Yoder Smokers Community Forum

I made brunch on the Yoder cast iron griddle today.

I had the 2 piece heat defuser in place with the door on the defuser, and the defuser wrapped in foil.

I followed Yoder Herb's "1st cook on the cast iron" thread instruction and worked like a dream.

My question concerns the bacon grease from the first part of the cook. I cooked the bacon on the ridge side first, then flipped it over to do the eggs on the other side.

I poured as much of the grease off into an aluminum can as I could, then flipped the griddle over (damn that thing is HOT! Even with doubled up leather gloves on)

Some of the bacon grease of course made it onto the diffuser and it lit off right away. I was able to close the door and snuff the fire, but it was a scary couple of seconds fiddling with a pipping hot griddle in hand and trying to get the door closed.

Thoughts on how to prevent this other than not flipping it cause that's not an option?

Guess I could go the eggs first, but then they'd be cold by the time the bacon is done?

I watched the video where Chef Tom used the griddle to make burgers. When he flipped the griddle there was no grease fire. How did he prevent it?

Personally, I would have cooked everything on the flat side. If there was too much grease, I would use a paper towel to soak some of it up. As you found out, the griddle is very heavy, and gets, and holds, heat very well..

If I needed to use both sides, I might consider getting an additional griddle and putting both of them in the cooker. BTW - it is good that you had the diffuser and door in place, as I think things would have been much worse if the diffuser or diffuser door has been removed.

Yoder_Herb wrote:Personally, I would have cooked everything on the flat side. If there was too much grease, I would use a paper towel to soak some of it up. As you found out, the griddle is very heavy, and gets, and holds, heat very well..

If I needed to use both sides, I might consider getting an additional griddle and putting both of them in the cooker. BTW - it is good that you had the diffuser and door in place, as I think things would have been much worse if the diffuser or diffuser door has been removed.

Thanks for the advice. I thought about cooking everything on the flat side but I was worried it might make the bacon soggy. The bacon was amaze balls in case anyone was wondering.

And yes I’m glad the deflector was in place and door in. Could have been bad.