Third time doing a "cold weather" cook and the third time the YS640 never gets up to temperature. Foregoing the previous two attempts, this time around I'm going on 2 hours and still haven't reached 250. When I went to check the firebox a few minutes ago i didn't even wear gloves. Pulled out all the grates and heat difuser without gloves...after two hours of running, barely hot to the touch. Body of the smoker is cold to the touch as well.
Current cook is as follows: Hit start button, set temp to 250, change startup to H2, damper in about 5". Ambient temp 27 degrees, YS640 with blanket, Pit Boss pellets.
My guess would be that you have moisture contaminated pellets.
What is the serial number and build date of your cooker?
What is the version of firmware?
Where do you store your bags of pellets? Never store bags of pellets directly on the floor or against an outside wall.
What did the ash look like in the burn grate and in the bottom of the cooker?
Sorry about the delay Herb. After reading your post I dumped all of the pellets in the hopper and replaced them with new making sure to clean out the auger area as best as possible. I also started in H2 mode with a 350 set point. Within minutes the unit was heating up quickly. When the temp was just shy of 250 I changed the set point to 250 and the smoker held temp for 4 hours before dropping to 175 and failing to recover.
S/N: 17637, built 10-14-14
U26 firmware
Pellets stored loose in a Kingsford Kaddy, in a garage cabinet on an interior facing wall.
Ash was perhaps like course sand
Please post the following pictures:
-The inside of the cooker with the grates removed and the heat diffuser plate in place
-The inside of the cooker with the grates and heat diffuser plate removed
-The entire bottom of the cooker showing the ash pattern
-The burn grate showing the residual ash
-The firebox with the burn grate removed
Please explain what you mean when you say "failing to recover".
What mode was the controller displaying when you said it was "failing to recover"?
What happened at the 4 hour mark that might have caused the temperature to drop? Did the lid get opened? Did you spray/spritz/mop liquid into the cooker? How long did you wait for the cooker to recover?
What brand and flavor of pellets are you using?
Were you hearing pellets drop when it was "failing to recover"?
Here you go Herb.
Plate in
- plate in
Plate out
- plate out
Burn grate
- burn grate
Fire box
- fire box
By failure to recover i mean that the unit was at 175 for no reason whatsoever, hadn't been opened in 4+ hours, and for 20 minutes never came back up from there. 30 or so minutes prior the unit was at the set point of 250. Unit was in H1 but I don't know if was dropping pellets at that time, though the hopper was full. Pellets were Pit Master 100% apple.
Were the pictures of the cooker after the 175 degree temperature situation, or from a different cook? The reason I ask, is that everything looks normal,. i.e., the ash looks normal for the brand of pellets (the ash shows that the pellets contain bark from the white fluffy ash), the burn grate looks normal, the ash pattern in the cooker illustrates that the cooker's fans are functioning correctly, the firebox does not show anything out of the ordinary.
The most important point is what mode the cooker was in when it was at 175 degrees, i.e., was it in maintenance mode, heat up mode, or cool down mode? If it was in cool down or maintenance mode after 20 minutes, that is a problem. If it was in heat up mode, the cooker is functioning as it should, as long as there were pellets dropping into the burn grate.
How long did you let it run after it hit 175 degrees? You stated it stayed there for 20 minutes, but what was the time frame that the cooker was allowed to attempt to recover and what mode was it in? I am going to assume that it was in heat up mode, which tells me that the cooker is functioning properly, as long as pellets were dropping into the burn grate.
Without knowing the answers to the above questions, from experience, I am going to say that the cooker is functioning correctly. My reasoning for this assumption is that from a previous cook, where the cooker couldn't get up to temperature, you changed nothing but the pellets, and the cooker worked fine for 4 hours, then had a problem.
My suggestion would be to try a different brand of pellets, like BBQR's Delight. From experience, apple wood is lower on the BTU scale, and using it will require a much larger quantity of pellets to be burned for a given time frame to hold a desired temperature, as opposed to oak, hickory or pecan. The absolute best option is to use a mixed species pellet, i.e., oak/apple, so that you get the high BTU capabilities of the oak and the flavor of the apple.
I cooked some pork chops on my YS640 last Sunday when the local temps in the single digits. I have the blanket. As long as the door was closed the temp came up slower than it would in the summer, but I was able to get it to 350 and I was able to pull out the new diffuser door and then reversed seared at 400.
Used BBQ Delight Oak and Cherry. I keep my pellets in 5 gallon paint pails with sealed lids.
--Chris
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