Vertical pellet smokers offer a completely new grilling experience. They offer larger cooking volume and better airflow than many of their contemporaries while offering the high temperatures and fuel efficiency of standard wood pellet models. Here are 5 of the best vertical pellet smokers to help you take your barbecue smoking to the next level.
Vertical pellet smokers take the open air of pellet smoking and combine it with the capacity and lightness of vertical smokers.
They offer a completely different cooking experience than other types of pellet smokers, but they’re always engineered when big brands like Pit Boss, Camp Chef, and Masterbuilt get in the action.
At a glance: Our top 5 vertical pellet smokers
But where to start? Here’s my breakdown of five of the best ones out there and things to look out for when shopping for your next barbecue.
Don’t forget to check out our guide to the best pellet smokers
Pit Boss Grills 77550 5.5 Pellet Smoker
Do you want to grill a lot at once? Then you should consider buying the Pit Boss Grills 77550 5.5 Pellet Smoker.
The highlight of this pellet smoker is its 1830 square inch cooking surface on 5 cooking grates. Not only does this thing have a large capacity, but its cooking grates should serve you for a long time thanks to the porcelain enamel.
Also, with the 5 shelves, you have more options for food and shelf arrangement.
Characteristics
- Smoking Capacity: 40 lbs.
- Temperature: 150-400°F
- Cooking area: 1,830 square inches
Pit Boss grills are also characterized by a high pellet capacity. You can load this thing up with about 40 pounds of pellets and use the smoker for multiple sessions without reloading. Remarkably, Pit Boss Grills also boast that 40 pounds of pellets will keep this going for around 24 hours!
Check out our Pit Boss 700FB review
And despite its large capacity, this pellet smoker allows you to easily monitor the cooking process thanks to the large viewing window.
Advantages
- High cooking capacity
- Versatile thanks to 5 shelves
- Durable cooking grates
- Makes it easier to monitor the cooking process
Disadvantages
- Bulky and heavy
- Monitor internal temperatures with digital LED display and meat sample
- Five porcelain coated cooking grates, 1548 square inches. Includes porcelain-coated water pan and heater…
- Hopper capacity over 40 lbs with pellet flushing. More than 24 hours use.
Masterbuilt MWS 330S Pellet Smoker
The Masterbuilt MWS 330S Pellet Smoker is on the other end of the spectrum, focusing on space efficiency rather than cooking capacity. Other than that, it’s pretty cheap and therefore good value.
Masterbuilt claims this thing can hold up to 12 chickens, 2 turkeys, 2 ribs, or 3 pork loins. While this sounds like a comparison, the Pit Boss Grills Pellet Smoker is probably much more needed.
characteristics
- Smoking Capacity: 40 lbs.
- Temperature: 150-400°F
- Cooking area: 1,830 square inches
For added convenience, this pellet smoker features preset cooking and smoking cycles. However, if you want more flexibility, this smoker allows you to control the cooking temperature along with the smoking and cooking time.
One thing we don’t like about this smoker is that it doesn’t have a window to view the food, which can be a major downside for some people. There seems to be some quality control issues with this device as well, so we recommend reading the buyer ratings before purchasing.
Advantages
- Payable
- 4 chrome smoking racks
- Includes meat samples
- Small footprint.
- Not too hard
Disadvantages
- There is no way to check the food from the outside.
- Some quality control issues
- 4 chrome smoking racks
- Probe meat thermometer for excellent results every time
- This controls digital panel on/off, temperature, cooking and smoking time, preset smoking and cooking cycles…
Masterbuilt MWS 140S Pellet Smoker
The Masterbuilt MWS 140S is a more advanced variant of the MWS 330S Pellet Smoker. The two pellet smokers look similar, but there are a few key differences that YOU may already have noticed.
First of all, this pellet smoker has a front window to see the food, which we think is a big plus. Second, the MWS 140S smoker is larger and therefore uses a lot more food.
Characteristics
- Rotisserie Capacity: 12 lbs
- Temperature: 150-400°F
- Cooking area: 1,830 square inches
More specifically, Masterbuilt claims this smoker can hold up to 16 chickens, 6 turkeys, 8 spare ribs, or 8 pork loins. That’s a lot more than the MWS 330S.
Apart from these two differences, the two Masterbuilt pellet smokers appear to be identical. Unfortunately, so are the other unit’s quality control issues.
Advantages
- pretty compact
- 4 chrome smoking racks
- Includes meat samples
- Programmable cooking and smoking times and temperatures
- transparent entrance door
Disadvantages
- Quality control issues
Louisiana Grills Vertical Pellet Smoker
Think the Pit Boss Grills Smoker doesn’t have enough capacity for your smoking needs? Then check out this smoker from Louisiana Grills!
With 6 porcelain coated grills, this thing offers a total cooking area of 2,059 square inches. The 6 shelves not only offer plenty of space, but also allow more flexibility when arranging the food.
Characteristics
- Rotisserie Capacity: 60 lbs.
- Temperature: 150-450°F
- Cooking area: 2,059 square inches
The Louisiana Grills Vertical Pellet Smoker is also said to be able to hold up to 60 pounds of wood pellets, which should be enough for about 35 hours of cooking time.
Of course, with such a large pellet smoker, you can forget about storage efficiency. This thing is also quite expensive, so it’s definitely not a budget option.
Advantages
- 6 porcelain coated grills
- 4 chrome smoking racks
- 2 meat probes included
- Large viewing window
- Large cooking temperature range
Disadvantages
- big and heavy
- Expensive
- Double wall insulation 2,059 square inches Total cooking area 60 lb hopper capacity Heavy duty casters…
Camp Chef XXL Vertical Pellet Smoker
Next, for a more versatile kitchen, consider the Camp Chef XXL Vertical Pellet Smoker.
The most notable thing about this smoker is the variety of cooking racks that come with it: you get standard racks, smoking racks for jerky, and a hanging rack with a dozen sausage hooks.
Read our full Camp Chef XXL review
characteristics
- Rotisserie Capacity: 18 pounds
- Temperature: 150-350°F
- Cooking area: 2,059 square inches
In terms of capacity, this thing seems close to the Pit Boss Grills smoker. However, in our opinion, the Camp Chef Smoker does not make optimal use of its size. Almost a third of its height is legs, which is arguably a waste of space.
The temperature here also ranges from 150 degrees to just 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This will be perfectly acceptable to many people, but the lower temperature limit makes this smoker unsuitable for some high temperature cooking techniques.
Advantages
- 4 standard racks, 3 jerky smoker racks and a hanging rack with 12 sausage hooks
- Double meat probes
Disadvantages
- Short temperature range
- Difficult task
- Includes two meat probes, four standard smoker racks, three jerky smoker racks, a hanging shelf…
- Holes for up to 8 large 12.5″ x 14″ racks
- 150 to 350 F temperature range for slow smoking and baking.
Writer & content creator. BBQ fanatic!
