Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Well, this thread was quite popular at a couple of other BBQ forums, so I feel that naturally it belongs here. For many of you this is old info, but for those of you that haven't seen this before, I hope it can help.

I initially wanted a YS1320 when I bought my YS640 back in February of 2013, but it just didn’t work out. A few months later Yoder discontinued the YS1320 in favor of the YS1500 which is the same cooker, just 6” longer. The 6” extra allowed for pans to fully fit inside the cooker (pan pictures to follow). So I decided to sell several cookers (including my YS640 ) to get a YS1500. When it arrived, I got straight to work on the YS1500.

First off, pictures do not do this cooker any justice. Way more impressive in person.


Ubiquitous FedEx truck shot.




On the pallet, still wrapped...this thing is HUGE!! (now the stack is removable)




Unwrapped, on pallet




Everything is inside (pull handle, stainless shelf, therms, grates, pellets, HMS) and packed up awesome like last time




Here is a picture of the full bottom of the inside. The bottom has a seam or crease to help all of the grease and oil move to the middle of the tube then out the drain




The firepot. It is “sunk-in” to the bottom of the pit, not set atop the bottom of the pit like most if not all pellet pits. This helps to keep the fire further from the food and behave more like a stickburner.




Left side HMS installed with sliding heat damper connected to pull bar




HMS plate fully installed. The graduated holes allow heat and smoke to come up evenly left to right across the pit. How even you ask, that answer to come up shortly.




Bottom food grates washed, dried and installed




And now the top grate also




The cooker, man she is big and beautiful.






Do you see sweet blue from this pit? All day long, non stop TBS from a pellet pit. No intermittent puffs of white then heat vapor. Just sweet blue.




And now to test evenness and season up the pit. Over 4lbs of thick-cut, Hormel Black Label Bacon. Smoked at 225* for 3 hours. This is the before




And now with three hours in the pit, the after




And a plate full of evenly cooked bacon




As you can see, the bacon was completely dead even front to back, side to side. The only spot where the bacon was a little crisper, but not the least bit black or burned, was the very way left back slice. That was it. Otherwise, perfect bacon all of the way across. The bottom rack pieces were a little more crisp, and the top rack a little more chewy, which is to be expected. The bottom line is, this sucker is EVEN, and I am IMPRESSED.

Here is the biscuit test for evenness. (Yay, I can post biscuit tests here!! ) All I have to say is...Wow! If the bacon test wasn’t proof enough about evenness, this is. I chose 275* for this test. The HMS sliding plate was closed during this test, exhaust was wide open. These were cooked at 275* for 1 hour and 10 minutes until temps were 175*-180* IT. The temperature range of the biscuits was 8* difference from most done to least done. Later I will buy another bag of biscuits and test it with the HMS plate open. I know it will not be even, but I want to see how the heat distribution is with that. And of note, there is a very good smoke flavor on these cooked at 275*. Not overpowering, and you don’t have to search for the smoke flavor either, it’s just right.


Frozen biscuits on




Biscuits done, super even cooking and browning






But, what about the underside, you ask? Well I flipped them all to show you.






So when they were done, I put them in a pan so you could see all of them, mixed up at random, side by side. Impressive!!

Well, I kinda dropped the ball and only took a couple of pics of the steaks. We ate later than we anticipated, so I just focused on the food and snapped a few basic pics.

Here are the steaks after they have been cooked on the YS1500 on the left side with the HMS damper open and the controller set at 495*. The one with the char was directly over the opening, and the others were just outside of the opening (the kids don’t like any char).






The steaks were awesome! Nice flavor, tender, and super, super juicy.

Since the steak pics are a little weak, I decided to add to the pictures of the cooker, one you are likely not to see, but important if you are going to be hauling this around to comps/catering gigs, etc. The compcart construction and the massive tie downs under the cooker.

I finally got to do a traditional BBQ cook with this today. I cooked two racks of spare ribs trimmed to St. Louis Style preparation. One rack was rubbed with Kosher salt and cracked black pepper, and the other is rubbed with 3Eyz.

Here are the ribs in the cooker.




Getting close




I opened the HMS plate at the end of the cook to allow a more direct head to set the sauce and finish the racks.




Looking Good!








