I've had my Bradley for over a year now (I used a cheapo Brinkman charcoal water smoker for 8 years before getting the Bradley). I have used the Bradley maybe 8-9 times. ALWAYS struggle with getting the temperature over 200.. usually takes 2-3 hours just to get near 200. I have read through the many posts on this topic and, I'm sorry to say it.. but the supplied element is deficient. I've read all the comments about the benefit of low and slow... fine.. but I should have control of that. It has gotten to the point where I don't even attempt using my Bradley of the outside temperature is under 75-80... even with the pain that the ..I would frankly rather deal the pain of tending the charcoal again than this agonizing over goosing this thing to get it to a decent temperature.
I don't mean to be a jerk but I have read many well-intentioned posts recommending "tricks" to get the temperature up.... I'm sorry, but the only "trick" I should need to know when spending this much money on an appliance is "move the "temperature lever a little further to the right".
Does anyone know of an after-market upgrade or alternate element that can be used to replace the original? If not, I'm afraid I'm going to find another smoker.
Bob
Sorry to hear about your frustrations Bob.
There are a few members that have added additional heat in various ways. I did modify mine by adding another original heating element. Very simple really. Here is the post I did on it.
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=8987.0
Mike
PS
I'll just add that I think you would be best to run the modified Bradley with a PID to control it because it is capable of gaining heat rapidly.
There are similar type heating elements at Grainger.com They have a 900 watt which is about the same size as the Bradley 500 watt heating strip. That will almost double your heating. You will need to modify the mounting a little and I think both wires are on the same end but it will work. There may be other things to consider as I have not done this yet myself, but have been looking at doing so. Others on here have made modifications to their units as well as built their own boxes. Hopefully one of them will see this and offer more advice.
Did you ever speak with Bradley customer service about your issues? I've never had a problem getting my smoker up to 200. It doesn't get much over 225, but then you really didn't buy it for that. I smoke when it's in the teens and haven't had an issue. It sounds like there might be a problem with your element or something. Waiting over a year to vent isn't conducive to getting warranty work, but you never know. Why don't you fire it up, take some pics and post them here and we'll see if you can help you out.
Have to agree with macattak a Bradley is a smoker not a cooker. I also have a Cookshack which is a smoke cooker, I can smoke cook 8 whole chickens in 2 hours no heat problems.
Hi Bob
Your smoker should have no problems getting up to and above 200 degrees
I am going to need some more information about your smoker in order to figure out what is wrong
Give me a call at the office 1-800-665-4188
and i will try to help you
Brian
I have to agree with both macattak and Roadking as well.
Before I got my Bradley I had a bullet smoker. It did the job but it was a constant battle trying to keep the temp well below heat that was equivalent to the nuclear testing grounds of Los Alamos. This was keeping the bullet setting on lowest possible at that. I'm surprised I was able to even smoke, was more like a grill then anything.
Smoking is supposed to be nice long times which the Bradley has done for me every time. I do have to keep the chamber cranked up almost completely high or close to it, but it's the perfect setting for what I been doing with it. Mainly thicker meats and such.
Only time I noticed it not reaching past 115Deg was recently, but Im sure that was may fault for not having the power cord plugged in all the way. When done and rechecking all, I did another test run on it and heated up real fast.
But give Bradley a call. They have the best and kindest help desk compared to any company out there.
Thanks folks. I appreciate all the responses, I will be calling Bradley on Monday. The most encouraging is to here folks can actually use this with temps in the teens. I am aware that a smoker is not a cooker and as far as waiting 8 months to vent .. If I have waited out of warranty, then yes, shame on me, but I don't think I said anything about expecting warranty coverage. Looking at many of the threads on this topic here it's not hard to get the impression that this is normal so that might discourage folks from contacting Bradley, which in hindsight probably should have been my first call.
And I do appreciate the info about element sources, thanks for that!
I just wondered - are you preheating to get to 200, or are you putting a cold load in the smoker from the get go? Do you use hot water in the pan or straight from the tap?
One thing I've done is put some veneer brick in the bottom of the unit to act as an additional heat sink to help the recovery time from putting the load in, checking the meat, adding water, etc. It doesn't help it heat up, but it helps keep it at the desired temp.
