hi everyone,
i am about a month away from buying my new Bradley
i will be using it in my (currently building it)food truck to smoke loins for slicing into sandwiches, and possibly turkey legs for certain events i plan on hitting......
my menu will be pretty simple, cubans, ham sammies, roasted pork sandwiches, grilled cheese (several varieties) burgers and dawgs....
has anyone put their Bradley through a pressure test of constant use?? i figure i can use it as a proofing oven also.....
to be totally honest, the 3k for a commercial smoker is just out of my range,way too big for the truck, and from what i have seen the Bradley has much more flexibility as it is...i love the "puck" method idea of smoking materials
anyway, i hope to learn lots, please be patient with me as i am still very new to the art of smoking and will probably have lots of questions to start off with...
Bruce from NC
welcome to the forum,
as for using a smoker on a food truck, I do not think it will work, all the food I have smoked takes 3 to 4 hours just to smoke, then several hours to cook unless you just want to hit the meats with smoke, then fry / grill the food. I have smoked 18 lbs of brisket that took 16 hours to cook along with 3 hours of smoke totaling 19 hours.
pork butts / shoulders will take as long. Most big pieces of meat or loads . .13 lb and larger average 1 to 2 hours per lb to cook at 225'F
you may be better off of pre smoke / cook the food at home and then reheat on the truck.
im sure others will chime in on this as well
I belong to one forum where it is mostly Vending from tow behind trailers. These guys set up for two or three day events. Most will do first day cooks before they leave for the event and just reheat but during the event have something smoking in theback ground to get the good old smoke smell going. If your going to use the bradley you better have some spare parts with you such as elements as they can go anytime. You might also want to do some mod's to it like the duel element mod. Better control of whats cooking. Wish you luck if you go that way. Always good to see someone trying to make an living with what they love to do.
Another thing I forgot to mention was I hope you know what your getting yourself into. I mean the health department gets involved, the vending state licence, not to mention some county's require you to get their own licence. EVERYTHING we do now a days has political ties, big brother has his hand in all our pockets, and there not reaching for sausage.....
Friend of mine used his Bradley everyday in his restaurant.
Welcome to the forum, there is a very knowledgeable group here that will try to help you anyway they can...enjoy your smoker..
Welcome! You can't get much better than the Bradley!