I'm cooking my first pork butt on my new YS640. I put 2 butts on last night at 3:00 am. Set the temp to 250°. I checked them at 10:00 am, the internal temp was at 150° and held there until around 5:30 or so. I put on 2 racks of St Louis ribs at 1:00 pm and turned the heat up to 270°. It's now 7:15 and the butts are at 176° and slowly rising. The ribs are not yet ready. This is sure different than my old gasser or my offset stick burner. It seems that the YS640 runs about 20° to 30°F low. I tested it empty and the first test averaged pretty close, the next day I tested it again and it averaged 30° low. I think I can just set the temp about 20° higher to compensate. Perhaps more, as it sure takes a LONG time to be ready. My Maverick is reading 246° on the main grate now (set temp is 270), but it is close to the pork butt. Pictures at 11:00 LOL, Any imput or advise would be appreciated.
The ribs came off about 7:00 pm, I am used to finishing them in foil. They seem a little dry, hummm....
Oppps! I let the hopper run dry! Butts are at 171° internal. Lost some ground.
Filled the hopper set the temp to 300°. I'm ready for this to be finished! I really am thinking that I will have to set the smoker temp higher to get food done in a reasonable time.
I have found that with some pellet brands, that I do have to set the controller to a higher temperature to get the grate temp that I want. If you have the cooker all setup as you should, and all is in working order, then the only variable is the fuel (pellets).
I have had BBQr's delight pellets that had been contaminated with moisture that acted like the worse pellets I had ever used. Lower BTU pellets, like the 100% species of pellet, i.e., apple, cherry, etc., will require more pellets to get the same amount of heat as an oak pellet, and you may have to set the temperature to a higher temperature to get the grate temp that you desire. These pellets will also create much more ash.
Things to check with the cooker (I'm sure that you have things in order, so just a review):
-Make sure the chimney is flush with the inside wall of the cooker and not protruding in to the cooking chamber.
-If you are using foil in the cooker, try cooking without the foil as a test.
-Check to see if the heat diffuser plate has warped corners on the hopper end.
-Pull the sliding damper handle all the way out from the cooker, and push it back about 5".
-Make sure to always clean the burn grate before starting a cooking session.
-Make sure that all the silicone seals around the firebox are in good shape.
-Verify that both fans are running correctly.
-If you are using a smoke tube or other smoke generator, make sure that it is not in proximity of the thermocouple.
Everything you list is good. No foil, Damper 6" in, silicone seals good. I need to check to be sure the inside fan is running, but I don't think that is the problem. I have at this point burned 100 lbs of pellets. They all seem to burn about the same. I have a steel rod holding the diffuser plate flat. I did have a smoke tube centered above the burn grate. I'll have to check and see just how close it comes to the thermocouple. If certain pellets put out less BTU's, wouldn't it just burn them faster to bring up the temp? The pork butts took 21 hours to come up to 203°, without wrapping with foil.
The controller will compensate for the difference in pellets, but even feeding at full speed, some pellets don't have enough heat potential in them to get and keep constant temperatures. B&B pellets are normally good. But any pellet can become sub-standard with moisture contamination. Never store pellets directly on the floor, especially on a concrete floor.
Do you spritz or mop what you are cooking?
Do you leave the cooker plugged in when not in use?
The pellets don't appear to have moisture. I will put some in a ziplock bag and place them in the sun. If moisture is present it should show up as condensation on the inside of the bag. I do spritz a bit, but not often. I know this drops the temp a bit. I do not leave the cooker plugged in. I'm don't see how that would affect the temp tho. I clean and inspect the cooker after each cook too. All of the pellets have come from the same Academy store. I have tried pecan, hickory, & mesquite. They are oak based, at lest the pecan is i think.
I just pulled the butts. The bark and bottoms of the pork is dried and tough. I don't detect much smoke flavor. The meat is pretty bland. I dry brined. but not enough salt got in the meat. This is somewhat of a disappointment. The last pork butt I cooked (on an offset stick burner) was much better. I wrapped it in foil after 4 hours.
Herb: Never store pellets directly on the floor, especially on a concrete floor.
Ruh ro, I've got mine on the concrete floor of the Garage. Is that not a safe place to keep pellets, even in the bag?
Well I've only cooked butts about 3 or 4 times and they were fantastic each time and the longest was around 13 hours...
Better luck next time...
