The Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart with Storage Drawer is worth it for the serious backyard cook or traveling competitor who wants professional-grade, American-made performance plus a real place to stash their gear.
The most common mistake buyers make is treating this like any pellet grill and skipping the versatility question. High-quality pellet grills like this one genuinely function as a grill, oven, and smoker in one, so a standard setup smokes, bakes, and roasts, while popping the access door lets you cook over direct flame. Cheaper models often only do oven-style cooking, and that difference shows up in your searing.
Our pick: Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart with Storage Drawer — a 10-gauge steel cooking chamber built in Kansas, USA, 1,070 square inches of cooking space, and a full-width drawer holding over 4,900 cubic inches of pellets, tools, and accessories, all starting at $3,999.
Runner-up: Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart — the same cook chamber and Adaptive Control System on a mobile cart, better for cooks who want mobility but don't need the onboard drawer.
Choose the storage drawer configuration if you've already collected smoke tubes, extra grates, and a wood-fired oven insert; otherwise the drawer-free competition cart saves you money without changing how your food turns out.
Verdict up front: If you want a professional-grade, American-made pellet grill that smokes, bakes, roasts, and sears with a genuinely useful storage solution built right in, the Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart with Storage Drawer earns its keep and then some.
Specs and Build Quality
Let's start where it counts, because this is where the Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart with Storage Drawer separates itself from the sea of mass-produced grills out there. The cooking chamber is built from 1/8-inch thick steel — that's 10-gauge, and you feel it the moment you lift the lid. This is heavy-gauge steel that holds heat like a cast-iron skillet holds a sear, which is exactly why food comes off a Yoder Smokers grill tasting the way it does. The whole rig tips the scales at 505 pounds, and while that number might raise an eyebrow, it's the kind of heft that tells you this grill was built to outlast your patio furniture, your fence, and probably your car.
The competition cart itself is crafted from a combination of 10- and 12-gauge steel and finished with a high-temp powder coat that shrugs off weather and wipes clean with almost no effort. This is rugged, all-season construction — the sort of thing you leave outside in a Kansas winter without a second thought. And it's proudly built in Kansas, USA, which matters here at All Things Barbecue not just for bragging rights but because that heavy-gauge, hand-built construction is the reason these grills cook better food for more seasons than nearly anything else you can buy.
On the cooking side, you get 1,070 square inches of total space — 640 on the primary grate and 430 on the modular 2-piece upper shelf. The high-capacity hopper swallows a full 20-pound bag of pellets and can run roughly 10-plus hours at 225°F, so an overnight brisket cook isn't going to leave you setting a 3 a.m. alarm to refill. The grill operates across a smoke-to-sear range of 150º to 600º F, and you can dial the temperature in 5°F increments on either the physical panel or the app, with the controller holding your target to within ±5 °F.
The star of this particular configuration is the storage drawer. The interior measures 21.25" wide by 29.5" long by 4.5" tall, with a drawer clearance height of 7.75" — big enough, as Yoder Smokers points out, to stow a Yoder Smokers Wood-Fired Oven insert when you're not using it. Mounted on heavy-duty slides, that full-width drawer holds over 4,900 cubic inches of gear and up to 150 pounds of pellets, tools, rubs, and accessories. This configuration ships in a range of standard colors, with the option to upgrade to stainless steel shelves and step up from the standard 8" pneumatic tires to 10" tires.
Day-to-Day Performance
Here's the thing that surprises new owners: for a grill this serious, it's remarkably easy to live with. Startup is genuinely a push-button affair. You load the hopper, power it on, hit "START," and the auger begins feeding pellets while the ceramic igniter kicks off the induction combustion process. You'll see visible flames within about four minutes, and the grill should reach your target temperature in roughly 10 to 20 minutes — a little longer on a bitter cold morning, so plan accordingly.
The magic under the hood is Yoder Smokers' next-generation Adaptive Control System, built around a powerful microprocessor that accounts for a whole list of real-world variables to keep your temperature steady. It's smart enough to recover when you open the lid, when you slap a cold packer brisket on the grate, when the weather turns, or even when you switch pellet types mid-cook. Pair that with the consistent left-to-right airflow that runs the length of the chamber, and you get even cooking and rich, wood-fired flavor from one end to the other. That airflow also keeps soot buildup down, which your food will thank you for.
This is where I want to be clear about something, because not all pellet grills are created equal. Plenty of them can only do oven-style cooking. The YS640s is one of the select few that genuinely functions as a grill, an oven, and a smoker in one. From its standard setup it'll smoke, bake, and roast, and with the included 2-piece second shelf you get true oven-style baking. Pop out the small access door and you can cook over direct flame at higher temps — that's the grilling experience folks want when they're searing burgers or getting a proper crust on a steak. One verified customer put it well, saying it easily fit a brisket, two pork shoulders, and a tray of mac and cheese, and that switching over to direct grilling for hamburgers made it a true workhorse.
