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The Yoder YS640S Competition Smoker. It’s Here.

June 13, 2021 By Ms. K

Yoder Smoker YS640S Competition Smoker - Beautiful
Yoder Smoker’s YS640S Competition Smoker – Beautiful

There’s a new addition to our outdoor kitchen, and it’s a serious piece of equipment. Our Yoder YS640S Competition Smoker has arrived. It’s big, heavy, solid, and very impressive. We thought you’d enjoy an ‘unboxing’ tour and a few comments about the unit.

Another look at the Yoder Smoker
Another look at the Yoder Smoker

So, we got it up on the deck and love that despite the beefiness of this competition-worthy wood pellet smoker, the YS640S fits surprisingly well on our deck. And it’s so well-built that it really is an attractive thing (if you’re into grills, of course). Speaking of looks, we chose the black and silver style, but a flashier orange and black option – as well as custom cart colours – is also available.



As a competition grill, it’s meant to be mobile. We like how even if we’re staying put and smoking at home, the solid tires make it easy to pull the unit away from the wall and reposition when desired.

Yoder Smoker chimney
Yoder Smoker chimney

Of course, what really matters is how it performs. We were drawn to the YS640S for the promise of top-notch slow-and-low cooking, and the ability to sear at extreme temps. So far it’s met and exceeded our expectations for ease-of-use, clean-up and most importantly, results. (Cooking and food-related articles coming soon with mouth-watering pics.)

Yoder Smoker Sweet Side View
Yoder Smoker Sweet Side View

We ordered our YS640S through our local barbeque supply dealer, Luxe Barbeque Company. They had it pre-assembled so that on delivery other than popping on the front and side shelves, there was little for us to do. The delivery was definitely a two-person job (the machine weighs in at a cool 418 lbs). Getting it into place was not without its challenges – the guys had to negotiate a few steps up onto the deck (thanks, guys!).



Yoder Smoker S640S Cooking Chamber
Yoder Smoker S640S Cooking Chamber

The shot above of the cooking chamber shows off the awesome construction of the YS640S – and its spaciousness. You can immediately picture smoking multiple pork shoulders, chickens or turkeys if the need arises, all super-doable with this sort of capacity.

Empty Hopper
Empty Hopper

Here’s the hopper where you drop in your wood pellets. The auger at the bottom automatically feeds the pellets into the fire pot within the chamber.

And here’s said fire pot in action:

Yoder Smoker S640S We Have Fire
We Have Fire
Hopper filled with pellets
Hopper filled with pellets

The hopper holds 20 lbs of pellets. We’ve already taken advantage of Luxe’s pellet-delivery service to keep the fires burning, so to speak. So far, so good.

Two-Piece Heat Diffuser with Access Door in Yoder cooking chamber
Two-Piece Heat Diffuser with Access Door in Yoder cooking chamber

Above is a photo of the the Two-Piece Heat Diffuser with Access Door. The ‘access door’ is the removable piece directly above the fire pot. This insert is the critical piece that gives you the ability to smoke at low temps, then to crank things up and sear. With the door above in place, you can maintain low temps for hours and hours in the chamber.

Yoder Smoker - Access door on two-piece diffuser removed
Yoder Smoker – Access door on two-piece diffuser removed

Remove the door as shown above, now you’re able to crank that heat, place grill grates directly above the fire pot, and sear your meat at scorching temps surpassing 700 degrees Fahrenheit (Yup. We’ve done it. And it heats up fast).

An important note on the two-piece diffuser with access door: this part is supposed to be standard-issue with current YS640S units. However, on arrival ours came with the one-piece. Our dealer informed us that some of the newer models have still been shipping with the old part. He made sure we got the correct piece a.s.a.p. – but, be warned. Here’s the thing: you really can’t sear without the two-piece and its access door, and sold separately it will cost you a few hundred dollars. So, this is something to check as soon as you get your machine – it’s supposed to be included!

Handy Tips under hopper lid
Handy Tips under hopper lid

Above is a shot of the underside of the hopper lid, with some handy cooking tips and a meat temperature chart.

Yoder Smoker digital controller unit
Yoder Smoker digital controller unit

Here’s digital controller unit, located on the front side of the hopper. This is where you fire up the grill and monitor the temperature of the chamber and the meat, too (with a probe) if desired.

FireBoard App
FireBoard App

So this is pretty cool – the YS640S comes outfitted with FireBoard’s awesome wireless temperature monitoring technology letting you monitor grill and meat temps using an app on your phone or tablet. Not only that, you can create cooking programs with target times and temps, view graphs, get notifications, and keep an ongoing historical log of your sweet outdoor cookery. We’ve talked about using FireBoard digital thermometer before and have always been impressed; the fact that the YS640S has this technology built right in is a huge plus in our books.

