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1500 capacity w/ pans?

PostPosted: September 29th, 2017, 11:16 pm
by jasonjax
Can you fit two full size pans on the top shelf length wise and close the lid?

I prefer cooking on pans for clean-up, juice retention etc. and wondering how the YS1500 would fare for a competition or large cook.

Re: 1500 capacity w/ pans?

PostPosted: September 29th, 2017, 11:39 pm
by Yoder_Herb
download/file.php?id=184&mode=view

You will have to compensate for the pans by increasing the temperature in the cooker, as well as understand that the heat and smoke will be affected in the cooker. Do some tests prior to a comp to get things dialed in.

Re: 1500 capacity w/ pans?

PostPosted: September 30th, 2017, 9:17 am
by jasonjax
That's a pic I've been looking for! Thanks.

Have you done this, Herb? How much do you have to compensate temp wise, and does it affect the smoke/temp flow horribly?

The idea for me would be to cook 2 briskets in full pans up top, and butts below with plan to be off the smoker and resting by time ribs and chicken needed to go on.

Re: 1500 capacity w/ pans?

PostPosted: September 30th, 2017, 1:09 pm
by Yoder_Herb
I do not normally use pans, but comp teams that I have cooked with do. It does affect the cooking process, depending on the load in the cooker. I would suggest doing some practice cooks with your proposed method to nail things down to your liking.

I will link an article where I did a test using pans so you can get an idea about what happens inside the cooking environment when using pans. Normally in an empty cooker, the upper shelf will be 15 to 25 degrees cooker than the lower grate. Using pans can require the heat to be bumped another 15 to 25 degrees. As an example; cooking on the top shelf at 225 might require the cooker to be set to 250 (you will have to test this for yourself to fingerprint your cooker), but, put a pan on the lower grates and you may have to up the temp to 275 to achieve 225 cooking temp on the top shelf. Now consider all of that, and put the meat on the upper shelf in a pan too, and you will more than likely need to up the temp again to achieve a 225 cooking temp inside the pan on the upper grate. BTW, in my testing, using a water pan causes even more issues, with zero end result effects on the cooked product.

Effects of using pans: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1392

Cooking with grate temp (how we test the cookers at the factory), compared to cooking with suspended air temp, i.e., upper grate: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=1368