Author Topic: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down  (Read 8559 times)

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Offline slaga

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My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #-1 on: April 03, 2013, 08:31:26 AM »
For those interested, I installed the Savannah Stoker on my Yoder so I could make these changes to my grill. I needed to relocate the temperature probe for the grill and Yoder uses temperature offset tables. Basically Yoder measures the temperature where the probe is and then uses tables to show the actual temperature about 12" from the left wall and center of the grate, front to back. I felt moving the temperature probe would have made the temperature offset tables invalid so I switched to the SSII. You can see the post here:

http://www.letstalkbbq.com/index.php?topic=3166.msg36100#msg36100

I already have a Traeger O7E with the Savannah Stoker that I am more than happy with. I kept looking on Craigslist and a couple other places to see if I could find a Fast Eddy cooker someone was trying to get rid of. To make a long story short, I found a Yoder YS640 at a price I absolutely could not pass up. Then the wheels started turning. Could I make this a top down cooker similar to the FE grills. It was certainly big enough that I could handle losing a little smoking grate area.

I had 2 goals when I set out on this endeavor. The first was to mimic Fast Eddy's method of cooking "top down". I hope he finds this as a form of flattery! The second goal was to not make any changes to the grill that I could not reverse and return to stock form in less than an hour. Well the second one went out the window. You will see more on that later. Here a few pictures of the parts used in the modifications:









The end result went something like this:


Notice the foil stuffing the holes around the support for the second shelf?


Well after running it a handful of times I deduced that most of the smoke never really went over the drip tray and just exited below. That was not what I intended. If I removed the foil on the sides of the chimney from the last picture I got the smoke above the drip tray but that basically cancelled the whole purpose of my mods. Back to the old drawing board. Out comes the old 4" angle grinder and the whole "change the grill back to stock" thing went right out of the window... I cut about 4" from the support that hold the right side of the drip tray up:



And now this is what it looks like. Notice the difference in the angle of the drip tray:





One thing you cannot see in the picture is I used foil to flatten crescent moon shaped top of the damper and then pulled the damper out far enough to contact the drip tray. I also balled up some foil to close the gap between the damper and the front/rear walls of the grill. Now all of the smoke and heat goes straight up through the charbroil section and comes back down over the drip tray and then makes its way to the bottom of my make shift chimney on the right side. I feel it was a huge success. I know it uses way less pellets at 400 and 500 degrees and the tri tip I cooked for Easter cooked very evenly. I will do a biscuit test in the near future and see just how successful I was.

Offline teesquare

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« on: April 03, 2013, 08:52:53 AM »
Very interesting mods!

I will be watching how this works out. The Savannah Stoker part is what interests me as much as the other mods you made.
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Offline muebe

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2013, 08:53:20 AM »
Slaga very impressive modifications. Your's looks very similar to the design that zephyr did on his Modified Traeger.

He is one guy I would love to see at this forum!
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Offline teesquare

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2013, 09:37:16 AM »
Slaga very impressive modifications. Your's looks very similar to the design that zephyr did on his Modified Traeger.

He is one guy I would love to see at this forum!

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Offline slaga

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2013, 09:50:52 AM »
Slaga very impressive modifications. Your's looks very similar to the design that zephyr did on his Modified Traeger.

He is one guy I would love to see at this forum!

I remember that thread and I gleaned a bit of inspiration from it. I have a Traeger Lil Tex and I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make it trap heat high. I know you can buy a gadget that pulls air from right above the grate level but I really wanted to pull the exhaust from at least a few inches below the grate without losing to much cooking area. I could never come up with something to my satisfaction for the Lil Tex.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 09:53:07 AM by slaga »

Offline Savannahsmoker

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2013, 05:53:37 PM »
Done a bunch of mods to my Traeger and some to my Royall but never thought of top down.

Excellent concept and impressive modification, can't wait to see how well it works.
Art

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Offline slaga

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2013, 08:51:46 AM »
See below for a couple pictures of the access to the fire pot. I have not had a flameout while cooking anything yet but if I ever do, I do not have to remove the food, grate, and drip pan to access the fire pot. I simply remove the "flame tamer" and the fire pot is right there.







Well over the weekend I did a little testing. Using the SSII with the fan on high I was able to maintain 350* with a temp swing that was about 350 +/- 15 using outL=20 and outH=35 and I did a biscuit test. I used CookinPellets.com's 100% hickory pellets for the test. Here are the results:

Raw:


Tops:


Bottoms:


I then did the same 350* biscuit test with the fans on low. To get a similar temp swing I had to drop outL to 16 and outH to 24. Here are the pictures. I forgot to take a raw picture so here is the top picture:


And the bottoms:


I am not sure if you can notice it in the pictures but with the fans on low, the biscuits cooked a tad more evenly across the entire grill. The cook with the fans on high was a couple minutes faster than the cook with the fans on low. A couple minutes ain't much but on a 20 minute cook or so it was about 10%. I am quite happy with my results thus far.

After the biscuit test, I cooked 2 Boston Butts. They were right at 9.5 lbs each, bone in. I also cooked a couple sausage fatties for the biscuits that I cooked. See below for a list of the duration, temperature and pellet consumption. I wish I would have skipped the 240 altogether but I did not. I cooked at 200* until the Butts reached 140 which happened to be at 2:30 in the morning. I am not the best thinker at 2:30 am. The low during the cook was mid 40s and the high during the cook was mid 60s.

Using the SSII with the fans in low mode.
8.5 hours at 200*
6 hours at 240*
5 hours at 250*

Please note that both of the 9.5 lb Boston Butts finished at the same time and both reached an internal temperature of 198. That seemed a little too consistent to be real but that was the case.