Coming soon: several articles showing the YS640S in action where we’ll do a deeper dive into the smoker’s features and our thoughts on function so far. For now, we’ll leave you with this tasty teaser shot of a 10lbs. pork shoulder we smoked on our YS640S according to the expert directions of Killer Hogs’ Malcolm Reed. Grill on, nation.

Pork Shoulder Slow and Low
Pork Shoulder Slow and Low

Filed Under: Buyer's Guide Tagged With: Luxe Barbecue Company, Pellet Grill, pork shoulder, searing on a smoker, two-piece heat diffuser with access door, wood pellet smokers, Yoder Smokers

Fireboard Takes the Heat Off Checking Meat

August 1, 2017 By Ms. K

You have got to get yourself one of these babies! The Fireboard is a digital thermometer that really makes slow and low smoking the laid back activity it should be — by keeping track of the temperature of both your grill and your meat.

Fireboard with Probe

Fireboard and Probes

But that’s not all – it sends the data in real time to its Fireboard cloud servers so you can check the real-time status of your meal on your phone, tablet, etc. That means you don’t have to hover near your smoker for hours to either lift the lid for a peek, or even to glance at the readout on a thermometer. Just check your phone wherever you are and get assurance that everything is hunky-dory (…or not. And then you know it’s time for an intervention!).

Below is the sort of useful (and very sciency) graph you’ll see on your device that lets you in on what’s going on in your grill (taken from our epic low-and-slow pork shoulder made on our Big Green Egg):

Fireboard Graph

So that’s the graph, and here’s the meat the Fireboard was charting – mmmmm…..

 

Fireboard with Pork Shoulder on Big Green Egg

Super useful — your Fireboard lets you go even more low maintenance by allowing you to set up alerts to warn you if temps go too far up, down, or sideways. Since this can mean the difference between delicious dining or dinner disaster — totally worth it!



Here’s a pic of our Fireboard hooked up to monitor the ambient heat of our PK 360 Grill. Notice how the thermometer’s probe attaches to the grate:

 

Fireboard Monitoring Ambient Heat

Here’s another pic — and this time we’re measuring both the ambient heat (heat inside the grill) and the meat itself. Note the two cables and follow where their probes go  – one attaches to the grate, one nestles into the meat:

Fireboard measuring ambient and meat temperature

Here’s another photo of the Fireboard just hanging out and doing its thing, while we hung out somewhere else doing our thing…

Fireboard in Use (With PK360 Grill)

More than handy, potentially a dinner-saver, and super reliable every time we’ve used it, we’re really pleased with our Fireboard and can’t imagine not using it when we grill. So far, we’ve put it to use with a pork shoulder on our Big Green Egg, and for back ribs, reverse-seared steak, and cedar planked salmon on our PK 360 Grill.

Want to get a Fireboard for yourself?

Check out www.fireboard.com to purchase or for more information.

 

 

Filed Under: Buyer's Guide Tagged With: bbq thermometers, cooking thermometers, digital thermometers, Fireboard thermometer, monitoring bbq temperatures

PK360 Grill and Smoker Unboxing

July 6, 2017 By Ms. K

PK360 is Here!

Our Summer of Grill keeps getting better and better! We just received our awesome new PK360 Grill and Smoker – the newest iteration of the popular PK (“Portable Kitchen”) Grill. We were attracted to it for the ability it’s going to give us to set up different cooking zones at the same time (‘cooler’ on one side for slow and low, and ‘hot as heck’ for searing) and its smart ash clean up design (more below). Plus, we were able to take advantage of a sweet Father’s Day discount and scooped up some accessories and bonus gourmet rubs as well. Check out our little ‘unboxing gallery’ here and get inspired…

 

Well-Packed PK360 Grill and Smoker

Funny how the most durable, least fragile things are packed so well (!)…not that we’re complaining. Everything arrived in super shape. Two of us made lifting some of the heavier items out of the box a tad more convenient.



 

Some High-Quality Parts!

You’ll be immediately struck by the high-quality cast aluminum capsule. A work of smoker art — and hard to imagine ever having to replace it.

 

PK360 Parts and Bonus Toys

We went a little grill-happy and added some accessories, like the rib rack (in the orange box), the high-quality cooking utensils (they come with convenient hooks for attaching to the shelves when not in use). We’re especially excited about the The Great Scrape Woody Paddle (pictured to the left of the capsule) which we’ll use for cleaning the grates. It’s just a flat panel now but it will ‘groove’ as we scrape the grate clean, conforming to the exact size of the wire racks over time (for cleaning those nasty nooks and charred cling-ons).

