I just got my YS640 yesterday. I cooked steaks on it last night in direct grill mode with GrillGrates with temp set to 450. Today I put the diffuser in and smoked a brisket with the temp set to 275. There are round black marks in the firebox under the burn grate vent holes and the burn grate seems to have a lot of black residue. I just wanted to make sure this was okay and I'm not doing anything wrong? In addition to vacuuming the ash, do I need to be cleaning the firebox and grate vent some other way?
Perfectly normal. It gets hot in there.
Yep that's how you clean it. Once a year or so I'll take a wire brush to the grate.
Yes, that's what it should look like. Do you have the two piece diffuser? If not, I highly recommend you get that. It makes clean up a breeze. I vacuum the fire box and pit around the firebox, and I also empty the burn grate after each cook. I usually do this just before I start the grill up each time.
Thanks for the reassurance. I'm really happy with this purchase.
Congrats on the purchase. You are going to continue loving this cooker. I would encourage you to check out Chef Tom's recipe videos that are on ATBBQ.com. He's really helped me up my game! Also, rotating the stack down has no noticeable effects on your cook.
Good luck and have fun this summer!!
patrickd26 wrote: Also, rotating the stack down has no noticeable effects on your cook.