Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Cooked our first comp with our new YS1500. It was KCBS and I did all four meats in the new 1500. Boy it was a dream to use, but it runs a lot different than my Backwoods or Lang. I did 4 prior single meat for practice runs and thought I had a fairly good understanding of the heat patterns. However it was the first time I ran it with 3 9lb pork butts and a 16lb Packer. The computer temp readings and the exterior gauges were all over the clock. I finally put in a Guru pit temp probe and it was not even close to what the Yoder was telling me. The Yoder seemed to run a lot cooler than what the computer was showing. I'd set the pit to run at 230 and the external temp gauges would show maybe 185 on the top left and 180 on the bottom right. Bump the pit to 250 and the gauges ran maybe 200 each. The Guru would pretty much compare with the external lid gauges. So were I was used to running at 225-230 I ended up setting the pit a 250 for my comp run. I put the 3 Butts and Packer in at 10:00pm and expected to wrap at 5:00am as usual. The Butts were right on target, good color and 158 internal, but the Wagyu Packer was pretty much toast. Its internal was almost 190 and color was darker than expected. With all on the lower rack I pan cooked the Butts, one on the left side, 2 in the middle and the packer on the open grate to the right side. With the Butts in half pans, could I have forced the rising heat to go to the right side of the pit where the Packer was? Should I not be cooking in steamer pans with the Yoder?

Cooking in pans will require at temp increase of up to 25 degrees on the controller to compensate for the pans on the lower shelf. The upper shelf can be anywhere from 15 to 25 degrees cooler than the bottom shelf, and, if you put a pan under it, there is up to another 25 degree drop. Put meat in pans on the top shelf and the bottom shelf, with the lower being directly under the upper, and you can have up to a 75 degree difference on the upper shelf in the pan. Do a test run with the pans and put your external probes in the pans to see for yourself. We test with the probes in direct contact with the grates, not in holders, so I would also suggest that you put the external probes directly on the bottom of the pans. Also, any external probes must be a minimum of 6" from anything that is cooking or from a pan.

Would having my half pans set one on the left two back to back in the middle, cause the heat to travel to the right (where my packer was) and increase the heat where it is normally cooler than over the fire box? If the set temp is 225 will this cooker actually cook at 225 if I leave the big meats out of the pans? Or do I need to set at 250 to get 225 results? Thanks, Paul

You can do a test using aluminum foil, which will approximate the effect of the pans in the cooker. The heat is reflected away from the meat, and the air flow and smoke are interrupted and diffused are as well. The first thing you need to decide is if you want to cook at the physical grate temperature, which is displayed on the controller, or by suspended air temperature, which is found by placing an external probe at the desired height in the cooker, and then setting the temperature on the controller to achieve the desired temperature at the suspended probe.

Here is an article on how we test to program the controller. This is the exact same way we test all pellet cookers. The specific measurements for the probes in a YS1500 are 14" and 28", which differ from the document that specifies the measurements for a YS640: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=787

After reviewing your test results it appears that the Maverick above grate probe is reading approximately 15 degrees lower than the YS640 computer. This helps if it holds true with the YS1500. Which means if I want to run a 225 cook I need a set temp of 240. And I also must remember that there is at least a 25 degree difference between the upper and lower grates, and the difference being just the reverse of most other smokers in that the upper grate runs at a lower temp. Its confusing but I guess I can deal with it. So when it's time to put Ribs on, they go on the top rack at 275 set temp (to get 250 results) and when the chicken needs to go, they need to be on the bottom rack and over the fire box to hopefully get 275 with no meat above to drip in.