Newish Bradly owner here. (Got it in December)
Was doing a very nice First Brisket. Everything was going great.
So..... Went to bed 4 hours ago.
Before bed bricks were done going through so I had changed the water 1 last time. No vents were clogged on the V tray and no meat touching any side.
Woke up to my maverick food probe reading LLL. I thought that was wierd so I went to check. Door seal was melted to the cabinate and door slightly melted up top. Significant smoke staining on the outside of the cabinate.
I knew I didn't still have a fire so after shutting everything off I grabbed a scaple to cut my way in through the seal.
I am clueless as to what happened (It's still 4 am though so i might not be thinking clear). Fire looks like it happened on the V Tray though since the burner looks fine and the water bowl is still full.
We got lucky. The controller box appears to still function and the fire was contained. It could have been very worse.
Gonna call Bradley Monday to see what my options are at this point. At the very least I'm done smoking for a while.
http://imgur.com/a/kjAqj
I'd like to call attention to the placement of the thermometer measuring cabinet temperature. It appears to be placed above the largest piece of the brisket. Maybe one of our temperature control experts can provide some analysis of this location vs. placement below the lowest rack with food on it.
Quote from: tskeeter on June 05, 2016, 08:43:15 AM
I'd like to call attention to the placement of the thermometer measuring cabinet temperature. It appears to be placed above the largest piece of the brisket. Maybe one of our temperature control experts can provide some analysis of this location vs. placement below the lowest rack with food on it.
That might be an issues but those are passive monitoring probes. I don;t do any Temp control. This was a stock bradley (It's not got a custom smoky paint job though)
Ahha, saw the two probes and thought is was something like a PID. Now that I look closer, I see the two thermometers sitting on the smoke generator.
Hi drumming102;
Sorry to welcome you to the forum in this manner.
Looking at the picture of you drip tray, and element. It appears that grease may have flowed down the backside of the smoker, and onto the element. Where any of your briskets touching the back wall? That may have been the original ignition point, which set the grease on the drip tray on fire.
It looks like maybe the top brisket was touching the back wall.
Quote from: drumming102 on June 05, 2016, 01:54:41 AM
So I hear burnt ends are AMAZING. So far I'm not impressed... (Smoker Fire)
Well, that's not how you're supposed to do burnt ends. ;) Fortunately, it seems that it was contained in the Bradley and didn't catch anything else on fire.
With my Maverick, I set both high and low temp alarms. If the heating element fails and the chamber temp drops below 150*F it alerts me. If there's a grease fire and the temp goes above 250*F I figure it will trip the high alarm for a minute or two before the probe stops working, long enough to alert me. I keep the remote receiver on my nightstand if I'm doing an overnight smoke.
Quote from: watchdog56 on June 06, 2016, 05:38:39 AM
It looks like maybe the top brisket was touching the back wall.
It was about 1.5 inches away from what I remember. I try to never let the meat extend past the flat of the basket in the rear because of all the storys I have heard.
Quote from: TedEbear on June 06, 2016, 09:36:57 AM
Quote from: drumming102 on June 05, 2016, 01:54:41 AM
So I hear burnt ends are AMAZING. So far I'm not impressed... (Smoker Fire)
Well, that's not how you're supposed to do burnt ends. ;) Fortunately, it seems that it was contained in the Bradley and didn't catch anything else on fire.
With my Maverick, I set both high and low temp alarms. If the heating element fails and the chamber temp drops below 150*F it alerts me. If there's a grease fire and the temp goes above 250*F I figure it will trip the high alarm for a minute or two before the probe stops working, long enough to alert me. I keep the remove receiver on my nightstand if I'm doing an overnight smoke.
I normally do that and thought I had it that way but I think I might have hit the "alarm off" button when I checked the temps at 2am while looking for the light button.