Ozric
New member
Smoking and grilling at 7,000 ft. Doesn't get any better than that.
I got started on pellet grills about 8 years ago. I was living in Scottsdale, AZ at the time in one of those bloody awful, snotty gated communities with lots of restrictions. Due to the design of my unit, I wasn't permitted to use either gas or charcoal. They thought that left only electric. Big wrong on that one. Being the president of the HOA, I felt compelled to follow the same rules I was forced to enforce. After a great deal of research (much of it legal), I determined that pellet grills were not proscribed by the city's fire code (as were gas and charcoal). So, I wrote a rule that permitted the use of pellet grills.
Then, I had to acquire one. At the time, I picked Traeger, and bought a 125 Executive (I wanted a large grilling area, but was limited on width in where I could place the grill on my patio, so having the hopper in front worked great). I managed pretty well with it, but it wasn't until I added 6 GrillGrates to it that I really got to have fun with it. The GrillGrates raised the effective temp at the grill surface level by 40°-60°F (steaks started turning out reasonably well) at max. temp AND balanced the temps left-to-right at all cooking temps (the left-right delta went from 30°-50°F down to 10°-20°F).
About a year into that endeavor, I received a Traeger newsletter announcing that they were expanding and looking for help. Long story short, I wound up being the Arizona sales manager for a bit. I loved the grill, but having come from a Six Sigma (quality) background at Motorola (I came up through engineering and spent the last 7 years running the Six Sigma consulting practice in Europe and Asia for Motorola University), I found the design and production facilities to be, well, primordial. We wound up not getting along so well. I was personally suffering from quality issues (peeling paint, igniter rods failing catastrophically (was there any other way on a Traeger?) and regularly. Let's just say that they didn't respond well to suggestions...of any type. Well, I've got a problem trying to sign up dealers for a product that I KNOW they will have trouble with. How could I ask them to pony up premium bucks for a product line that would cost them significantly in customer support? In the end, I wound up with a truck that got 13 mpg that I no longer needed. Took a bath on it.
So, a divorce and 2 moves later (into a rental, and then into my new home in Flag), I have a dead Traeger (augur motor and fan). I was so darn tired of putting money into that 125, that I went looking for a replacement.
I was looking at MAK and Memphis and FEC (I really like Cookshack's chicken rub), when I stumbled onto Yoder Smokers at a regional BBQ comp. in Williams, AZ the end of last month. The pit master was running a 640 and one of the new 1320s. The pit bull and the old engineer in me went Tasmanian. A bunch of research later, I ordered a Yoder YS640 with the second shelf, GrillGrate direct grilling kit, probe port and a fitted cover. It's scheduled to ship 7/31! And they're throwing in 40 lbs of pellets. Woot!
I've been making do with my Weber Performer and Smokenator. Can't wait to get back on a pellet grill.
Even though I didn't order a MAK or a Memphis, I hope you will allow me to participate on this forum. Besides, I haven't found a good local source for pellets here in Flagstaff (help, anyone?), so I need a place to order BBQr's Delight pellets from, and being in the west, the BBQr's Delight website pointed me to Big Poppa Smokers.
So here I am.
¡Buenos dias!
I got started on pellet grills about 8 years ago. I was living in Scottsdale, AZ at the time in one of those bloody awful, snotty gated communities with lots of restrictions. Due to the design of my unit, I wasn't permitted to use either gas or charcoal. They thought that left only electric. Big wrong on that one. Being the president of the HOA, I felt compelled to follow the same rules I was forced to enforce. After a great deal of research (much of it legal), I determined that pellet grills were not proscribed by the city's fire code (as were gas and charcoal). So, I wrote a rule that permitted the use of pellet grills.
Then, I had to acquire one. At the time, I picked Traeger, and bought a 125 Executive (I wanted a large grilling area, but was limited on width in where I could place the grill on my patio, so having the hopper in front worked great). I managed pretty well with it, but it wasn't until I added 6 GrillGrates to it that I really got to have fun with it. The GrillGrates raised the effective temp at the grill surface level by 40°-60°F (steaks started turning out reasonably well) at max. temp AND balanced the temps left-to-right at all cooking temps (the left-right delta went from 30°-50°F down to 10°-20°F).
About a year into that endeavor, I received a Traeger newsletter announcing that they were expanding and looking for help. Long story short, I wound up being the Arizona sales manager for a bit. I loved the grill, but having come from a Six Sigma (quality) background at Motorola (I came up through engineering and spent the last 7 years running the Six Sigma consulting practice in Europe and Asia for Motorola University), I found the design and production facilities to be, well, primordial. We wound up not getting along so well. I was personally suffering from quality issues (peeling paint, igniter rods failing catastrophically (was there any other way on a Traeger?) and regularly. Let's just say that they didn't respond well to suggestions...of any type. Well, I've got a problem trying to sign up dealers for a product that I KNOW they will have trouble with. How could I ask them to pony up premium bucks for a product line that would cost them significantly in customer support? In the end, I wound up with a truck that got 13 mpg that I no longer needed. Took a bath on it.
So, a divorce and 2 moves later (into a rental, and then into my new home in Flag), I have a dead Traeger (augur motor and fan). I was so darn tired of putting money into that 125, that I went looking for a replacement.
I was looking at MAK and Memphis and FEC (I really like Cookshack's chicken rub), when I stumbled onto Yoder Smokers at a regional BBQ comp. in Williams, AZ the end of last month. The pit master was running a 640 and one of the new 1320s. The pit bull and the old engineer in me went Tasmanian.
A bunch of research later, I ordered a Yoder YS640 with the second shelf, GrillGrate direct grilling kit, probe port and a fitted cover. It's scheduled to ship 7/31! And they're throwing in 40 lbs of pellets. Woot!I've been making do with my Weber Performer and Smokenator. Can't wait to get back on a pellet grill.
Even though I didn't order a MAK or a Memphis, I hope you will allow me to participate on this forum. Besides, I haven't found a good local source for pellets here in Flagstaff (help, anyone?), so I need a place to order BBQr's Delight pellets from, and being in the west, the BBQr's Delight website pointed me to Big Poppa Smokers.
So here I am.
¡Buenos dias!
