Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Hey guys, my brand new ys640 just got delivered today and I couldn't be more excited to get cooking. My quick question though is how do you guys go about having left over pellets in the hopper after a cook. I plan on having a cover on the cooker whenever its not in use and was wondering if its safe to fill the hopper up and just leave the unused pellets in there as long as its covered up. Thanks!

I have my hopper with pellets in it at all times. My yoder is in my garage with a cover on it when not in use. I have been through one humid central Illinois summer so far with no issue. Lumberjack Pellets are what I can find around my area.

If you use the cooker regularly, there should be no issues. If you use your cooker infrequently, the pellets will take on moisture to normalize with the environment. Moisture contaminated pellets are hard to ignite, burn erratically and cause performance issues with the cooker.

If you would like to remove the pellets, or switch pellet flavors, the easiest manner of doing so, is to use a 5 gallon bucket top vacuum, with the same number of buckets as the pellet flavors you use. When the cooking session is over, while the cooker is still running, use the vacuum to remove the remaining pellets from the hopper into the associated pellet flavor bucket, and let the auger empty out, then turn off the cooker for the cool down cycle.