The comparison, on published figures
| Gravity (Masterbuilt 600) | Pellet (Z Grills 700 / Traeger Pro 780) |
|---|
| Fuel | Lump charcoal or briquettes, plus wood chunks | Compressed hardwood pellets only |
| Published range | 225–700°F (Masterbuilt) | 180–450°F (Z Grills); 165–500°F (Traeger) |
| One fuel load lasts | Up to 18 hours at 225°F on 12 lb lump / 18 lb briquettes (Masterbuilt) | Hopper rated 28 hours (Z Grills) |
| Needs power | Yes — fan and controller | Yes — auger, fan and controller |
| Published warranty | One year | Three years (Traeger Pro 780) |
| Clean-up | Charcoal ash and grease — a real chore | A small amount of fine pellet ash |
Flavor: gravity wins, by a smaller margin than you think
A gravity cooker burns real lump charcoal, so it tastes like charcoal barbecue, and you can throw wood chunks in with the charcoal for more. A pellet grill burns compressed sawdust in a tiny, very efficient fire, which produces a lighter smoke than a charcoal fire does. Nobody who has eaten both disputes the direction of that difference.
Two honest qualifications. First, the gap is narrowest on fatty, heavily rubbed, sauced food — pulled pork, ribs — and widest on big beef where smoke is the point. Second, pellet owners have a cheap fix: a smoke tube is about ten dollars and adds smoulder time that the fire pot does not provide. There is no equivalent fix in the other direction, because you cannot make a charcoal fire milder.
You will also see a visible difference. Charcoal produces a stronger smoke ring than pellets do, for reasons of fire chemistry rather than quality. It affects photographs more than taste.
Searing: gravity wins outright
This is the clearest practical difference on the page. Masterbuilt publishes a 700°F ceiling for the Gravity 600 and ships reversible cast-iron grates with it. Traeger publishes 500°F for the Pro 780 and Z Grills publishes 450°F for the 700-Series. A charcoal fire with a fan under it reaches steak temperatures; a pellet fire pot does not.
If you want one cooker that smokes a brisket on Saturday and sears steaks on Sunday, that is the gravity cooker and it is not a close call. We take the searing question apart separately in can you grill on a pellet grill, including the three ways pellet owners work around it.
Chores and reliability: pellet wins
Charcoal leaves ash, and a gravity cooker leaves it in a hopper and a burn chamber you have to empty. Grease management is a real job. A pellet grill leaves a cupful of fine ash and most of the work is vacuuming the fire pot occasionally.
The reliability picture follows the same line. A gravity cooker is a hopper, a fan, a controller and a set of temperature sensors, and the warranty on the Masterbuilt is one year. The Traeger Pro 780 carries three, with a dealer and parts network that still supplies components for grills made a decade ago, which is a large part of what the price premium actually buys. Our is a pellet smoker worth it page goes into that argument properly.
Fuel cost and availability
Charcoal is cheaper per hour than pellets and is sold in every supermarket and hardware shop in the country. Pellets are more expensive per pound, come in specific flavors, and — this is the part that catches people out — have to be kept bone dry or they swell and jam the auger. Our pellet storage guide covers that, and lump versus briquettes covers which charcoal belongs in a gravity hopper. The cost-to-run guide has the per-cook numbers for both.
So which one
Buy the pellet grill if this is your first serious cooker, if hands-off is the reason you are interested, if you want a shorter clean-up, or if you want the longer warranty and the easier parts supply. For most people reading this site, that is the answer, and the Z Grills 700 is the value pick while the Traeger Pro 780 is the one to buy if you want the support network.
Buy the gravity cooker if charcoal flavor is what you came for and you still want to set a number, or if you need one machine that both smokes low and sears hot. Go in knowing it asks more of you: more ash, more grease, more to fail, one year of warranty.
And if neither is quite it, the two honest alternatives are a conventional charcoal bullet, which gives the same flavor for far less money in exchange for learning the vents, and the broader pellet-versus-charcoal comparison, which is the same question without a controller on the charcoal side. All four of the cookers named here sit inside our under-$1,000 roundup.
