The Yoder YS1500 has arrived!

It's like Christmas morning here folks. I had a delivery window with ABF freight and shockingly they showed up right after the start of the window so I got to get my hands on the YS1500 early in the day. The driver and I had some "fun" getting this thing off the truck and up my driveway because the pallet is oversized. I unloaded it using my pallet jack. I rolled two wheels onto my pallet jack when it was near full extension, then lowered it down and removed the pallet jack. Then I used the pallet jack from the size to catch the wheels on the hopper size and lowered it down to the ground. That made it a piece of cake by myself - but then again not everyone has a pallet jack at home. You'll notice I went with the gray cart instead of the orange. I thought it would blend in a bit better on my patio and it does.

Initial thoughts:

• Built Like a tank
• HEAVY - My poor back
• Not very maneuverable - plan your movements carefully because the swivel casters don't work like you'd expect.
• Did I mention HEAVY??
• Everything is heavy duty
• Looks awesome

Overall it looks to be an awesome cooker. I thought the YS640 I had was built tough, this thing puts it to shame. Everything has heft to it. The cooking grates are built to hold a small Honda engine. The fabrication quality is very nice (I do fabrication work on the side). Let's face it, it's pretty darn cool.

I do have to contact Yoder about a couple of minor things. First one of the thumb screws for my custom sleeved stack was bent somehow. Also the probe ports were installed only on the right side of the chamber, when I had requested one to be installed on each end.

I'm doing the burn in right now at 350 degrees after washing off the cooking grates. It fired right up and was coming up to temp pretty quickly.

I had the following custom features added:

• YS stainless logo on the counter balance
• Two large probe ports
• Sleeved upper stack so it will fit in my enclosed trailer. *This was not their normal way of doing it so it was extra $$$ above their normal method.

I also bought 400 pounds of pellets from them since it didn't change the freight price much. Anyhow, blah, blah, blah. Time for some pics.













I also cooked a pound of bacon which was lightly seasoned and it came out great. Very even temperatures side to side and top to bottom. Really happy with the cooking performance thus far.

peeps said:

Yoder makes beautiful rigs!

Is that pin in correctly on the right side of the door? Wouldn't the cotter pin go in once you pass it through the door loop to keep the pin locked in place?

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The pin is not in correctly, it's just hanging there from when I removed it at the time of arrival. Nice catch!

DENALI said:

Nice! What is the O.D. of the smoke stack? I like the idea of sleeving the stack although i think i would have had them weld the collar to the removable part of the stack rather than the elbow but i am betting they didnt ask your opinion on that one. I might have even had them sleeve it before the elbow. Either way it would make it handier for storage in your trailer.

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It's a 5" stack. I would have sleeved it on the removable part as well so that water wouldn't run into the unit. Not a big deal since it's under my patio and will be covered when not in use. I wanted the sleeve on the vertical so that I didn't have to worry about the stack rotating over or having to crank on set screws to keep it upright like on the YS640. I fabricate, so at some point I may alter it to a different configuration. For now it does exactly what I requested.