Pit Boss Competition Titan Wood Pellet Grill review: a colossal pellet smoker that barely breaks a sweat

Pellet grills – or smokers as we sometimes call them – have been around since the 1980s but until relatively recently they occupied a niche corner of outdoor cooking – ie, too technical for casual grillers and viewed with suspicion by conventional barbecue purists who considered thermostats, sensors, computer processors and augers borderline cheating.

Fast forward to today and pellet cooking has exploded in popularity because it delivers something increasingly rare – consistently brilliant wood-fired food without requiring the user to spend hours hovering over a fire with a look of mild panic.

The appeal of pellet grilling is obvious. Simply fill the hopper with compressed hardwood pellets, set a temperature, press a button and let the grill’s electronic controller, auger and fan manage the rest, whether it’s cooking standard BBQ fare, a low-and-slow rack of ribs, baked salmon, a roast chicken or a seared steak. With this type of grill you get genuine wood-fired flavour and all the theatre of alfresco cooking, but with indoor oven-like temperature precision.

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With this in mind, I recently took delivery of the Pit Boss Competition Titan, a pellet smoker so unapologetically huge and feature-packed that it feels less like a barbecue and more like a permanent outdoor cooking installation. The question is, does all this size and technology actually make for a better alfresco feast? Let’s fire it up and see.

Pit Boss Competition Titan review: price and availability

The Pit Boss Competition Titan occupies premium pellet-grill territory so, as you might reasonably expect, its pricing reflects both its sheer scale and impressive set of features.

In the UK, expect to pay around £1,999, although discounts are already appearing. At the time of writing, stock is available at my personal go-to store Pro Smoke BBQ plus BBQ Land and Appliances Direct, where it’s currently shifting for £1,799.

In the US, the Titan’s official retail price is a much cheaper $1,299, mostly because shipping is far less expensive. US buyers should check out Academy since it appears to be Pit Boss’s main US dealer, at least for this specific grill.

Pit Boss Competition Titan review: design and features

The Pit Boss Competition Titan is a pellet grill designed with the sort of visual presence normally reserved for American pit master competitions, pickup trucks and outdoor Texas kitchens. It looks enormous and imposing in any situation – let alone on a small UK patio – and once you take a peek inside and see its gigantic cooking area, the scale of this monster grill becomes properly apparent.

Like all pellet grills, the Titan thankfully arrived with the cooking section, lid and pellet hopper pre-assembled. However, since this beast is so big and heavy (about 120 kilos), it will require at least two people to haul its main carcass to where you want to assemble it. I’d say it took me a leisurely four hours to build with the odd break and most of the assembly went very smoothly with only one occasion where I had to force a panel into alignment.

The Titan’s construction is reassuringly over engineered with heavy-gauge steel, a substantial two-door cupboard finished with chunky steel handles, four lockable castor wheels and generous prep areas courtesy of fixed and folding side tables plus a sturdy collapsible front table.

The heavy-duty roll-top lid deserves special mention, too. It’s seriously heavy but thankfully it opens with surprisingly little effort, gliding backwards rather than lifting skyward. Its oven-style rope sealing, meanwhile, keeps heat in while providing a soft close.

The headline figure with this smoker is its vast cooking area – a humongous 10,474cm² (162in² in old money) – spread across three deep stainless-steel grill inserts. For the record, the two bottom grills measure 80cm x 42cm (31”x16.5”) and the shallower top one at 80cm x 32cm (31”x12.5”).

But get this, rather than having the grill trays fixed in position like almost all barbecues, Pit Boss has fitted removable sliding mechanisms to each grill shelf so each section can be pulled outward independently like an oven rack, which makes access dramatically easier when you’re juggling briskets, ribs, Moroccan lamb and enough burgers to feed half the street. Better still, unused inserts have dedicated storage at the rear of the grill – a nice touch that prevents them becoming awkward shed clutter.

The Titan’s fuel comes from an equally oversized 18kg (40lb) pellet hopper mounted to the left. It includes a transparent viewing window so you can check pellet levels at a glance and, unusually, an internal divider that allows different wood blends to be mixed or separated for customised smoke flavours.

Central to any pellet grill is the electronic control display that regulates the grill's temperature much like a kitchen oven. In a pellet grill, this is performed using an auger (a long corkscrew mechanism) that feeds the compressed wood pellets in the hopper to a raging fire pot directly under the obligatory heat shield that sits just below the grill grates. The higher you set the cooking temperature, the faster the pellets are delivered and vice versa.

In the past, some pellet grills have caught fire – very rare it must be said – usually because of a poorly-designed auger channel and too much fat build-up as a result of inadequate maintenance. Thankfully, the Titan’s up-hill auger is designed to improve pellet flow efficiency while eradicating the chance of burn-back and auger jams.

If you need to change your pellets from, say, apple to mesquite wood, there’s a large lever on the left of the hopper which you pull to release the contents into a bucket. However, ‘big red button’ syndrome makes this intriguing lever too inviting for inquisitive visitors who may feel the urge to pull it, releasing the contents of the hopper all over the floor. I’m telling you this because a friend of mine did just that, but thankfully managed to close it immediately without too many pellets spilling everywhere. But if there are children about, I would warn them in advance or you’ll be sweeping up pellets for the next hour or so.