Well I will put my two cents in here on this subject.
I have an OBS and it has treated me well except when i overload it.
Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it. I had the vent opened. Heated it up to 220 +-. In went the ribs which were at room temperature. Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours. Did not open the door. Could not get temperature up any higher. Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.
I had checked the plug in's. Only thing i found was the plastic at the slide was cracked. Had 1" wood under front behind legs as had been suggested.
Any Suggestions.....................
Tom
Quote from: Father Tom on March 31, 2009, 12:12:33 PM
Well I will put my two cents in here on this subject.
I have an OBS and it has treated me well except when i overload it.
Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it. I had the vent opened. Heated it up to 220 +-. In went the ribs which were at room temperature. Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours. Did not open the door. Could not get temperature up any higher. Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.
I had checked the plug in's. Only thing i found was the plastic at the slide was cracked. Had 1" wood under front behind legs as had been suggested.
Any Suggestions.....................
Tom
Did the wood raise the front feet (legs) off the surface? If there was no weight on the front feet, then there must be another problem. But since I raised my front feet off the surface I haven't had any further problems with the face plate cracking.
Just to add to what Habs said... You need to make sure your wood blocks are "not" sitting on the plastic for the faceplate on the bottom of the tower.
Mike
Quote from: Father Tom on March 31, 2009, 12:12:33 PM
Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it. I had the vent opened. Heated it up to 220 +-. In went the ribs which were at room temperature. Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours. Did not open the door. Could not get temperature up any higher. Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.
Let me say, that I'm going with the heating element mod eventually myself, but for a different reason, so I'm not trying to stop you from installing the mod. However, not sure, but it sounds like you hit the plateau. I've hit it anywhere between 145 to 165. The plateau is a good thing! It's your friend and you should hope it stays around as long as it can. While it is with you, great things are happening to your meat. When you first put meat in your smoker, it gradually, but steadily increases in temperature. The rate it increases is driven by the temperature differential between your cabinet temperature (CT) and the internal temperature (IT) of the meat. The greater the differential the faster the energy flows into the piece of meat. The closer the IT gets to the CT the slower the energy (heat) transfer. But something else happens at about 140 deg. At that point the collagen (the tough stuff) starts to breakdown and the fat starts to melt (render). That is a good thing - a really good thing! But it doesn't magically do that good stuff instantly when the IT reaches 140 - it takes a while and depends on amount of collage, amount of fat, and how much moisture is within the meat. Ideally, for pull apart meat, you want most of the collagen broken down. So the longer the plateau, the more collagen is broken down, the tenderer your meat. But you don't want all of the fat to melt until you reached your planned "done" temperature - keeps the meat moist. Why the plateau? The plateauing is caused by a phase change; the collagen and fat in the meat are changing phase from a solid to a liquid. You must supply heat to accomplish this phase change. While the fat and collagen are absorbing the energy (heat) from the smoker to melt, none is available to raise the temperature of the meat. It is similar to ice melting. When ice and water are in a glass, the water will remain at 32F (0C) until all the ice is melted, then the temperature will increase. The heat goes into melting the ice, not raising the temperature of the water. You can decrease the amount of time of the plateau by increasing the CT, but you run the risk of adding enough heat that the fat and collagen cannot use any more and it throws off the extra to the meat. The meat then gets done (gets to your target temperature) before all the collagen is changed and you have tough meat. The mod will be useful by providing a greater pool of energy (heat) to transfer to the meat. I suspect that with big loads, the rate of heat transfer that the meat could stand is greater than what the Bradley heating element can supply. So cooking times could be less even at the same temperature setting so that the plateau does it's work as it should. And the pre-heat and the heat recovery after opening the door would be faster. And, by golly, it is just kewl to have a turbocharged Bradley! I am not a physicist - so some of the terms may or may not be correct! I can put spareribs on a big wood puffing smoker, and they are going to take 4 to 6 hours also, because to do them properly, I'm going to keep the temperature down around 225. I can just do more because of grill space, and because of a greater pool of heat to pull from. 200 degrees is 200 degrees!
