6 Best Recteq Pellet Grills for Outdoor Cooking

That first year you process your own hogs, the sheer amount of belly and fat can be overwhelming. You know it represents future bacon and valuable lard, but the process feels locked in the past, requiring skills and equipment you don’t have. This is where modern tools can bridge the gap, not by replacing tradition, but by making it accessible again for the busy homesteader. The Recteq RT-700, known as a BBQ smoker, is surprisingly one of the most versatile preservation tools you can have.

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The Recteq RT-700: Reviving Homestead Skills

A pellet grill might seem like a luxury, a tool for weekend cookouts, not serious homesteading. But its core function—maintaining a precise, low temperature for extended periods—is exactly what’s needed for many traditional food preservation techniques. It’s a modern, automated smokehouse that fits on your patio.

Think of it as a force multiplier for your time. Instead of constantly tending a fire in a drafty smokehouse, you can set a temperature and trust the machine to hold it steady for hours. This frees you up to work on other farm chores, turning a weekend-long project into a manageable task. The RT-700 doesn’t replace the skill; it removes the tedium, letting you focus on the craft of curing, dehydrating, and rendering.

Curing Meats with the Recteq RT-700 Smoker

Curing meat is a foundational homestead skill, turning fresh pork belly into shelf-stable bacon or a ham into a winter centerpiece. The process always starts with the cure—salt, sugar, and often nitrates—long before the meat sees any smoke. The smoker’s job is to either gently cook and flavor the meat (hot smoking) or to add flavor and aid in drying without cooking (cold smoking).

The RT-700 excels at the hot smoking stage. After your bacon belly has cured for a week, you need to bring it up to a safe internal temperature while infusing it with smoke. Setting the grill to 225°F and letting it ride for a few hours is far more reliable than managing a traditional pit. It provides a consistent, repeatable result that’s crucial when you’re dealing with a whole year’s supply of meat.

For true cold smoking, you’ll need an accessory smoke tube, as even the lowest setting on the RT-700 produces some heat. But for many homestead products like bacon, summer sausage, and smoked hocks, a controlled low-and-slow hot smoke is exactly what’s needed. The key is to see the smoker as the final step in a longer process, not the entire solution.

Dehydrating Harvests in Your Recteq RT-700

When the garden explodes, dehydration is a key preservation method that doesn’t involve canning. While a dedicated electric dehydrator is efficient, the RT-700 offers a unique advantage: the ability to add smoke. This transforms ordinary produce into something special.

Set your RT-700 to its lowest setting, often around 180°F, and spread your produce on wire racks. This is perfect for making your own chipotles from ripe jalapeños or creating smoked paprika from sweet peppers. You can also dehydrate herbs like rosemary or thyme, giving them a savory, wood-fired aroma for winter stews.

The tradeoff is pellet consumption. Running the grill for 8-10 hours to dehydrate will use more fuel than a small countertop unit. For this reason, it’s not the most practical choice for bulk-dehydrating sliced zucchini or apples. But for high-value, flavor-infused items, it’s an unbeatable tool. Think of it for batches of jerky, smoked mushrooms, or sun-dried (smoker-dried) tomatoes packed in oil.

Cold Smoking Cheese and Fish with the RT-700

Cold smoking is the art of preserving and flavoring food with smoke at temperatures below 90°F, which prevents the food from cooking. This is how you get firm, smoky cheddar cheese or delicate smoked salmon. The RT-700 itself cannot maintain these low temperatures, but it serves as the perfect chamber for the process.

To do this, you need a separate cold smoke generator, which is typically a small metal maze or tube that you fill with pellets or sawdust and light. You place this device inside the main chamber of the RT-700 without turning the grill on. The grill simply acts as a container to hold the smoke and the food.

This method gives you incredible control. You can cold smoke a dozen blocks of cheese or several fish fillets for a few hours, then wrap and age them.

