Camp Chef Apex 36-Inch Pellet Grill Review (2026): The Hybrid

Why you should trust this review

I bought the Camp Chef Apex 36 and ran it through 11 months of weekend smokes and weeknight grilling. Camp Chef did not provide the unit and had no part in this review. My affiliate arrangement pays the same regardless of which grill you buy, so I have no reason to push this one over a Traeger or a Pit Boss beyond what it actually does in the backyard.

A pellet grill is a multi-season, often multi-year purchase that lives outdoors through weather, so a first-cook review tells you very little. What matters is how the hopper feeds over months, how the searing setup holds up to repeated cast-iron heat, whether the Wi-Fi stays connected through a real cooking season, and whether the thing still holds temperature after most of a year exposed to the elements. Eleven months of cooks gave me a read on all of that. The honest framing here is that this grill is solving a specific problem that every standard pellet smoker shares, so the whole review hinges on whether that fix is worth the higher price.

How we evaluated

I cooked on the Apex 36 across 11 months in all conditions, from summer cookouts to cold-weather smokes. I ran long low-and-slow sessions for smoke flavor and bark, including multiple briskets and pork shoulders, and used the four included meat probes alongside the Wi-Fi app to track pit and food temperatures throughout. I tested the Sidekick gas burner specifically for searing, running cast iron on it to reverse-sear steaks that came off the pellet side.

I leaned on the slide-and-grill direct-flame feature for higher-heat grilling, monitored hopper feed and auger behavior across the full pellet capacity, and watched temperature stability against the rated 160 to 650F range. Throughout, I compared the Apex against the standard pellet-grill experience offered by a Traeger Pro 575 and a Pit Boss 820 Pro to judge where the hybrid design earns its premium.

The Sidekick sear: this is why you buy it

Pellet grills are superb at smoke and mediocre at searing, because the firepot simply cannot generate the screaming direct heat that a good crust needs. The Apex’s answer is the Sidekick, a 24,000 BTU gas burner on a swing-out arm. It gets cast iron blazing hot for a proper sear, which means you can run a brisket or a thick steak low and slow on the pellet side, then finish it with a real crust on the Sidekick without firing up a separate grill.

In practice this is the feature that changes how you cook outside. A reverse-seared ribeye, smoked to temperature then crusted on the Sidekick, came out with the kind of edge-to-edge sear a pellet grill alone cannot touch. It removes the single legitimate complaint people have about pellet cookers. The honest caveats are that the Sidekick runs on propane, so you need a tank that is sold separately, and it is an additional gas system to manage. But for anyone who wants one outdoor box that both smokes and sears, the Sidekick is the whole argument, and it delivers.

Cook surface and capacity: built for real cooks

The 1,236 square inches of total cook surface is genuinely large, enough to hold three packer briskets at once, which puts this in serious-cook territory rather than weekend-burger territory. For anyone who cooks for a crowd or batches multiple cuts in a single session, that capacity is the difference between one cook and two. The slide-and-grill design also opens direct flame access across the grates, so you are not limited to indirect heat the way a sealed pellet grill leaves you.

The 22-pound hopper is sized to match. It fed roughly 24 hours of low-and-slow on a fill in my testing, which means an overnight brisket runs start to finish without a refill or a 3 a.m. check on the pellet level. That kind of unattended runtime is exactly what you want from a smoker, and combined with the large surface it makes the Apex a true full-day cooker rather than something you babysit. The temperature range of 160 to 650F covers everything from cold smoking to high-heat grilling on the pellet side alone.

Wi-Fi, build, and living with it over 11 months

The Wi-Fi app handles pit-temperature control and monitors all four meat probes, and it earned its keep on long cooks. Being able to check a brisket’s internal temperature from inside the house at hour ten, and get an alert when it hits target, is the kind of feature that turns an all-day smoke from a chore into something you can actually live around. Across 11 months the connection stayed reliable through a full cooking season rather than dropping off after the novelty wore off, which is more than I can say for some competitor apps.

On build and longevity, the Apex held up well through nearly a year outdoors. Temperature stability stayed consistent and the cooker did not develop the hot spots or control drift that age can bring. The one honest gripe is noise: the auger feed grinds noticeably louder than a Traeger, so the pellet feed is something you hear during a quiet cook. It is not a performance issue, just an acoustic one. The other ownership notes are the obvious ones for a premium hybrid: the price climbs into kamado territory, and that separate propane tank for the Sidekick is an extra to budget for.

Who should buy the Camp Chef Apex 36?

Buy it if you want one outdoor cooker that does both smoke and sear properly, if you cook for crowds and need real capacity, and if you value unattended overnight runtime and reliable Wi-Fi monitoring. The Sidekick gas burner removes the only legitimate complaint about pellet grills, and across 11 months the whole system held up to weekend-cook abuse. For a serious backyard cook who is tired of running a smoker and a separate grill, this is the consolidation.

Skip it if your budget is the priority, where the Pit Boss 820 Pro gives you a large surface and a slide-plate sear for much less, or if you only want straightforward smoking, where the Traeger Pro 575 is a quieter, cheaper entry point. The Apex is a premium hybrid, and if you do not need the dedicated gas sear, you are paying for capability you will not use.

The verdict

The Camp Chef Apex 36 is the most versatile outdoor cooker I have run, and the Sidekick gas burner is the reason. It smokes like a proper pellet grill with a huge surface, a 22-pound hopper good for an overnight cook, and reliable four-probe Wi-Fi, then sears like a gas grill when you swing out the Sidekick. The honest costs are a kamado-level price, an auger that grinds louder than a Traeger, and a propane tank sold separately. But if you want a single box that genuinely does both jobs well, the Apex earns its premium.