Best Grills for Smoking

“Grill manufacturers have noted that over the past decade, there’s been a lot of interest in smoking foods in the backyard, so they’ve added features like smoker boxes for wood chips to their gas grills to make them more adept at smoking,” says Mark Allwood, CR’s market analyst for grills. At the same time, they’re also branching out by adding pellet, charcoal, and kamado grills to their lineups in order to capture more of the barbecue market.

Here, we’ve highlighted five of the best grills from our tests for smoking, including gas, charcoal, kamado, and pellet grills. For gas and pellet grills, that means the model earns top scores for indirect cooking and temperature range—so it’s capable of holding the low, steady temperature needed for smoking. For charcoal and kamado grills, it means the grill has thoughtful features that make it easy to control the temperatures or add wood.

Just getting started? You can also learn more about different types of grills in our grill buying guide—CR members can jump right to our ratings of grills.