I wanted a yoder... thinking about timberline

bosco0633 said:
thanks everyone for the help. I ordered the 1300 timberline. I think having a dealer so close to me is the winning factor. I absolutely love the yoder and hope that i don't regret it, but all the advanced features and price point of the timberline make this a clear choice for me.

I will update you all once i get word of it's arrival, i should be one of the first in canada to be rocking out the 1300
Click to expand...

yay!!! :)
 
This may sound a little controversial but I have owned a Yoder 640 for going on about four years. It's an excellent machine. I always hear about people so worried about the accuracy of temperature with a pellet smoker and it really doesn't make any sense. Residential oven will vary more than 25 degrees just between Cycles. Your typical Side box smoker will vary greater than that as well. One of the advantages I feel that the 640 has over many of the other pellet smokers is the way the burn box is designed. most of the burn pots on the pellet smokers are small pots that hold all the pellets together and they burn very clean. this is good for temperature control but not so good for smoke. The way the Yoder holds the pellets is much more loose. This enables the pellet to produce more smoke. But it doesn't hold as accurate temperature and tends to use more pellets. I think it cooks much more like my old side box smoker then some of the other pellet smokers on the market. It is really easy to learn the cooker. The way it functions is very predictable. Predictability and clean smoke production in a cooker is more important to me then absolute temperature control. One of these days I will own a YS 1500 Just for the extra space.
 
Al_T said:
This may sound a little controversial but I have owned a Yoder 640 for going on about four years. It's an excellent machine. I always hear about people so worried about the accuracy of temperature with a pellet smoker and it really doesn't make any sense. Residential oven will vary more than 25 degrees just between Cycles. Your typical Side box smoker will vary greater than that as well. One of the advantages I feel that the 640 has over many of the other pellet smokers is the way the burn box is designed. most of the burn pots on the pellet smokers are small pots that hold all the pellets together and they burn very clean. this is good for temperature control but not so good for smoke. The way the Yoder holds the pellets is much more loose. This enables the pellet to produce more smoke. But it doesn't hold as accurate temperature and tends to use more pellets. I think it cooks much more like my old side box smoker then some of the other pellet smokers on the market. It is really easy to learn the cooker. The way it functions is very predictable. Predictability and clean smoke production in a cooker is more important to me then absolute temperature control. One of these days I will own a YS 1500 Just for the extra space.
Click to expand...

Nothing controversial about that. I agree. The Yoder had a great smoke profile and I really liked the firepot design. What I didn't like is that after each cook I had about a cup or so of burnt/unburnt pellets in the bottom of the cooking chamber because they come out of the fire pot. The design acted like a ramp sometimes. They sent me a new fire pot and that seemed to fix the problem. It was a pellet hog for sure. I am hoping that the new design of the exhaust on the Timberline will help with the smoke flavor a bit.
 
I am inches away from ordering a Yoder or Mak...but I would like to see someone with first hand experience with the Timberline before I do.....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Whats the verdict?

My first post, long time GMG Daniel Boone owner. Recently sold it to my Father-in-law. Googled Yoder vs Timberline and discovered this post and I can see that Bosco has his Timberline and so far it looks like he's making some tasty looking food. I am in the same boat, looking at the YS640 or the Timberline 1300. I would be interested to hear from BPROFFER if you have received your Timberlne yet and with your previous experience with the Yoder what are the Pro's and Con's of each. Tracking down a Timberline 1300 has proven difficult even though the Traeger World HQ is right here in Salt Lake City. Appreciate any feedback Timberline or Yoder owners have to offer. Mak is the other one that seems to be in the same conversation.
 
Built in wifi has been awesome. I really didn't think that I would like it but man, it's awesome. Having the Traeger app has made things even easier for me when cooking.

The only advantage at this point that the yoder would have is direct searing but in all honesty I have 2 amazing Komodo Kamado grills for that.

I can still cook at 500 when you drop lower grate to bottom level I get good markings.

Having seen both in person, I am very pleased to have gone by way of the timberline.
 
I was in similar boat and bought the Yoder, mainly for the searing ability, which seems to be the best available from pellet grills (maybe Cookshack pg500 fits there also). The new 2 piece diffuser allows you to grill directly over the fire with grill grates or regular grates. I have had my grill grates over 900 degrees fairly quickly. That being said, I love the tech of the Timberline...if they had a direct sear option, I might of bought it instead?
 
I took delivery of my 1300 finally. I did the burn in last night and when I opened the grill this morning everything was covered in a black soot. Creosote? Was weird. I have never had this in any of my other pellet smokers. I used Lumberjack Pecan mix pellets. Bad pellets maybe?

