Nice! I’ve gotten back into charcoal grilling recently and have been doing some great things with a little 22” weber. Last night’s dinner… nice crust seared in and a slow indirect heat until 130 deg. Damn tasty!
My brother did a shit ton of research on pellet grills and ended up with a Yoder. He's had great luck with it.
it certainly is a rabbit hole. I just went ahead and skipped right to the bottom of it. My wife ended up getting the link to the one I wanted and sent it to my parents. Little twit. But yeah, now we have it a few months early I guess?
Nice! I'm actually about to order mine later this week. Did you go with the competition cart, or the regular? I'm still working through my list of "must have" accessories to start off, but I plan to at least have it by the end of July.
No cart, just regular. Again this was purchased for me and I had no clue until the delivery guys showed up with it. They also ordered the grease shield and the cover. I'm not sure if the grease shield will ultimately be worth it, but if I was buying it on my own (or it wasn't already purchased) I would absolutely get the cover. Regarding the cart though: IT. IS. HEAVY. The two delivery dudes from the BBQ Store who were used to delivering pits all day had a bitch of a time getting it moved, and that was just a straight shot through the yard. So if you do intend to move it around, the cart would not be a bad idea. Cover is a must imo. I also ordered this magnetic electrical cord organizer, as well as an airtight pellet storage box (traeger brand) and a stainless ice scoop to remove the pellets from the hopper because the Yoder doesn't have a pellet unloading chute... a bit annoying, but I understand that from the standpoint of "build this like a fucking tank" then the less holes in it the better. The one I have came with the 2-piece heat diffuser. The BBQ place only sells them with that installed. IMO it's an absolute necessity, not only for smoking purposes, but also for the direct flame capabilities. It also came with the shelf, which again, necessity imo. Also that shelf is hilariously overbuilt. Yes the stuff is expensive, but it looks like something out of a @Nettdata fever dream. 10 gauge steel, massive welds, the racks and such are an instant home defense tool akin to a cast iron skillet
I'm definitely going with the comp cart and the upgraded 10" tires, because while I won't be using it for any competitions, I will be trailering it around to a few on-site jobs we have scheduled later this year. The grease shield and cover are also on the list. More than likely I'm going to order mine through https://www.atbbq.com/ and they also have an ad-on bundle that includes both, plus a bunch of other accessories and some pellets and rubs. If you haven't already, a lot of people are saying one of the first things you should do is give it a generous spray down of some ACF-50 to ensure you don't develop rust spots anywhere.
That and a come along winch should be exactly what the doctor ordered (possibly literally). For the rust spray, do you just spray it down with that shit and then burn it off? Won't that impact some of the flavor?
DO IT!!! Having yet to cook on one personally, I already went down the rabbit hole. It's Yoder or bust. See if a local place has one in stock. The overbuilt-ness will make you wet. ETA: it's one of those things where you look outside and see it, and it's like holy shit. You just wanna play with it. It makes you feel like more of a man for owning one. It makes the back porch look better. I wasn't really into pellet smokers (takes the sporting out of it imo) until I went shopping for what is now my built-in propane grill, only sales guy was the manager, it was slow and I asked him what the hype was all about with the pellet grills. He was an old school stick smoker like me, but showed me a Yoder. Said if he were to do it all over again that's what he would do. I said "great, I'm starting over so let's have a look." Started going through what you can do with it. No bells and whistles and shit, just massively overbuilt plates and heat diffusers and baffles. Precision fire, smoke, and air control to allow you to do everything from cold smoking to searing.
Here's my smoker I get to play with on a daily basis. Here's some of the sausage I stuffed this afternoon. Texas red hots I'll be smoking off on Thursday, so I'll throw some photos up when they are sizzling away. And here's the short ribs about 1/3 of the way finished. I'll get a completed photo tomorrow.
One of the short rib sections off the smoker. 8hrs on @250, 2 hours wrapped on @275, 2 hours wrapped and rested in a hot box. I wanted to video the jiggle, but it wasn't coming out great.
I can feel my arteries clogging up just looking at that. And it'd be 100% worth it. Doing a small-ish pork butt for the 4th. Seems like I haven't done one in a while. The wife isn't a huge fan of smoked meat. I feel like Jules from Pulp Fiction; "My girlfriend is a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian too."
Pulled the trigger today. Ended up going with the 640S with the Comp Cart, stainless steel shelving, upgraded 10" tires, grease shield, cover, and a couple of extra temperature probes. @Revengeofthenerds you have a link to the pellet storage box you ended up getting? I want to find something for my pellets, and that idea intrigues me. Also, good call on the ice scoop; ordered one of those too.
I just grabbed the traeger branded one. Toss some desiccant packets in there to be sure and you’re good to go. That being said, I’m sure anything weather-tight like what nett linked would be fine. The guys setting it up said they just use Tupperware containers because they’re storing it indoors (same here). For me, the risk of getting halfway through a smoke and realizing I fucked up the pellet storage has high consequences and an easy solution, so I’m down for overkill solutions in this case.
Just got confirmation that it's now being delivered this Thursday. How much actual assembly did you have to do initially? I know Yoder says this thing can weigh up to 400 pounds with the comp cart, so I'm wondering how many of my neighbors I'm going to need to rope into helping me out putting this together.
I did zero assembly. That's because it was delivered by the place we ordered it from, and it took two guys with those furniture moving straps to manhandle it around.