With the recent explosion of popularity in pellet grills, it was only a matter of time before a top manufacturer made a portable version. The Camp Chef Portable Pellet offers the folding legs, wheels, and transport handle of many portable propane grills but with the control of a backyard pellet model.

Performance Comparison

Output Power

For this section of the review, we consider how much heat each model produces and how quickly the temperatures rise. While it's hard to compare charcoal grills to others because of the inherent process of lighting and tending to these old-school BBQs, we can draw a lot of comparisons when it comes to pellet and propane grills.

The Camp Chef Portable Pellet showed a commendable performance during our output power assessment. With an automated ignition sequence that takes five minutes, it doesn't heat up quite as fast as its gas-powered cousins. However, once it got going, the temperature rose quickly at a steady rate. Using an infrared thermometer, the Camp Chef reached 593°F after warming up for 20 minutes. This is well beyond the recommended searing temperature suggested by most professional grill master.

Control

In our many years of testing portable grills, we have seen dozens of different configurations of dials, knobs, ignitors, vents, and switches. The type and way that these elements are arranged will ultimately dictate how much control you have over the temperature of your grill.

The Camp Chef Portable Pellet has one of the best user interfaces of any model that we've ever tested, providing you an incredible amount of control over your grill temperatures. While you may be used to seeing mechanical knobs and dials on propane grills (or nothing at all on charcoal versions), the Camp Chef has a digital controller. This allows you to select precise cooking temperatures, which is great for cooking BBQ staples like beef ribs. Once the grill heats up to your desired setting, the computer regulates how many pellets are dropped into the burner in order to maintain that temperature.

Other than the digital thermometer inside the grill, the Camp Chef Portable Pellet has two additional probes that display your food's internal temperature. This controlled setup essentially eliminates the guesswork when it comes to cooking large portions of meat, such as tri-tip or ribs. With this model, meals that used to require a seasoned grill guru to monitor a smoker all day can now be cooked by somebody with little to no experience with outdoor cooking. We smoked two rounds of ribs with the Portable Pellet grill – on the second round, we didn't even glance at them until the timer hit ten hours, and they turned out perfectly.

To double-check for any hot spots or dead zones, we toasted white bread on each grill with the purpose of creating a visual heat map of each grill's cooking surface. Although the Camp Chef Portable Pellet isn't perfect, it showed some solid results in this experiment compared to most of the competition.

Portability

For this section, we compared the sizes and weights of the various models. We noted any latches, storage areas, carrying handles, or folding side tables. For the biggest models, we considered whether or not the grills have wheels or rolling handles and how difficult they are to cart around.

This is one area where the Camp Chef Portable Pellet falls really short in a few key ways. The biggest reason we docked points is that this pellet grill needs to be connected to an AC power outlet. If you're looking for a portable grill that will serve as your primary backyard BBQ but can also get stored when it's not in use, this model is ideal. If you're travel-ready with solar panels, power banks, or an outlet on your RV, you're good to go. However, if you're looking for a version to roll with you to the beach or an off-grid picnic area, this reliance on an electrical outlet will probably be a deal breaker.

Aside from the electricity requirement, the Camp Chef is also big and heavy. It has folding legs, wheels, and a handle for rolling, so it gets much smaller than the average backyard BBQ. But it's bulkier than most portable grills that we've tested, and a bit of a pain to haul around.

Cooking Area

Considering that some people might be looking for a grill to tote along for tailgating, base camping trips, or parties, we want to compare the total real estate each model offers for cooking.

The Camp Chef Portable Pellet has a massive cooking area. The main grilling surface offers an area of 250 square inches on its own, but this model also has a removable upper shelf that's the same size. The upper shelf is two individual pieces, so you can choose to only use half if need be.

Wind Resistance

Wind resistance is an important factor to consider depending on the location and time of the year you plan to use your grill. If you're in a fenced-in backyard, the wind might not be as much of a problem as if you're camping in the mountains. We primarily tested this particular model in the high desert of Southern Utah – an area where the wind won't just blow flames out, it can completely blow your grill away.

The Camp Chef Portable Pellet is one of the few portable grills that we've tested that is capable of withstanding gale force winds. This is one aspect where its size and weight are actually a benefit – because it's so heavy, it's pretty unlikely that it will get blown over. But the main reason that we awarded it such a high score for this metric is how well it continues to cook in high winds. The burner is located deep in the grill body and well protected from the elements. With an electric ignitor, slow-burning pellets, and a flame deflector, it's already more wind resistant than most gas models. Add in a large heat distribution plate that doubles as a grease trap, and the actual cooking flame is hardly affected by wind gusts.

Should You Buy the Camp Chef Portable Pellet?

The Camp Chef Portable Pellet is a fantastic option if you don't mind the AC power requirements or its size and weight. There's no doubt that this grill is cumbersome, and the need for electricity is not ideal. But the cooking power, cooking area, and wind resistance offered by this model are awesome. The combination of a digital user interface, a self-regulating electric pellet dispenser, and three individual digital thermometers offer an unparalleled level of temperature control. We heavily recommend this model to RVers looking to add a pellet grill to their travels. But this model is also enticing for serious base campers, tailgaters who want to impress, and people who want a high-performance backyard smoker that they can pack away when it's not in use.

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