I cleaned it out and fired it up at the 165° setting. The temp shot yo to 235° and no lower. Also, almost no smoke output. So then I set it to 225° and hit the supersmoke button. And left it alone for another hour or so. I came out and it was at 245°. At this point I shut it off because I had to leave, and still hardly any visa or smoke and not wood smoke smell. I also noticed that it looked like the black soot was starting to build again and everything has a hot metallic smell. I am confused.

I am going to change pellets and give it another shot this weekend.

Any thoughts?

Also....was 100° outside and 15-18 mph wind.
 
I struggle with different pellets brands on the pro 34. I find the traeger pellets burn the best. After the burn in my grill was dark black gross and I just wiped it down.

I am curious... did you fill the grease trap with water before doing the burn in? They say the burn in needs the water in it until the grease begins to form. If you missed this step you will have way more airflow and I can see this causing the temp spikes that you were experiencing

Set the grill at 165 and just let it go for a bit. Try traeger brand pellets and see if they help. I am having incredibly good luck with temp stability.
 
Newbie first post

Hi guys,
I have recently ordered a timberline 1300, I always wanted a YS640 but it looks to me the timberline is a bit more advanced, the searing temps were a concern but I have a weber Q for the searing if I need it.
Interested to see if bproffer can resolve the temp issues, I am moving fro charcoal smoking to pellets for ease and consistency so bit temp swings are concerning,
will post more when I receive 1300

Cheers:clap2:
 
I am hoping that adding some water until the grease trap starts filling up from cooks was the trick. I can honestly tell you that my temp swings have been +/- 3 degrees since I have had mine.

I hope he responds soon with an update
 
Heard some stories about soot with the Timberline. At that price point, I would be on a Yoder in a heartbeat. GMG smokes Traeger for breakfast.
 
Green Drake I would love to read up on what you are referring to. I have had no issues with my timberline and soot.

Also to each is own with respect to grills. I think your comments are a tad bold and until you cook on one I take what you say with a grain of salt!

Please point me in the direction of the spot issues please and thanks
 
Oh no, totally agree, heck I was a distributor rep for Traeger for years in my spare time, but there is a FB page called Traeger Nation BBQ Group on FB, guy posted his review and issues because of the downdraft style exhaust. I think, and its just my opinion, Traeger is priced out of the market with that one. By a long shot, they need to stay in the sub $1k market, not try to compete with the higher end. GMG has them beat on smoke quality and temp control all day long though, and I have both of those.

Here's his post: I drove 3 hours to pick up Timberline 1300 last weekend assembled yesterday and after initial burn-in everything inside was covered in a thick black soot. I spent over 3 hrs today pulling everything out and cleaning it. Which is ridiculous considering I spent over $2,000.00 on this grill. So now that everything has been cleaned and put back in I decided to try it again. I preheated the grill to 200 degrees turned on super smoke and loaded the grill with over a $100.00 worth of ribs after 2hrs soot is starting to form again inside the grill and all over the ribs. This absolutely unacceptable. This is my 4th Traeger I have owned and never had issues like this thats why I invested in this new grill. Did I make a $2000.00 mistake? Is it possible I got a lemon unit? Super frustrated and now my Memorial Day weekend is ruined. I called customer service today and was told no timberline techs were in today. Feeling frustrated
 
I did read that post and he has been mentioning that it is a software glitch. He has since upgraded firmware and I'm interested to see his results after.

I can only comment from my personal experiences so far and I have been very pleased.

I love the yoder and would have went that way had I not wanted wifi
 
Bosco, I saw my first Yoder today. It really is built well as you probably know. My local store sells them for $1,700. I love the fact that it has a large searing area and higher temp capability. They also have the Timberline 1300, I think it looks better and I like the fact that it doesn't have a chimney. The Traeger app looks nice and polished and the WiFi is tech that the Yoder is missing. My question is, what do you personally use the WiFi capability for? Most of the time I set a temp and walk away. I wonder if Traeger will make a searing style perforated drip pan like GMG. Am I the only one surprised that after all the research Traeger claims to have done, a hot searing section was not made available? Perhaps Yoder will make a WiFi board upgrade. I think I will wait for more Timberline reviews, and see if the soot issue is isolated to a small amount of units. Thanks for your posts, they have been very helpful.
 
Have a rectec. Have looked at others too. My 3 year old rectec has gone through 1000s of pounds of pellets. It will no longer smoke no matter what brand pellet. I would love to be able to use the smoke function on it but I do have 2 WSMs. Saw the gmg at the store and the racks are a joke. No way I'd drop 2k on a traeger.
 
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