Here is how pans would fit in this cooker. I took pictures of the cooker as full of pans as I could. I have butcher paper and/or foil on the racks so the pans didn’t get greasy.

Well, the first big cook went wonderfully. It was for my son’s second birthday party, so all of my family that is very familiar with my barbecue was there. It was a great test for a new cooker, and I cooked everything the way I normally do and that they are used to.

I did two briskets, a pork butt, ABT’s, bacon wrapped/brown sugar smokes, and two fatties. Not huge, but a decent sized cook non the less. All of the food had a great smoke flavor. I would say on a scale of pellet cooker to stickburner, the smoke flavor was on the side of stickburner. It was a very good smoke that was very present, but you never tasted the smoke when you burped later in the day. So a strong, but clean smoke. Hard to describe, but when I gave my wife the first burnt end, her comment was “Oh my gosh...that’s really good. And that smoke flavor...Wow!” She has had everything I have ever cooked. But we both remarked that we don’t remember that much smoke flavor even with our less-than-great stickburner, and a good quality smoke flavor. We are impressed.

Cooker with raw food loaded. I had as much room behind the flats as I did in front. Two whole packers would fit easily in those spots. I did the point and flat separated and point above the flat on a recommendation. Two butts would fit easily front to back.




The cooker and a work surface under a canopy. I’m getting soft guys. I used to stickburn, all day and night outside in 100* heat and love it. Now I’ve got a pellet pit, under a canopy, in the shade with 8 hours of sleep to my name. I feel like I’m cheating, but the results are awesome, so…..




Food ready to wrap.




The brisket was probably the best CAB I have cooked. It was very tender, juicy, and had a GREAT smoke flavor. It came out with a perfect balance of smoke, beef, and rub. This is the first time I would say I attained a perfect balance of those. I would have been proud to turn it in. I brought the brisket and burnt ends inside, when out to grab something and came back in, and the burnt ends were gone! I thought someone dropped them on the floor or something, they were GONE. (Sorry, no pic of the burnt ends)




The butt was very tender, lots of smoke and very juicy. We were both picking through it and eating it like we used to when I first started barbecuing. It didn’t get a lot of attention as brisket is king with my family, but I got as many compliments on the pork as I did the brisket, but everyone filled up on brisket first. Look at the color on the butt before I wrapped it! This photo is in no way edited.






This is the sides loaded, and pork butt on top. I had too much foil bunched on top, otherwise the butt would have fit front to back. Eventually the fatties got moved down to the bottom.




ABT’s, Wow. A home run. THE best ABT’s I have done by far, and they were gone in a matter of seconds. We could have cooked triple the amount and still not had enough. This picture is driving my wife nuts and she’s threatening to go to the store to get more peppers and bacon for tomorrow. I’m not going to stop her.




The bacon wrapped, brown sugar and rubbed with 3Eyz smokies were very good. Think pig candy wrapped around a smokey. The only issue was I went too heavy on brown sugar and it didn’t all dissolve. But the flavor was there.




And two fatties. Nothing more I need to say.




I am VERY happy with this cooker. It cooks flawlessly, the smoke flavor is the best I have had (perfect balance of strong and not overpowering) and is dead even and I can predict how the food will come out even after only a few days. And if I want/need a hot spot, I can make two of them. I am very happy I sold my cookers to get this. My whole family noted that this was better than my other barbecue they have had, and they don’t just say nice things to be nice. If they didn’t think it was better, or if it was the same, they would tell me. I was told a few times that I had outdone myself. I didn’t change my technique at all, so the cooker deserves some of the credit.

I did a chicken tonight for dinner and cooked in a manor you can’t on most pellet pits, so I wanted to share.

I wanted to cook this chicken like I would have in the hot spot of a stickburner next to the firebox, so I opened the HMS damper and created my hot spot.




Chicken on, with dark meat closest to the heat. It’s a 5lb bird rubbed with Oakridge Venison Rub. It was great on the chicken.




Turned so white meat could finish




Ready to pull






I added this just because it’s cool to see how well the counterweight works. This is at perfect balance.

First, wings for lunch. The left row is Red Robin seasoning with thyme (for the kids). The second to the left is seasoned salt plus thyme (for me). The next row, second from the right, is Buffalo Wild Wings “Buffalo” seasoning (it is great for a traditional wing taste without sauce, but with smoke) (for my wife). And the last row on the right is my favorite for wings, Habanero Death Dust (for me as well). This picture is them cooked.




