Yoder Smokers Community Forum

Hi to all and happy holidays. I'm from Southern California where they eat more sushi than anything else. I myself on the other hand really enjoy any kind of grilling/BBQ there is. I have an array of Q'ing tools like a Weber Kettle, rather large Santa Maria type grill, 3 WSM's, 2 Backwoods, a Lang 60 and just yesterday my new YS1500 came out of the back of a FedEx truck. As you can tell by my list of smokers I'm pretty much a charcoal and wood guy. The YS 1500 is the first pellet smoker I've ever used so I'll be asking for lot's of help from you guy's. So far the cooker look's to be built really good. I inspected, vacuumed and clean all removable internal parts, and re-oiled the grates. I started it up and let it run at 350 for a little over and hour, then let it cool completely down. The unit ran just fine. I have a couple of questions. I compete in Q'ing and really depend upon internal meat temps to tell me when it's time to start feeling for doneness. I did not order any probe ports as those shown as accessories appear to have a small inside diameter. I'd like to know if they are really functional and if Yoder makes a larger probe port for the 1500 like they have done for the new YS640's. Once I insert a probe into the meat (generally when wrapping) it's there to stay until the meat is ready for the next phase. So I need to be able to pull the meat from the smoker without having to remove the temp probes. The only way to do that is to unplug from the display unit and be able to pull the wire with plug end through the probe ports easily. (Wha-la, wires hanging out the cooker door). Secondly being an old stick burner I've always run pits with the exhaust stack wide open and use fire management for temp control. What function does the stack dampener do on the 1500? When or why do you need to close it down? Thanks for the help in advance.

Welcome aboard!

Here are the probe ports for the YS1500: http://www.atbbq.com/yoder-smokers-prob ... -pits.html There is a silicone insert in the port that can be removed for larger probes.

With the Yoder Smokers pellet cookers, the fire management and air flow is fixed, and other than the temperature, can not be altered by the cook. The YS1500 is different from the YS480 and YS640, as it has the same "tuning" potential as the larger Yoder Smokers offset wood cookers. It has a sliding damper in the HMS plate, and it has a variable chimney damper. The HMS damper allow you to introduce additional heat into the chamber to equalize the temperature across the grate, and as a fine tune tool, it has the chimney damper. The chimney damper will allow the slowing of the volume of air through the cooker as an additional fine tune tool to equalize grate temperatures, but, never close the damper more than 50%, as doing so will impede the air flow and impact the fire system. Here is an article for you to review: viewtopic.php?p=4035#p4035

Thanks for the quick reply and help. I can see this is going to be a new learning experience. I ordered two of the probe ports.

Yoder_Herb wrote:Welcome aboard!

Here are the probe ports for the YS1500: http://www.atbbq.com/yoder-smokers-prob ... -pits.html There is a silicone insert in the port that can be removed for larger probes.

With the Yoder Smokers pellet cookers, the fire management and air flow is fixed, and other than the temperature, can not be altered by the cook. The YS1500 is different from the YS480 and YS640, as it has the same "tuning" potential as the larger Yoder Smokers offset wood cookers. It has a sliding damper in the HMS plate, and it has a variable chimney damper. The HMS damper allow you to introduce additional heat into the chamber to equalize the temperature across the grate, and as a fine tune tool, it has the chimney damper. The chimney damper will allow the slowing of the volume of air through the cooker as an additional fine tune tool to equalize grate temperatures, but, never close the damper more than 50%, as doing so will impede the air flow and impact the fire system. Here is an article for you to review: viewtopic.php?p=4035#p4035

Hi Yoder Herb,

I read the article and I'm curious as to if you open the adjustable sliding damper to allow heat to escape and therefore helping to stabilize temps across the cook chamber. Article say's to pull the damper bar out about 1.5" inches which results in about a .5" opening at the rear of the fire box. However that opening is directly below the pit temperature sensor probe so won't this give the system a false higher heat reading?

The thermocouple is protected by a cover in the YS1500 to minimize the effect of opening the HMS damper.