Traeger Ironwood vs Pit Boss Carbon Series 700

The cheaper one has more grate

That is the fact to start from, because it inverts the assumption most people bring to this comparison.

Pit Boss publishes 718 square inches for the Carbon Series 700. Traeger publishes 616 square inches for the current Ironwood — 396 on the first rack and 220 on the second. The Pit Boss has about 17% more cooking area, and it sits several price bands below.

So whatever the extra money is buying, it is not room. Three things actually separate them, and only one of them will change your weekend.

The hopper is the one that matters

Traeger's hopper holds 22 lb. Pit Boss's holds 13.5 lb, with a cleanout.

On its own that sounds like a minor convenience. Put it next to what a cook actually burns and it stops being minor.

Those pellet figures come from our fuel guide, computed from published consumption rates rather than estimated.

Read the brisket rows carefully. A 12 lb brisket at 225°F needs at minimum exactly one full Pit Boss hopper, and at the top end more than two. That cook runs overnight. The refill lands in the middle of the night, and a hopper that runs dry does not hold temperature.

Ten years against three

Traeger publishes a limited 10-year warranty for the Ironwood. Pit Boss publishes 3 years for the Carbon Series 700.

On a charcoal cooker that gap would barely matter, because there is nothing in a kettle to fail. On a pellet grill it matters more than anywhere else: these machines have an auger, a fan, an igniter and a controller, and those are the parts that break.

Seven extra years of cover on the components most likely to fail is a real part of what the price difference buys. Whether it is worth the whole difference is your call, not ours.

The 15°F at the bottom

Traeger runs 165–500°F. Pit Boss runs 180–500°F. Identical at the top, fifteen degrees apart at the bottom.

For barbecue this changes nothing. Everything on our cook-time pages lives between 225°F and 325°F, and both grills cover that range identically.

Where a lower floor helps is holding finished food warm without cooking it further, and running the very low smoke settings that pellet grills market heavily. If neither is something you plan to do, ignore this row.

What neither of them does

Sear.

Both stop at 500°F, which is roasting heat. Neither will put a crust on a steak, and no amount of price difference changes that — it is a property of the category, not of the brand.

If you want one cooker that both smokes and sears, a pellet grill is the wrong answer entirely and a kamado is the conversation you should be having.

Who each one is for

Take the Pit Boss Carbon Series 700 unless you have a specific reason not to. More grate, far less money, and the same 500°F ceiling. For ribs, chicken, pork shoulder and everything short of an overnight brisket, the Traeger gives you nothing the Pit Boss does not.

Take the Traeger Ironwood if you cook overnight regularly, if a night-time hopper refill is genuinely worth the difference to you, or if ten years of cover on the electronics is how you would rather spend the money.

What you should not do is assume the expensive one is the better cooker. On published specifications it has less cooking area, the same ceiling, and a fifteen-degree advantage at a temperature most people never use.

Before either, work out what you will actually cook. The smoker calculator turns a cut and a weight into a cook window and a pellet figure, and that figure is what decides whether the hopper difference is a real constraint or a row in a table.