The result was I used 21 lbs 12.5 oz of pellets ~ 21.78 lbs of pellets for the 19.5 hours. That equates to a pellet consumption of 1.12 lbs/hr. Not bad for the "pellet hog" the Yoder YS640 is known for.

I have a hunch using the fan on high will result in higher pellet consumption, a smokier flavor in my food and a faster cook. When I have a chance to cook a couple more that I bought at the same time, I will post the results. The only difference is there were only two 9.5 pounders and the next cook will be a couple 8.5 pounders. I will keep you posted on my next cook.

Side Note:
I "cooked" a couple of frozen Chimi Changas I had in the freezer last night. I was able to maintain well above 400* using the fans on low without any black or white smoke at all. To be honest I am not sure what the high temperature this grill, with mods, can reach using the fans on low.

Stay tuned...
« Last Edit: April 09, 2013, 12:31:52 PM by slaga »

Offline muebe

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2013, 08:59:42 AM »
Interesting results.

What is equivalent to factory RPM speed of the fan? High or low? Or is it neither?

In other words are the high and low speeds different RPMs than what a factory Yoder has?

And are both fans at high and low or just the firepot fan?
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Offline slaga

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2013, 09:29:32 AM »
Interesting results.

What is equivalent to factory RPM speed of the fan? High or low? Or is it neither?

In other words are the high and low speeds different RPMs than what a factory Yoder has?

And are both fans at high and low or just the firepot fan?

The 2 fans in my grill are the stock fans that Yoder ships with their grills currently. The SSII has a button on it that when it is pressed, it toggles back and forth between 100% of the voltage and 85% of the voltage to the fans. As far as I know neither of the percentages are adjustable. At the high setting (100%) the fans run just like they would with the stock controller. On the low setting the controller sends 85% of the voltage to the fans. I have no idea what the fan speed is but it is noticeably slower.

When I first got my grill it only had 1 fan and it maintained temp just fine but was little slow getting hotter. With 2 fans it is much better. Before I got the SSII, I was planning on installing a toggle switch between the stock controller and the fan located on the removable panel on the pellet box. I was going to let the fan that blows directly on the fire pot run at 100% all of the time and then I could turn the other fan on/off with the toggle switch to save a few pellets. The high/low feature of the SSII made that mod obsolete before I even got around to doing it.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2013, 12:34:56 PM by slaga »

Offline slaga

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2013, 11:17:52 PM »
Sorry for the delay. To make a long story short I am very happy with my modifications I have done so far and unless I need to fill up the grill, I do not want to convert it back to stock, but just in case, here is what I have done. I took the piece I cut out and had 4 pieces of steel welded to it so I can add it back any time I want. See below.





Now I can go back and forth between my modified grill and the stock configuration in about 15 minutes. After converting back to stock, except I used the SSII controller, I ran the grill at 250* and this is what I experienced. Keep in mind this is empty smoke, no food. I used CookinPellets.com's 100% hickory for this test.



My observations on the SSII controlling a stock Yoder YS640:
  • The temperature probe was located in the center of the grill, left to right and front to back.
  • Baffle was pulled out about 6".
  • During start up, the controller was set in manual mode at 50% output amplitude until the grill reached 150 degrees F. Then I switched to auto mode.
  • It took 10:30 to reach 250 and the controller tapped the brakes twice before it reached 250.
  • I waited 40 minutes after it reached 250 and then wrote the output amplitude and temperature every time the auger started.
  • It took 20:40 to complete 3 oscillations above/below 250.
  • With a SV of 250, the temperature averaged 251.79 with a high of 260 and a low of 245.
  • On average, the grill was within 3.92 degrees of 251.79 degrees 1/2 of the time.
  • I am positive an auto-tune could tighten up these numbers but I used the stock settings my controller was shipped with for this test. (I think)

I have said before that this grill can dump some fuel in a hurry and I think the stock controller manages this by being a little slow to add fuel. When I was done with this test I decided to cook a couple chicken pot pies and bumped the temperature to 350*. About 5 minutes later the grill was spewing white smoke and I knew it was dumping a little more fuel than it could keep lit. Knowing how the controller worked I just turned it off (knowing the fan would keep running) until the white smoke cleared. Then I  looked into the fan area (there is a direct line of sight where the air enters the grill and the fire pot) and saw the fire was going good and turned the controller back on and it immediately rose to 350* and cooked a couple of the best chicken pot pies I have cooked. I think this can be managed by limiting OUTH but I will take my chances and leave OutH at 100%. Overall I am extremely happy with the way the SSII controls my Yoder YS640.

With my "top down" mods I manage temperature swings a bit differently but in either case the SSII is quite capable of running my Yoder.

Even though I prefer the SSII over the stock controller, I would not recommend replacing the stock controller with the SSII in a stock grill. Both controllers are PID based and can control the grill well but I feel the money would be better spent on a number of accessories that would enhance your BBQ experiences like a thermal jacket or Maverick ET-732.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 10:53:02 AM by slaga »

Offline sliding_billy

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2013, 02:57:07 AM »
Cool post.  Nice mods.
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Offline muebe

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2013, 07:18:57 AM »
Thanks for the update.
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Offline Savannahsmoker

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Re: My Yoder - Rollin' Smoke with the Top Down
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2013, 07:00:33 PM »
WOW, I sure am impressed, great job.
Thanks for posting it for the enjoyment of all of us.
Art

Blaz'n Grill Works Grid Iron (Copper)
Royall RG 2000 (gone to live with nephew)
Weber Genesis E-330 (Copper)
The Big Easy
Weber Smokey Joe Gold for fun and vacation,