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January 25th, 2020, 11:34 pm
#1
After 5 years, about 2500 pounds of pellets and a boatload of meat I thought it was time I shared my experiences. For those of you on the fence about dropping some not insignificant money on a Yoder, I’ll cut to the chase; go ahead and buy one. For those of you that want the whole story, read on.
I've been barbecuing for over 35 years, although the first few were only in name only. Basically, my food sucked. That all changed when I met Sherman. He was my girlfriend’s father and he could flat out barbecue. I’d never tasted ribs like his. Ever. Look up “perfect pork ribs,” in the dictionary and that’s what he cooked. I had no idea ribs could be that good until I tasted Sherm’s. His daughter and I broke up after about 6 months but he and I remained good friends until his death some years ago. I will forever be grateful for Sherman for teaching me how to “honor” what you’re cooking and the importance of managing a fire.
Today's ribs
I continued cooking on a Weber kettle and eventually ended up with three of them. A gas grill was also on the deck and there were many weekends when everything was going at once. That was 25 years ago. I’ve still got a Weber kettle i like to use for steaks. I’ve had offset stick burners, eggs and even a 500 gallon propane tank I converted to a bbq. We called it, “the tank.” I could cook 108 half chickens in that thing. I owned a restaurant for 15 years and we used the tank for catering. I also had two electric commercial cookers that used wood chips for smoke.
When I retired from the restaurant business, I found myself without any way to bbq other than my Weber and it was too small. A couple of weeks went by and a friend came by with a pellet cooker in the back of his truck. It was, he said, a gift. I really liked the idea of a pellet cooker and especially when you’re pulling an all nighter. In theory it makes heat management a no brainer. I used that cooker for a couple of years and one day while surfing the internet ran across Yoder.
Smoking salmon
I took a chance and bought a YS640. What a difference!!! Finally, I could fire a brisket, go to bed, wake up, have a couple of shots of espresso, go visit the cooker and find that everything was as it should be. It was so good that a friend of mine bought one. And just so you know, at the time it was a 550 mile round trip to the nearest dealer!
After a year cooking on the YS640 I finally decided it was just too small and got the YS1500. I know, it’s overkill for most people, but I always seem to end up cooking a lot of food. I have a number of people that want a phone call whenever I fire it up so they can, “order” a rack of ribs, chicken, brisket or whatever. My wife and I also like to have people over.
St. Louis spares
As everybody knows, one of the keys to good barbecue is heat management. Temperature stability is key, not just overall, but front to back, side to side and top to bottom. You have to know where your hot and cool spots are. Rotate the meat at the right time and you’re golden. The holy grail for me would be a cooker with solid overall temperature stability. Even better would be if you’re putting a rack of ribs somewhere on the grate, and that those other racks, “over there,” are cooking right along at about the same temperature. That’s the way it is with the Yoder. The left side is marginally hotter than the right and the top rack marginally cooler than the bottom. So close in fact, that unless I have the thing really stuffed, I rarely have to rotate
The YS1500 also makes it easy to cook for as many people as you can stand having in your house. For the past few years my wife’s family has traveled to join us for Thanksgiving. We have about 25 people or more. I like small turkeys; 12-15 lbs. One is not enough so I’d cook two. And a ham. I’d also cook a turkey for my neighbor who is turkey challenged. No problem, I’ve got the room!
Two turkeys and a wrapped ham
Room on your cooker is a good thing as it means you’ve got enough room for the heat and smoke to work their magic on whatever you’re cooking. If you’ve got everything wedged in tight the air won’t circulate properly, the smoke won’t hit your meat and you end up rotating just to cook the food. When you really stuff it and your cuts are touching, you end up sacrificing flavor and color. Not to mention you have to work too hard. I like to have some space between my ribs; about half an inch. They cook better, taste better and easy to move around if I have to.
I’ve read from time to time about smoke quantity from the Yoder. Some people even buy tubes and baskets they fill with pellets to add more smoke. I’ve tried them and now I’m in the camp that you don’t need them. The smoke they produce is white. White smoke is dirty smoke and filled with all sorts of particulates that while sort of tasting like smoke, will overpower the taste of the meat. The Yoder when warmed up, produces a clean, blue smoke. I describe my Yoder as a wood fired convection oven. The smoke enhances the flavor, and never overpowers. That blue smoke you see coming out of the stack is the holy grail for stick burners and automatic for Yoder pellet cookers. The other thing to remember is that you spend several hours cooking, you’ve pretty much lost the ability to tell how much smoke flavor is actually there. Take ribs for example; I’m rarely able to taste the smoke on ribs I’ve just cooked. The next day if I’m lucky enough to have left overs, I can easily smell and taste the smoke.
I keep mine clean! It runs better, cooks better, and is a whole lot easier than waiting after 5 or 6 cooks to tidy up. The Yoder depends on good air flow from the fans for proper cooking. Why make hard on yourself by leaving all the gunk from previous cooks? All it does is impede the air flow. A putty knife, a shop vac and 15-20 minutes is all you need.
Rack of lamb
I used to load meat and then fire the smoker, knowing that during startup there is copious amount of smoke produced in the first 5-10 minutes. It’s white smoke, not the good fully combusted blue smoke, but more importantly the cooker is not warmed up. The temperature difference from side to side can be 20-30 degrees!
Now I use Yoder Herb’s advice to fire it up at 350, turn it down when it’s fully warmed up, (about 30 minutes) put your food on and start cooking. My cooks just seem to go a bit smoother when I follow his recommendation.
Brisket after about 4 hours
One last thing; I’ve had zero issues with the YS1500. Yes there is a learning curve. There’s a learning curve with everything and I think I’m pretty close to getting this thing figured out.
I’m looking forward to the next 5 years. And the 5 years after that.
- Bob
January 26th, 2020, 11:19 am
#2
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