The dual food probes feed precise readings to both the display and your phone through the FireBoard app, connected over Bluetooth or your home Wi-Fi. That means you can hold a temperature, monitor doneness, change cooking programs, and adjust from wherever you happen to be — no lid-lifting, no babysitting, no guesswork. I've come to think of that hands-free confidence as the real luxury here. You set your cook and go live your life.
The storage drawer changes the daily rhythm more than you'd expect. Keeping your pellets, tools, grates, and smoke tubes within arm's reach means you're not trekking back to the garage mid-cook. As one owner said, it's easy to move around the patio and keeps shelves, grates, and smoke tubes tidy when they're not in use. The oversized, lockable pneumatic wheels roll smoothly over uneven ground and up loading ramps, then lock rock-steady with a pedal so the grill won't budge while you're working. Heavy-duty tie-down rings make securing it for transport simple, which is why this cart is a favorite among folks who take their cooking on the road.
Who It's For — and Who It Isn't
This configuration is for the cook who values three things at once: professional-grade performance, mobility around the patio or the competition circuit, and a genuine place to put all the gear that piles up when you fall in love with this hobby. If you're the type who's already accumulated smoke tubes, a couple of sets of grates, rubs, and a Yoder Smokers Wood-Fired Oven insert, the drawer alone might sell you.
It's a fantastic fit for a large family or someone who hosts often. With room for 8-10 racks of ribs, 6-8 pork shoulders, or 3-4 packer briskets at a time, this grill handles a serious cookout without breaking a sweat. And despite its capability, it welcomes beginners with open arms — the push-button start and app-based control make it approachable for someone smoking their first pork butt. A new-to-smoking verified customer said she went all in and doesn't regret it one bit.
Who should look elsewhere? If you know you want a permanent home for your grill inside an outdoor kitchen island, a rolling competition cart isn't your best route — a built-in configuration like the Yoder Smokers YS640s Built-In Pellet Grill with ACS and Valance is designed to surface-mount into a counter instead. And if you truly cook for just one or two people and never plan to host, the 1,070 square inches of cooking space here may be more grill than you'll ever fill, though I'd gently point out that capacity is a nice problem to have when the neighbors start showing up uninvited.
What Could Be Better
Every grill involves trade-offs, and I'd rather you hear them from me now than discover them later. First, the weight. At 505 pounds, this is about as maneuverable as a grill this substantial gets, and the pneumatic wheels genuinely help — but this is not something you're carrying up a flight of stairs or tossing in a trunk. It's a roll-it-around-the-yard machine, not a grab-and-go.
Second, it's a real investment, and it deserves an honest conversation about value rather than a soft-pedal. This is a premium, professional-grade grill, and the price reflects the heavy-gauge steel, the hand-built Kansas construction, and the electronics. If you're cross-shopping against a lightweight big-box grill, the sticker will look steep. But that's precisely the difference between a grill you replace every few seasons and one that becomes a family heirloom.
Third, because this is a freight item, it doesn't ship in a small box on a porch. The good news: when you buy this grill through All Things Barbecue, it's delivered straight to your door, so you're not driving to a freight terminal to claim 500 pounds of steel yourself.
Finally, if you don't want or need the storage drawer, you're paying for a feature you won't use. In that case the Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart gives you the same cook chamber and Adaptive Control System on the same mobile cart without the drawer, and the Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on the open-frame standard cart is the pared-down starting point. Every one of these shares the identical cook chamber and controller, so your food turns out just as beautifully — the choice really comes down to cart style and storage.
Expert Verdict
The Yoder Smokers YS640s Pellet Grill on Competition Cart with Storage Drawer is the right call for the serious backyard cook or traveling competitor who wants top-tier, American-made performance, real mobility, and integrated storage in a single premium package. You're buying a do-it-all grill — smoker, oven, and searing grill in one — wrapped in heavy-gauge steel that's built to last decades, backed by a controller sophisticated enough to make consistent results feel effortless. This sits at the upper, professional end of the pellet grill market, and for a cook who values craftsmanship and durability over chasing the cheapest sticker, it's worth every penny.
If you want the same legendary cooking with a different cart style — or you're weighing whether the drawer is worth it for your setup — the full lineup of YS640s configurations is worth a look, and it's part of the deep bench of premium, made-in-America gear that has helped All Things Barbecue earn over 5,000 five-star reviews across the site. If you're picturing this grill anchoring a full outdoor kitchen, our in-house design team offers free, personal consultations — real humans who've cooked on this equipment, not an impersonal online configurator — and you can start that conversation any time through our outdoor kitchen design team. Either way, this is the grill that turns cooking back into something you look forward to — and there's nothing quite like pulling a perfect brisket off a Yoder Smokers grill at sunrise.