The Pit Boss Competition Titan’s control interface strikes a smart balance between simplicity and depth, making it approachable for beginners while offering enough flexibility for experienced pit masters. Dominating the front panel is a bright 10.9cm touchscreen display controller that shows current and target temperatures, pellet delivering status and probe readings at a glance.

The display controller’s main role is precise temperature management from 65˚C to 260˚C (150° to 500°F) in five degree increments. Set the temperature low (around 110˚C) for traditional smoking sessions where ultra long exposure to wood flavour is key. Mid-range settings of around 180˚C work brilliantly well for roasting chicken and vegetables, while higher temperatures transform the Titan into a traditional barbecue grill, and one that can genuinely sear steaks. This is made possible by dint of Pit Boss’s unique Flame Broiler system which is activated by pulling on a handle on the left hand side which opens a series of slates in the heat shield just above the burn pot. If you look through the slats you’ll a raging inferno beneath, and once fat starts dripping below it creates a scenario ripe for naked flame grilling, which is perfect for caramelising steaks.

Furthermore, this model comes with Pit Boss’ proprietary VST (Variable Smoke Technology). VST lets you fine-tune smoke output by adjusting how often pellets are fed and how much airflow is used in the burn chamber. This gives greater control over flavour intensity, allowing heavier smoke for brisket or ribs, or a lighter profile for poultry and roasting, while still maintaining stable cooking temperatures throughout. The Titan’s integrated meat probe inputs, meanwhile, remove much of the guesswork of barbecuing, allowing users to monitor internal food temperatures without repeatedly lifting the lid and losing heat.

The whole process of cooking with this grill is mostly hands off because it allows plenty of time for you to chat to your guests instead of being chained to the grill. You can even monitor and control the Titan’s internal temperature using the Pit Boss app.

Pit Boss Competition Titan: performance

Before I get to this model’s performance, I should add that any cooking system requiring electricity, computer processors and sensors to function should ideally be checked well before guests arrive because things can go wrong where tech is involved.

Thankfully I’ve had no such pre-party shenanigans happen to me and I’ve reviewed many pellet smokers and smart barbecues over the years, but I’m still mindful that they are not like standard charcoal barbecues which will work 100% of the time, mostly because there's nothing but charcoal involved.

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To assess the Pit Boss Competition Titan’s low-and-slow credentials, I loaded it with a rack of pork spare ribs and followed the classic 3-2-1 method: three hours exposed to smoke at 110˚C with occasional apple juice spritzes, two hours wrapped in foil with a splash more juice, and a final hour back on the grate while I coated the ribs with glaze. For the finishing flourish, I raised the temperature to 175˚C for the last 15 minutes to set the glaze while keeping a close eye out for scorching.

The Titan’s performance during the cook was extremely impressive. For the entire opening stage it sat resolutely at 110˚C, deviating by no more than around two degrees either side of target. That level of temperature stability is exactly what you want from a premium pellet grill because consistency, more than outright heat output, is what separates a decent barbecue from an exceptional one.

There was one interesting wrinkle, however. Since I had no option but to cook in direct sunlight, the steel lid eventually absorbed enough heat to trigger a temperature spike in the companion app, which briefly reported 143˚C. This isn’t unique to the Titan, mind, because most pellet grills can produce exaggerated readings when the body is exposed to strong sun. Positioning the grill in shade, under a large parasol quickly calmed things down and restored normal readings.

As for the ribs? They emerged exactly as hoped, with a deep smoky flavour, a shiny lacquered exterior and indulgent, fall-off-the-bone tenderness.

I also tried a whole chicken at 180˚C and it turned out noticeably better than if cooked in my kitchen oven. Pellet grills always seem to hit a sweet spot between convection roasting and gentle smoke, and the Titan absolutely nailed it. The meat remained astonishingly juicy while the skin crisped up beautifully – something domestic ovens often struggle to achieve without drying the breast. Better still, because the chicken sat directly on the grill grate rather than stewing in a roasting tin, the underside browned properly, too, instead of emerging pale and soggy.

Although the Titan comes with two wired probes, I elected to use the superbly reliable wire-free Meater Pro (£129) for all my cooks. This probe syncs with its dedicated phone app to keep tabs on the food’s internal temperatures. I simply inserted it into the ribs and the whole chicken, set my preferred done-ness target and it sent me warnings just before the food was ready and when it had reached the time to take the food off.

It goes without saying that this smoker-cum-grill has become my new go-to outdoor cooker, whether it’s just a quick whip up for my partner and I or a veritable feast for half the village.

I personally find this style of automated outdoor cooking so amazingly effortless and versatile that it's hard going back to standard charcoal and gas. But then I’m no purist and will always take the easy option when hunger strikes.

Pit Boss Competition Titan review: verdict

The Pit Boss Competition Titan is a huge American-sized set-and-forget pellet grill that dominates any outdoor space and delivers impressively consistent, flavourful cooking across a wide temperature range, including searing.

No question, the Titan’s performance is exceptional, but its sheer scale and premium price put it firmly in enthusiast territory rather than something for casual patio or backyard use.