And here is my plate, seasoned salt and HDD wings with sliced potatoes with cheese, bacon and sour cream.





I also cooked a Tri-tip today. I have always thought that the YS1320/YS1500 would make perfect tri-tip cookers, and it does.

Here is the tri tip seasoned with Ted and Barney’s on the right side to soak up smoke. I will pull it at 115* IT.




After I pulled the tri-tip, I cranked the controller up to 475* and opened the HMS damper so I could get direct heat from the fire to get my reverse sear and finish cooking the tri-tip.




Tri tip back on




Seared for 2 minutes per side. This is after the first side was seared.




What I was surprised to see was when I checked temp after the sear on both sides, I was already up to 135* IT, so I cooked it 10* too far! It was thinner than most tri-tips I have done, so I should have known better.

On the cutting board then sliced on my plate.






It was wonderful, except for it being overcooked. Even as it was, it was great and I see a lot of tri-tips in the Yoder’s future.

The first biscuit test was terrific at telling me the evenness of the pit. I have used that information a lot already. Now I wanted to perform the test again, but to see how the heat is distributed in the configuration of two hot spots. So for this test (biscuit test part 2) I opened up the sliding damper in the HMS plate, and closed the stack damper a bit to create the slight hot spot on the top rack, stack side.

Now, obviously, these are going to be uneven, that is what I want to see. That is the feature I am testing, to have hot spots when needed. If you want to see how even this pit can be with the sliding plate closed and the stack wide open, go up a few posts.

Now, for this test. Biscuits loaded same as last time. Same brand of biscuits, same outdoor conditions, same controller set point, same pellets, same bat time, same bat channel.




Top sides of the biscuits when they were done.






Undersides






The two in the hottest spot




A comparison of the undersides across the pit





I was surprised by a number of things by this test. First of all, with the exception of the hot spot on the left side and the top rack above the hot spot, the rest of the pit was amazingly even! Secondly, I figured the biscuits above the hot spot would be charcoal by the time the rest of them were done, not even close. Yes they were more done, but still edible. I was expecting black biscuits on the left and was proven delightfully wrong. Finally, the IT from the least done biscuit to the most done biscuit was only 15* different. Hottest was 191* and coolest was 177*.

So you get exactly as advertised, hot spot to set sauce or skin, even pit everywhere else. I was surprised that the top right rack hot spot near the damper wasn’t that hot at all. Actually it behaved in a way that evened out the top shelf.

MAN...the people at Yoder know what they are doing.

Less talk, more pics. Here is some more food. I apologize about the finished rib pictures, it was dark outside so I had to take them inside, and the inside of my house is where photography goes to die.


Loin back ribs. Left, SM Sweet and Spicy & SM Cherry, Middle, BB Butt Rub, Right, S&P.




I figure this cooker could hold 10 racks of BB on the bottom rack, and 7 on top, so just your average MBN rib cook.

















Burgers for me and the kids.








Beef Jerky. I took all of the pieces off at the same time. First time I’ve ever been able to do that.








I’m still in love with it and how it cooks. It’s been worth every penny!

Here is a two bone, chuck end standing rib roast of about 6lbs. or so (I'm not sure because I bought a 8.5lb three bone roast that would have been way to much, so I cut me a big bone-in ribeye off of the end for later). I'm cooking it in the Yoder Smokers YS1500 at 200* using Lumberjack OHC pellets. Seasoned with only Ted and Barney's and a little Italian Seasoning for some herbs. It set out on the counter for 2.5 hours before it went into the cooker.  It was cooked to 125* IT and rested. It came up to a final IT of 133*, perfect medium rare! It was in the smoker for roughly four and a quarter hours and rested for 45 minutes.  I didn't sear it at all, but it still had an good crispy crust on it due to the airflow.  It was amazing!










My 2" thick, 28oz slice (weight after the bone was removed, and yes I ate all of the rib meat off the the two bones too).






Aftermath.

Now I'm hungry.

Awesome! The 1500 is a total cooking machine, as are you.

looks as good this time as the last.
Nice job!

nucornhusker wrote:

Some great cooks and greater pics. I love the look of that work service. Is that a homemade deal?

