The Z Grills 7002C2E is part of our test for the best pellet grill of 2025, which we recently published. We took 5 wood pellet grills under $599 and pitted them against each other in over 20 categories to determine which wood pellet grill is the best in this price range.
But today we’re talking about the Z Grills 700 series, which gets its name from the fact that the pellet grill has a cooking surface of 700 square inches. Let’s start by going through the technical specifications of this appliance.
The main grate measures 26 inches wide and 19 1/2 inches deep and is made of porcelain-coated steel. The upper rack measures 26 inches wide and 7 1/2 inches deep and is also made of porcelain-coated steel.
The cooking chamber has a vertical height of 9 inches, which is important if you want to smoke the Thanksgiving turkey.
This wood pellet grill weighs just over 110 pounds and can hold up to 24 pounds of wood pellets at a time. There is even a viewing window for the wood pellets in the pellet hopper so you can see the pellet level at all times while cooking. I really like this feature as I constantly forget to add wood pellets to my grill before I start grilling.
The main cooking surface offers 504 square centimeters of cooking surface, and the upper rack adds another 193 square centimeters, for a total of 697 square centimeters of cooking surface.
The digital PID controller is adjusted with a single knob to control the temperature and has a range of 180 to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. There is also a Smoke setting below 180 and a High setting above 375, which reached the 500 degree range in our test.
As far as the build quality of this wood pellet barbecue is concerned, we tested it with our digital caliper gauge and came up with a measurement of 2.11 mm for the thickness of the lid and 1.55 mm for the thickness of the housing.
The grill is fitted with 2 lockable castors and 2 large wheels to make it easy to move. We have found that if you lift the pellet grill by the handle and keep the castors off the ground, the large rear wheels make it easy to move through grass and softer dirt when necessary.
The 700 Series controller from Z Grills is a PID temperature controller, which is part of the new trend in wood pellet grills that has been seen recently. Previously, the controllers were timed duty cycle or standard digital controllers, but the PID temperature controller is more efficient in the way it controls the temperature. It is predictive, which means that the temperature does not fluctuate as much over time.
Let’s take a look at some of the dishes we have prepared with the Z Grills 700 pellet grill.
Wir begannen mit einer Schweineschulter für Pulled Pork, die wir langsam und schonend grillten. Wir haben das Schweinefleisch mit einer 50/50-Mischung aus Salz und Pfeffer gewürzt, den Pelletgrill auf 250 Grad eingestellt und die ersten 3 Stunden nicht einmal den Deckel geöffnet.
We sprinkled the pork with water to keep it moist and wrapped it in aluminum foil when it reached an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Once it reached 200 degrees, we took the shoulder off the wood pellet grill and let it rest in a dry cooler for a few hours before removing the bone and carving the pork for sandwiches.
The next dish was a sparrow chicken with Heath Riles Apple BBQ Rub. We cut the backbone out of the chicken so it would lay flat on the grill and cook evenly. We set the pellet grill to 350 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes, until it was a nice golden brown color and the breast reached an internal temperature of 160 degrees. We took it off the wood pellet grill, covered it with foil to bring the temperature up to 165 degrees, and served it to the family for dinner.
For a really hot and quick test, we set the wood pellet grill to the highest setting to see if we could really grill on this unit like we would on a gas grill. There is no direct access to the flame on this grill, but we wanted to see if we could get grill marks on the included grate and GrillGrate aluminum grate system.
We took 2 boneless chicken thighs seasoned with Pit Boss Champion Chicken Rub, placed one on each grill and set a timer for 5 minutes. After the timer went off, we flipped the meat over and this is what they both looked like. Turns out you can get sear marks on a wood pellet grill without a flame access door.
We tested this unit to see how long it would run with an empty pellet hopper that we filled with exactly 4 pounds of wood pellets. We started the auger and turned it off as soon as the first pellet hit the burn bin. We reset, turned on the pellet grill to stabilize it at 250 degrees, and that grill ran for 3 hours and 39 minutes with 4 pounds of wood pellets before dropping below 230 degrees and continuing to lose heat until it was turned off.
We used our Thermoworks signals to measure the exact temperature of the wood pellet grill compared to the programmed temperature of the Z Grill 700 pellet grill.
We also measured the time it took this wood pellet grill to go from a cold start to 250 degrees. We magnetically attached our Thermoworks Big and Loud Timer to the front where we could see both numbers, and it reached 250 degrees in just 11 minutes and 38 seconds.
The Z Grills pellet grill comes with a standard warranty of 3 years. Further details can be found on the Z Grills website.
Was halten wir also insgesamt von diesem Z Grills 7002C2E Holzpelletgrill? Dies ist ein sehr konsistenter Pelletgrill, der die Temperatur in einem sehr engen Bereich hält, egal ob Sie bei 250 zum Räuchern oder auf hoher Stufe für ein heißes und schnelles Anbraten kochen.
It’s a wood pellet grill that can both smoke and sear, and it was the most efficient grill in our test group of 5 units. A 24-pound pellet hopper means you can cook for over 20 hours at smoking temperatures, so a brisket can be cooked overnight. There’s not much to fault with this unit, and in the sub-$600 price range, it compares very favorably to the competition.
