Budget pellet grills are the part of this market where it is easiest to buy badly, because the category has a specific trap: a cheap pellet grill that cannot hold a temperature is worse than no pellet grill at all. The entire reason to own one is that it removes fire management, and a unit that swings 60°F has removed the fire management and given you a different problem instead.
So the useful question about the Z Grills 700-Series is not whether it is cheap. It is which corners were cut, and whether any of them touch that core job.
What survived the price cut
PID temperature control. This is the spec that matters most and the one we would refuse to compromise on. A PID controller continuously adjusts the auger feed based on how far the chamber has drifted from the set point and how quickly, rather than simply switching on and off on a timer. The result is a much tighter band around your target. Z Grills states PID control on this series, and it is the single reason this grill belongs in a brisket conversation at all.
Cook area. Z Grills states 697 sq in. A whole packer is roughly twenty inches long, and this lays one flat without folding the thin end of the flat back on itself — which matters more than it sounds, because a folded flat cooks unevenly and the doubled section finishes differently from the rest. Cook area is the spec buyers most often under-purchase, and small budget pellet grills are exactly where that mistake happens.
With those two intact, the fundamental proposition works: set 250°F, put a packer on, and the grill holds it while you do something else.
Where the money was saved
No WiFi on the base model.The most visible omission, and the least consequential for brisket. You should be running your own probes anyway — a grill’s built-in sensor reports the temperature at the sensor, not in your meat, which is the point made throughout brisket on a pellet grill. A separate wireless thermometer does the monitoring job properly and costs far less than the gap to a connected grill.
Lighter construction. The genuine compromise. Thinner steel holds less heat, so the chamber recovers more slowly after the lid opens and is more exposed to cold and wind. The practical effect on brisket is mostly higher pellet consumption in winter rather than a worse result — but if you cook year-round somewhere genuinely cold, weigh it.
Fit and finish. Latches, castors, the general feel. Nothing that changes the brisket.
The smoke question, honestly
Every pellet grill produces less smoke flavor than a charcoal or wood-burning cooker, and this one is no exception. The mechanism is not brand-specific: a fan-fed fire pot burning compressed sawdust combusts very efficiently, and the aromatic compounds we taste as smoke are products of incomplete combustion. A cleaner fire is a milder one.
If you buy this grill expecting offset-style smoke you will be disappointed, and that is worth saying plainly rather than discovering after twelve hours. The mitigations — front-loading smoke while the surface is still cool, running the low smoke setting for the first two to three hours, wrapping later, using 100% hardwood pellets rather than filler blends — are all in why does my brisket not taste smoky. They help. They do not transform it.
Who this is for
Buy it if you want unattended brisket at the lowest sensible price, if you are content to run your own thermometer, and if you cook mostly in reasonable weather. It does the core job of a pellet grill without the premium.
Look higher if you want app monitoring built in, if you cook through cold winters, or if you want a grill that will also sear well — the step up to something like the Traeger Woodridge Pro buys build quality and connectivity rather than better brisket, which may or may not be worth it to you.
Look elsewhere entirely if what you actually want is heavy smoke and dark bark. No pellet grill at any price fully delivers that, and the honest alternatives are a gravity-fed charcoal cabinet for unattended operation or an offset if you want to tend a fire. The trade is laid out in pellet vs charcoal.
A note on what this review is
We have not run this grill in a lab and we do not own one. Everything above is reasoned from Z Grills’ published specifications, the physics of how pellet cookers work, and what a whole packer brisket actually requires. Where a figure is not published we say so rather than estimating. That method is set out in full on our methodology page, and it is the same for every product on this site.