In today’s article, we’ll be doing a product comparison for the Green Mountain and Rec Tec portable pellet grills. We’ll pit these products against each other in categories such as price, features and durability to help you decide who makes the best portable pellet grill.
Adding a portable pellet grill to your camping arsenal can give you a serious cooking upgrade for your trips, while also being more efficient. Pellet stoves double as smokers, and they also have a great burn rate that helps to conserve energy and allows you to not concern yourself with acquiring or storing propane.
Pellet grill/smoker combos also offer an excellent wood smoked flavor that’s tastier than what you’ll get with your run of the mill charcoal grill, making them a favorite for camping enthusiasts who also want to cook killer camp food or host the ultimate tailgate party.
However, there’s a super wide range of prices available for these great little grills, so how can you make sure that you’re getting the best deal? Let’s get started with our product comparison and find out.
Green Mountain Davy Crockett Pellet Smoker Grill
Okay, the first product we’ll be looking at is Green Mountain’s Davy Crockett pellet smoker. This is the more affordable of the two products, and it does come with some great features at a great price if you can’t afford one of the more costly options on the market.
The Green Mountain grills are also significantly lighter than Rec Tec, so if space or portability is your biggest concern, then this is probably the way to go. The Davy Crockett weighs just 68 pounds, while the Rec Tec grills clock in at a whopping 160 pounds!
However, despite the Davy Crockett being far lighter than the Rec Tec grills, you’ll still probably need two people to set it up. This is because it’s rather awkward to handle and you’ll likely need help unfolding the legs and setting it down.
The Davy Crockett also includes a power adapter for the electronics which hooks into your car’s cigarette lighter, car battery, or an AC power hook up that goes into the wall. That makes this little grill a great choice for a variety of situations, including tailgating, boating, Rving, and camping. The Rec Tec will require some kind of adapter to do this.
Of course, portability does come at a price, and if you need to cook for a lot of people, then the Green Mountain may not cut it. When comparing Rec Tec vs GMG, it’s important to realize that the cooking area for the GMG grill will be much smaller, making it difficult to feed a large group of campers.
This smoker will be good for around two racks of ribs or 4-6 steaks. Anything over that and you will likely need to consider upgrading to the larger Rec Tec grill. A 20 lb. turkey will touch the sides of this smoker, so keep that in mind before purchasing it.
Many people have also noted that the Green Mountain grills also have uneven cooking temperatures, and that temps on one side can vary by around 15 degrees. This is manageable, but if you’d prefer to not deal with this, then the Rec Tec heats more reliably.
However, both of these grills will be able to heat up above 500 degrees, and they both have a temperature controller which allows you to adjust the settings in 5 degree increments for precision cooking. Click here to check the price for the Davy Crockett grill and compare features.
PROS
- Most affordable option
- Lightweight and most portable
- AC, DC, and battery terminal power
- Folding legs
- Temp monitor phone app
- 3 year warranty
- Easy to assemble
CONS
- Smaller pellet hopper
- Lower quality materials
- Uneven internal temps
- Smaller cook area
- Awkward to carry
Rec Tec RT-700 Bull Pellet Smoker Grill
The Rec Tec RT-700 goes for significantly more money than the Davy Crockett, but it also provides a much larger cooking area. While it’s pretty damn heavy compared to the Green Mountain, if you’re camping with a lot of people they may have to help you lug it out of the truck if they want to eat.
This grill can hold 6 full racks of ribs to the Davy Crockett’s 2, and it’s large enough to cook beer can chickens and full size turkeys if you desire. It’ll be tough to cook a meal for a large group on our first grill, but this one should handle it no problem.
It also has a 40lb pellet hopper vs the Green Mountain’s mere 9lb hopper, and the hopper is engineered in such a way so that the pellets don’t get stuck coming down the shoot. In addition, many people have also found that the Rec Tec pellet grills tend to heat more evenly than the Green Mountain smokers, which can sometimes have cold spots.
A larger pellet hopper will allow you to perform longer cooks, and with a burn rate of approximately 1lb of pellets per hour, that means that the Rec Tec will be good to go for 40 hours without ever having to refill it. Conversely, with only a 9lb capacity, you may need to keep track of your pellet usage for the Green Mountain on some cooks to avoid running out part way through.
Rec Tec’s grills also have more features, and with this product you’ll be able to smoke, bake, sear, grill, broil, roast and dehydrate meats. It also offers a dual meat probe set up for multiple cook temperature monitoring, and a fuel saving, low smoke setting to conserve pellets. It even has a light under the hood to make it easier to see what you’re doing when cooking at night.
The Rec Tec grills are also made much better, featuring an entirely stainless steel cooking chamber which won’t crack or chip like coated materials. In addition, their warranty is twice as long as for the Green Mountain Grills if you ever have any problems.
Rec Tec grills also seem to have better insulation, and they tend to get up to temperature faster than the Green Mountain Grills. Some people have reported that their Davy Crockett has trouble maintaining temperature sometimes as well, but keep in mind that this also depends on the outside temperature and the kind of pellets that you’re using, making it hard to get a conclusive winner here.
Click here to check prices for Rec Tec grills and compare their great features.
PROS
- All stainless steel cooking chamber
- Larger cooking area
- More even heating
- Automatic power down
- Larger pellet hopper
- Dual meat probes
- Lighted cooking chamber
- More cook modes
- Doubles as dehydrator
- Fuel saving mode
- 6 year warranty
- Temp monitor phone app
CONS
- Less portable
- Less power options
- More expensive
- Takes longer to assemble
Winner: Rec Tec Pellet Smoker Grill
For our money, the Rec Tec is the winner here. While the Davy Crockett offers great portability options, the uneven cooking temperature and awkwardness of carrying it kind of take away from that.
The Rec Tec grills are just built to last and they have tons of great features that the smaller Green Mountain grill is missing. Being able to use your smoker to make jerky is a serious bonus, and one that we’d gladly pay more for when it comes to the rec tec vs gmg debate.
If you’re looking for the most diverse pellet smoker grill that money can buy, then how about finishing up your dinner by baking some tasty desserts on your grill? Rec Tec even has recipes available to help out, like their smoked pumpkin pie. Yes, please!
The huge number of features and limitless options available with this grill just makes a Rec Tec too damn good to pass up. While you will spend more upfront to get a Rec Tec, this is a grill that you’ll be buying for life, making it worth the cost in our book.
However, if you’re more interested in portability than features or longevity, then the Green Mountain grill is still an excellent smoker that comes at a great price, as long as you know how to work around the temperature variance and you don’t need all the bells and whistles.
You can also get a mini version called the trailblazer from Rec Tec that weighs in at around 100 lbs, though we prefer the larger version which has more features, a bigger hopper and larger cooking area.