I'm doing something similar with a 3 drawer tool box and Kobalt cabinet I put on over size casters that we can just roll off the trailer and go strait to work with little set up.

Those are some awesome looking cooks, gents! The Yoder pellet smokers are certified rib roast slayers! Not that they don't do pretty much everything well, as proven above, but the rib roasts are sublime.

I don't even have my ys640 and your making me wish I had the ys1800!

great job man,,,
without question one of the best threads I've ever seen on Yoder pellet rigs and cooks...
very nicely done...

Thanks, guys.

pwedave, the YS640 is an awesome cooker and I would have loved to have kept it. At that time though the only way for me to get a YS1500 was to part with the YS640 as well as many other cookers. My wife misses having the YS640 on the deck as she won't pull the YS1500 out to use it. So I'm sure I will get one again at some point.

I have been resourcing pellet grills for the last couple of months now. With the final results being sent to Yoder grills for one of the best grills on the market, but I have talked to Mike twice asking questions. Now I will say this not to insult or take anything away from Mike which is very good at answering my questions. I was able to find out everything I was wanting to know about the yoder grills by reading this excellent blog. If I was yoder I think I would give you a YS640 where you could demo it like you have done the YS1500. The reason I say this is that your the reason I'm buying the YS1500 grill when I get my pennies saved up. I was ready to order the YS640 this week, but now I have to save a little more , oh the wife is the only one that didn't really like the blog.

Thanks

Glad you chose the biggest! There are many places to search on the web, I did the same. A place where there are many Yoder users is...

Oops, can't post links. Removed by Moderator is my home. Got more than a few, many great YS640 and a few 1500 etc users.

I'm really happy with my YS640, has treated me well. Depending where you live please consider some thermal blankets. That's a BIG pellet smoker and anything you can do to keep the heat inside is a bonus due to pellet usage. You'll be very happy with that smoker.

Heck, I use a cheap welding blanket and a moving blanket from Harbor Freight.

I agree with Archer161. It was this thread nucornhusker had originally posted on a different BBQ site that sealed the deal to buy a Yoder and to go for the 1500. Like nucornhusker I had to sell my previous smoker (Lang 60) to make purchasing my 1500 possible and I love love love this smoker. By stats alone it was hard to get a feel for what the capacity of the 1500 was until you see the foil pan shots in this post. Then the heat evenness shots with bacon and biscuits simply drove home how well the pit has been designed to perform. There were tons of photos and videos for the 640 but this post was the real source showing the prowess of the YS1500 for me.

Kudos and thanks to nucornhusker!

Archer, Wicked Chicken and Herb, thank you for the kind words.

Archer, I'm very happy that my post was helpful for you. As I've stated many times, the reason I did this originally is because I was torn between the YS640 and YS1320 (YS1500's predecessor) and ultimately went with the YS640 just because of the lack of user information on the YS1320 made it hard for me to justify the difference. When the opportunity to upgrade presented itself, I ran with it, even at the expense of my beloved YS640. Since I had owned both cookers, I wanted to post about the YS1500 to get information out there for people like me who were torn. There was and is so much great info out there about the YS640, a thread like this would just be lost among the massive amount of info out there about the cooker. That's why when I got my YS640 I just posted a few pictures and cooks with it. There is so much on the web about them, I didn't need to rehash it all. I cooked on my YS640 A TON, but none of it was noteworthy at the time. I'm not about getting free cookers, and that's not my motive. I'm just a guy that wanted to help other BBQ guys like me out. That's the way BBQ is, helping others while wanting nothing in return. Plus, another YS640 thread would be of no real help at this point, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Wicked Chicken, while it did hurt me to move some of those other cookers, I haven't regretted the decision I made one bit!! If I were to do it all again, I wouldn't change one thing about it. This cooker just cranks out amazing barbecue time after time, and with such little effort. It's pretty remarkable. I'm glad you like the foil pan shots. Those were requested and they really do help gauge what you can fit in the cooker, and give you an idea of the size instead of just laying out masking tape dimensions on your countertop......not that I did that or anything. The biscuit test blew me away because I have never cooked on a pit that was so even before. That was done before I ever cooked a single piece of protein because I wanted to know the pit's behavior, it was amazing to me when I saw the results. And all of that smoked bacon and biscuits were too bad to have around the house either.