Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the group. i just got my 640 Saturday and did my first cook yesterday. As I came from a Weber Kettle i'm used to tinkering with cookers to get desired temps. The 640 made it clear that I need to ditch that mentality when cooking on it. After it hit 350 I opened the lid up for too long and lost all my heat, I loaded a bunch of food in then it struggled to reach temp throughout the entire cook. The cooker does have variations in temp on the second shelf as well as left to right. I was able to compensate and crank the temp up using the prime button. If i had one issue it was that the prime button was incredibly hard to push. Not sure if that common but i had to jam my finger in it so hard. Anyone have the same experience? All in all , the less it messed with the machine the more stable it became. My "tinkering" will now involve using different pellets as well as food placement.
Just to confirm what I've read so far;

No water pans?
Foil on diffuser bad?

I've never spent this amount of money on a cooking device before so I was nervous when I was having temp issues, but the food turned out decent so I'm excited to try it out again and see if I cant improve on my first cook. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

I'm really surprised to hear the button issue from someone else. I originally had a YS480 manufactured in 2014. The buttons pushed like butter. Last month, I sold the 480 for a new 640 made in April 2017. It's physically painful trying to adjust the temp. I have to push so hard that i feel like I might damage something. I've only cooked on it 3 or 4 times and hoping that it will "loosen up".

Glad to hear I'm not the only one to think it's entirely too hard to press!

Yeah. Wierd , right. Maybe to deter you from trying to override the pellet dispersement rate? Well, I too am glad it just isn't me! Thank you for your response

I'm new to the Yoder Ys640 too. My Prime button is hard to push also. I'm guess it will be easier as time go's on.

I'm another new user to the ys640, and have also found that button hard to push and ending up adding to many pellets.

The buttons are not really buttons. What you are pushing is the decal over the front of the frame around the controller. The decal will loosen up over time.

Thanks, Herb!