 

Assembling the parts…

Working some assembly magic with an allen key…

 

Coming together…

The instructions were easy to follow and the unit quickly came together…

 

Assembled and Ready to Grill!

A beauty…almost there! BTW, above you’ve got a good shot of the 4-point venting system ‘controls’. Note the circular vents on the top of the lid (that’s one and two); you control vents found inside the bottom of the capsule with the two round black dials under the unit (that’s three and four).

 

Removable Black Durabilium Shelves – Comes Standard with PK360

Two black ‘durabilium’ shelves come standard with the PK360 to provide a handy prep/food staging surface.  The shelves can be removed if you want to lift the capsule off the stand and haul it somewhere (remember, PK= “Portable Kitchen”). We’re considering upgrading to the PK360 Teak Shelves – in our view a bit more attractive – but frankly the standard shelves look and work just fine. (On our first few grillings, we thought we dedicated a hint of plastic smell resulting from the high heat of the capsule, but it seems to be going away with more use.)

 

Convenient Hinged Grid

The hinged grid is ‘grate’ (groan.) Seriously, you can easily lift it with tongs while cooking when you need to make adjustments to the coals without doing contortions over fire. And it stays propped up on its own (as you see pictured) so it won’t flop onto your meat.

 

Raised Vents to Control Internal Airflow

These raised vents (shaped like little ‘volcanoes’, in the bottom of the capsule) are just plain smart… You top them with the ‘lid’ show above that hovers just above the openings on the legs on either side of the hole – this protects your deck or patio or wherever you’re cooking from ash falling through the bottom while still letting air circulate from the bottom of the grill. You control the degree to which the holes are open with dials on the front of the grill, and as we showed you above, you also have vents in the lid of the capsule. (In the picture below, you’ll see that there are two ‘rows’ of vent holes. )

Check out this great features overview demo video at pkgrills.com showing off the 4-point vent system.

 

Manage Ash for Convenient Clean Up

As notes, your vents are protected from the ash during cooking. This ‘plug’ is where you can push all the ash and dump it into a bucket or bin when you want to clean up. Super easy.

 

PK360 Lighting the Coals with Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter

We lit things up for our first PK360 meal (rib-eye steaks) with our Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter. Watch for more on the PK360 – amazing griller/smoker so far.

 

More info:

Want to buy one now? Go right to the PK360 page on the official PKGrill site.

Or visit www.pkgrills.com for detailed information.

-Ms. K

Filed Under: Buyer's Guide Tagged With: bbq, charcoal grill, PK360 Grill and Smoker, smokers, Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter

Karubecue KBQ C-60 Pit Unboxing and Assembly

June 16, 2017 By Ms. K

We got our Karubecue (KBQ) smoker last week  – the KBQ C-60 Pit – and ohhhhhhhhhh, baby!

The first thing anyone can see – this is one solid, well-made unit. It’s packed like a dream, too and arrived in absolutely pristine shape. (Wiener dog approved as well…)

 



Assembly instructions were clear and easy to follow and we had it all put together and ready to go on our deck in about 30 mins or so. (Screwing on the back casters was the most awkward part since you have to reach into the unit and find the holes at the back, but nothing crazy. Two of us made quick work of that)

It’s hard not to appreciate the quality of every piece as you fit it all together. Even an allen key was included (doesn’t always happen — usually when you need it most).  KBQ Cares!

We’re stoked about the whole thing, but the firebox (the box you see sitting on top of the unit) and KBQ’s whole ‘inverted flame combustion’ technology is what’s got us more than curious…

KBQ C-60 Pit Assembled

So on a sort of side note, we’re the type of smoker folk that likes to cover things up when we’re on a smoker/pit hiatus. The KBQ doesn’t come with a custom cover, but when we asked the company about it, they recommended this generator cover (sold on Amazon), which really does fit over the unit perfectly. We had to rejig some of the racks inside to fit the firebox into the main cook box, but fit it does!

Exciting to see this come together – more exciting to think of what we’ll make with it. Salivating just thinking about the brisket, pulled pork, short ribs, back ribs… Stay tuned for more pics!

 

Want a KBQ C-60 Pit of your own?

Can’t wait –  go right to the order form on the official Karubecue site.

Or visit www.kbq.us for detailed information, more pics, users manual, contact info, and more.

 

Filed Under: Buyer's Guide Tagged With: bbq pit, Karubecue, KBQ C-60 Pit, smoker

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