• Cheese: Works best on cool days to prevent sweating. Hard cheeses like cheddar, Gouda, and provolone are ideal.
• Fish: Requires a proper brine or cure first to draw out moisture and ensure food safety.
• Other items: Nuts, salt, and even hard-boiled eggs take on incredible flavor with a light cold smoke.

Roasting Garden Vegetables on the Recteq RT-700

Roasting vegetables over a wood fire brings out a depth of flavor you simply can’t get from a kitchen oven. The RT-700, set to a higher temperature like 400-450°F, becomes a wood-fired oven. This is a fantastic way to process a large harvest of root vegetables, squash, or peppers quickly.

Toss quartered onions, whole carrots, chunks of butternut squash, or whole bell peppers in a bit of oil and seasoning, then spread them on a pan or directly on the grates. The high, dry heat caramelizes their natural sugars while the wood smoke adds a savory element. Roasted vegetables can be eaten immediately, frozen for winter soups, or pureed into sauces.

This method is especially useful at the end of the season when you have a mix of everything. A big batch of mixed roasted vegetables is a versatile ingredient to have on hand. It’s a simple, direct way to turn your harvest into ready-to-use food with minimal effort.

Baking Rustic Breads with the Recteq RT-700

A true wood-fired oven is a dream for many homesteaders but a significant investment in time and space. The RT-700 can produce surprisingly similar results for rustic, crusty breads. The key is using its ability to hold a high, steady heat and trapping steam.

To bake bread, preheat the grill with a heavy pizza stone or a cast iron Dutch oven inside to 450°F or higher. The radiant heat from the stone or pot is what creates that amazing "oven spring" and a crisp bottom crust. For a great crust, you need steam, which can be achieved by placing a pan of hot water in the grill or by baking the loaf inside the preheated Dutch oven with the lid on for the first half of the bake.

This isn’t for your daily sandwich loaf, as the preheat time and pellet use make it less efficient than an indoor oven. But for a weekend sourdough or a special focaccia topped with garden herbs, the smoky, wood-fired flavor is unmatched. It connects the grain you might grow or source locally with the wood that fuels the fire, completing a satisfying homestead cycle.

Rendering Lard and Tallow on the Recteq RT-700

Rendering fat is a messy, smelly job, but the resulting lard and tallow are liquid gold in a self-sufficient kitchen. Taking this task outdoors is a game-changer, and the RT-700’s steady, low heat is perfect for the job.

Simply chop your pork fat (for lard) or beef suet (for tallow) into small pieces and place them in a large, heavy-bottomed pot like a cast iron Dutch oven. Set the grill to a low temperature, around 225-250°F, and let the fat slowly melt and clarify over several hours. The low, indirect heat prevents scorching, which can ruin the flavor of the final product.

Once the fat has rendered and the solid bits (cracklings) have browned, you carefully strain the liquid into clean jars. This hands-off method turns a dreaded chore into a simple background task. The resulting shelf-stable fat is essential for flaky pastries, high-heat frying, and even making soap or candles.

Integrating the RT-700 into Your Food Traditions

A tool is only as good as the system it’s part of. The RT-700 shines when you stop seeing it as just a barbecue and start viewing it as a central piece of your food preservation workflow. It connects the garden, the pasture, and the pantry.

In the spring, it can smoke early-season fish or cheese. In the summer, it becomes a wood-fired oven for vegetables and bread, keeping the heat out of your kitchen. In the fall, it’s the workhorse for dehydrating peppers, smoking sausage, and rendering the fat from butchering day.

It’s not about replacing old ways but augmenting them with modern reliability. You still need to know how to properly cure meat and when to harvest vegetables. The RT-700 just provides a consistent and controllable heat source, giving you a better chance at success and saving you precious time—the most valuable resource on any homestead.

Ultimately, the best tools are the ones that help you do the work that matters. By using the Recteq RT-700 for these traditional tasks, you’re not taking a shortcut; you’re building a more resilient and productive homestead. You’re preserving food, and just as importantly, you’re preserving the skills and traditions that give this life its meaning.