Yoder_Herb wrote:The controller will compensate for the difference in pellets, but even feeding at full speed, some pellets don't have enough heat potential in them to get and keep constant temperatures. B&B pellets are normally good. But any pellet can become sub-standard with moisture contamination. Never store pellets directly on the floor, especially on a concrete floor.
Do you spritz or mop what you are cooking?
Do you leave the cooker plugged in when not in use?
The cooker spends a lot of time in maintenance mode, so I don't think that's the problem. I put some of the pellets in a ziplock bag. They have set in the sun a couple of hours with no condensation. It's 85° outside today.
Wicked Chicken wrote:Herb: Never store pellets directly on the floor, especially on a concrete floor.
Ruh ro, I've got mine on the concrete floor of the Garage. Is that not a safe place to keep pellets, even in the bag?
Yes, on the floor is bad. Because the pellets are less than 10% moisture, they will wick moisture, and yes, right through the bag. It is best to put them up on a shelf or a pallet.
BruceP wrote:Yoder_Herb wrote:The controller will compensate for the difference in pellets, but even feeding at full speed, some pellets don't have enough heat potential in them to get and keep constant temperatures. B&B pellets are normally good. But any pellet can become sub-standard with moisture contamination. Never store pellets directly on the floor, especially on a concrete floor.
Do you spritz or mop what you are cooking?
Do you leave the cooker plugged in when not in use?
The cooker spends a lot of time in maintenance mode, so I don't think that's the problem. I put some of the pellets in a ziplock bag. They have set in the sun a couple of hours with no condensation. It's 85° outside today.
Here is the test that we do to verify that the cooker is working properly: download/Best%20Practice%20and%20how%20to/Yoder%20Pellet%20Temperature%20Test.pdf
This test will show if the controller, thermocouple, etc. are all running correctly. If the data from the test looks fine, then there are other variables other than the cooker that need to be investigated.
Here is another tip: If your cooker is acting very differently than it normally does, flip the power switch OFF, and immediately unplug the power. Wait for 30 seconds, plug the power back into the cooker, flip the power switch ON and push the START button. Give the cooker 15 minutes or so to again gain control of the cooker and then another 30 minutes or so to see if it has settled down. As long as the fires is still burning, and you do this all immediately, everything should come back online as it should.
This is a hard reset for the controller. Before we started using a battery and inverter setup at competitions, the all too present bad power would often cause the cookers to go brain dead and start doing weird things. At competitions, brown outs, blackouts, spikes and any other power phenomenon can, and do, happen. The Yoder cookers recover nicely by doing this reset. Other brands of cookers can, and have, experienced controller failures from bad power.
As an example, at my house, the power that I use for the cookers is on the same line with my very, very old large tank air compressor (yes I should replace it). If I start the air compressor while the cookers are on, I have a 50/50 chance that the cookers will start exhibiting strange behavior.
Thanks Herb, That is the test I mentioned. I ran it twice on successive days. The first test avg was 1.4° measured at the center of the main grate. The second days test showed 28° lower avg.
If you would post up, or email the data, we would like to analyze your findings.
If you did the test 2 times (with the cooker empty), and made no changes or adjustments to the cooker, then the only variables are the pellets and the environment.
We have not normally seen issues with B&B pellets, but I would still suggest trying BBQr's Delight to eliminate the fuel from the equation.
We would be glad to have you send pictures of your firebox, burn grate, heat diffuser, chimney, etc. for us to review.
Honestly, your experience and issues are far from the norm. From your explanations and descriptions, the cooker is setup and functioning properly. We do help customers periodically that report issues that just don't make sense, and for the majority of them, it was the pellet fuel they were using.
For some customers, the answer is to understand the shortcomings of the pellet fuel they have readily available to them, and to compensate for them by modifying the manner in which they setup the cooker, i.e., set the temperature of the cooker to something higher to get a desired specific grate temperature. We just went through this with another customer, who was using pellets that were locally available, and was having strange performance issues with the cooker. After many attempts at changing and checking the cooker (this customer even bought new cooker parts because he was certain we were wrong in our assessment), the customer finally decided to try a different pellet fuel, and has since not reported any further issues.
We are committed to work with you to resolve your issues. We rely on you to be our eyes, ears and hands, since we are unable to be in physical proximity to your cooker. From a distance, we are unable to make physical changes, and can only make recommendations based on your statements and descriptions. Our recommendations come from hundreds, if not thousands, of customer interactions from reported problems and their resolutions. In the vast majority of cases, the cooker or it's performance is found to not be the problem.
Thanks Herb
what email addresses do you want the test results sent to?
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