Yoder YS640 Pellet Grill

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striper

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Dec 10, 2009
188
13
Oak Harbor, WA
 As stated elsewhere I'm now the owner of a Yoder Pellet Grill.  I placed the order for it last Monday morning and it arrive at my place yesterday afternoon. I also ordered it with the Second Shelf so I can really load this thing up. First impression was, this thing is built like a tank.  It came 95% assembled and wrapped and strapped to a pallet.  After getting it unpacked, took a few minutes to read through the instruction book.  Then rolled it outside and finished putting it together.  Only mashed 1 finger getting it together.
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 T  TheHeat Shield/Grease Tray is one piece of heavy metal.  Then proceeded to load up some pellets I had laying around and did the first firing and recommended burn in.  Took about 30 minutes to get up to 400 degrees and then maintained that temp + or - about 5 degrees for the next hour.  I took off then for a couple of beers with friends and came back a couple of hours later.  Since it was still light out I decided to try a low heat burn, so hit the switches, set the temperature at 170, and grabbed a cool one while it went to work.  After ignition the temperature went to 195 then settled back and stayed at 170 for the 20 minutes I watched it.  While I didn't notice very much smoke, other than on startup, you could certainly smell the wood burning. 

Next test will come tomorrow when I load it up with a batch of Salmon to smoke.    Gotta get used to how it cooks real quick as I have a small shin dig going on here the 3rd featuring Baby Back Ribs.

Joe
 
Congrats on the new smoker.  Hopefully the Yoder will be a better success than your poor experience with the 2 Traegers.

You do know you need to unlimber your camera and take a couple of Qvues of the smoker so we can get a better idea of what you bought.  Some inside views too, if you would.  I went to the Yoder site and they just give you an exterior view.  The YouTube views sure make this look like a sweet unit.   The guy sure is big on Cherry Dr Pepper.  Looks like you're still on an electrical cord leash though.

How are you going to fit that in your Monster Motor Home?
 
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YEA!!!

Waiting patiently For Your Review!

I'm interested in on myself

Todd
 
I'll tell Joe to get off the stick and get back over here with some photos.  In the meantime, you can see some views over on YouTube.  Impressive unit from the looks of it.  I found the links to Youtube via google.
OK DAVE,

Put down the Baseball Bat
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, I'LL GET OUT THE CAMERA.
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  Ok now, as THEY say, it's time to KICK THE TIRES AND LIGHT THE FIRES.  Let the good times roll.
 
Ok, going to run a test here before I try to follow your directions with the ones from today.

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Joe, I know you're getting slower in your old age so I sent you an email on my suggestions for posting QVues to this site. 
 
Ok today was the day to try the Yoder.  About 9:00 I went out and took all the grills out and sprayed them down.  Then filled the pellet hopper with BBQ'ers Delight Hickory Blend Pellets. (A 40 lb bag came with the Grill)  About 10 after 9 I fired it off and set the temperature control to 180 degrees.  At about 9:30 it was up to 178 so I loaded the Salmon.  I checked things approx every hour and over a 7 hour timeframe the total temperature swing was 6 degrees, 178 degrees low temp to 184 degrees high temp.  While I noticed very little smoke but you could sure smell it.  I took the thinner pieces of Salmon off after 5 hours and they were delicious.  Nice and moist with a nice melow smokeness to it.  Certainly not over smoked, pretty much just the way I like it.  I am impressed with this unit so far and can't wait till later in the week to run an even dozen racks of Baby Backs through it.

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The Grill

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Main Cooking Grills

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Second Shelf in Place

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Loaded Up, you cansee a bit of Smoke here

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The MONEY SHOT

This unit has a bunch of features that I have yet to use, but trust me over the next several weeks I will be using all of them.  Gonna try it with a Steak tomorrow evening.
 
Thanks Todd,

It sure seems to work as advertised also.

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The firebox after a 7 hour run Smoking the Salmon.  My shop vac made quick work out of cleaning this up.

This unit has a Variable Damper that you can use to concentrate the heat in part of the grill.  So you can actually create 2 different cooking temperatures within the unit.  The book says the temperature will vary by around 60 degrees.

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This shows the damper full open so that you get an even temperature throughout the grill area.  This is where I set it for Smoking the Salmon.

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Part way closed.

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Full closed which is where I set it last night when I tested the unit for Grilling.  This concentrated the heat to the left side of the grill so it not only heated up quicker, it did exactly what I wanted it to do.

In addition to being able to set the temperature you want to cook at, you can also chose from 3 different levels of heat.  I used the highest level as I wanted things to heat up both fast and high.  I tuned it on, hit the start button ( that activates the Hot Rod sequence ), then set the temperature at 550 degrees.  When you set it that high all you will get on the readout is the temperature you have it set for.  Without double checking the book I think that up to 450 degrees you get a reading of the temperature in the grill.  Anyway I let things warm up for 20 minutes then walked out and checked the temperature with my hand held laser minin temp.  The temperature of the door was 220 degrees, but the temperature of the grill was 430.  I let it go for another 10 minutes then just put my steak on.  I was rewarded with that nice sizzling sound when the meat hit the grill.  7 minutes later I turned the steak and it had nice grill marks on it.  Another 7 minutes I pulled it off and it was a perfect Medium Rare Steak with nice grill marks on both sides.

So far this unit is getting a 5 star rating from me.  Next run will be Saturday when I'll be doing an even dozen racks of Baby Backs. 
 
You can sear a steak on a pellet grill

And Grill Marks?

It's gotta be the baffle that concentrates the heat to one side of the chamber

Todd
 
Oh Ya, that was one of the features that attracted me about this unit.  Seemed to good to be true till I tested it for myself.  Sorry I didn't get pictures, but I was starving by the time it came off the grill.  Yes the baffle helps to concentrate the heat for smaller grilling.  One of these days I'll open the baffle and try the whole thing for grilling.  That would be a show stopper.

 
You can sear a steak on a pellet grill

And Grill Marks?

It's gotta be the baffle that concentrates the heat to one side of the chamber

Todd
 
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