Shakespeare
The Bard of Hot Aire
Pontificator Extraordinaire'
::) Caneyscud:
That was one hell of a answer. The more i read the more i have to agree with you. After 6 hours the IT where checked was about 140 degrees. The only problem I had was that the meat did not have the appearance of being done. With 30 hungry adults who were consuming large quantity of
Adult beverages l thought the best thing to save my back side was to put them on the grill with a tomato base mop to darken the surface. It worked.
Your thoughts and comments on the subject leads one to believe you are an expert in the transfer of heat and the breakdown of the fat molecules within the cooking process of the Bradley. I shall follow your advise.
I will get a PID and work on longer cooking at lower temperatures then up the temperature for the last period to time to brown (Darken) the surface for appearance.
Thank you:
Tom
I am in the same situation. Got the original smoker around Christmas and out of half a dozen uses, got the temperature above 200 once. I tried with both closed and open vent. Initially I blamed it on the outside temp, it's been in the 30es. But today it was 60 degrees all day, no wind and after 6 hours on full power, the temp barely went over 170. It was a large load (two pork shoulders, 6 lb brisket and two racks of ribs), but still, I was hoping that after an hour or so the temp would be close to 200.
Aleck, Welcome Aboard.
Give Brian a call he will get you hooked up. They have Awesome customer service.
Quote from: Tenpoint5 on April 19, 2009, 02:58:29 PM
Aleck, Welcome Aboard.
Give Brian a call he will get you hooked up. They have Awesome customer service.
thank you, I will call them next week. After posting, I offloaded some meat to a grill, which I can keep at about 220 F. Bradley with only one brisket left went up to 200 F in 20 minutes. So, looks like the amount of the meat makes a big difference. But I will still talk to customer support, want to make sure I am doing everything right.
hello all
a newbie here but upon reading the threads in this forum i have to pose a question
rather than add more heat is it possible to add some isulation to stop the heat loss?
sounds like time and temperature go hand in hand :)
insulation that is
Hi Smokinmerce;
Welcome to the forum.
The Bradley is well insulated, and once it gets to the temperature you want to smoke/cook at; it does a great job of retaining heat. Even when the cabinet temperature at 250°F the outside is barely warm; unless you have the OBS that is in direct sunlight. With the black surface and direct sunlight, the outside gets very hot, even when not in use. :)
The reason why most are adding additional heat, is to speed up recovery time. With only 500 watts, when you first load your food, and every time you open the door there is a great amount of heat lost. With such a small heating element, it takes awhile for the cabinet to get back up to your set temperature. Additional heat will speed up the recovery. Also the sooner you get to your smoking/cooking temperature; the more consistent your smokes should be.
Thought i saw a heater modification on a obs this week. Cant seem to find it any more.Looki like something i might want want to try.Please need help.Thanks everybody.
When I put 4 pork butts ~30lbs in my OBS, I don't expect it to get back to ~210F for a few hours.
Quote from: OldSMOKER on May 01, 2009, 04:02:49 PM
Thought i saw a heater modification on a obs this week. Cant seem to find it any more.Looki like something i might want want to try.Please need help.Thanks everybody.
OldSmoker
It's on the 5th page of this thread....
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=8987.0
Mike
the more meat you pack in the OBS the longer it takes to heat up. The guy who loaded 2 shoulders and a brisket, that's a lot of meat to smoke in one shot and would take a very long time. For that type of smoking, I would move the meat to an oven after a few hours of smoking it. OR, you could add the meat gradually, putting in the toughest cut first, wait an hour load the second piece etc.
Hey Mr. Walleye:
I have studied your modification and am preparing to do it this weekend. I have a question. In adding the second heating element, the smoker now will be putting out 1000 watts. Is all the wiring and the plugs in the back capable of handling the added load?
Quote from: aft53 on June 04, 2009, 04:03:50 PM
Hey Mr. Walleye:
I have studied your modification and am preparing to do it this weekend. I have a question. In adding the second heating element, the smoker now will be putting out 1000 watts. Is all the wiring and the plugs in the back capable of handling the added load?
Hi Aft53
The existing wiring in the Bradley is approximately 18 gauge and not adequate to handle both elements. This is why you want to run new wire for the additional element right back to the plug in the back of the tower. You also want to make sure you are running a PID or similar controller.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Habs posted the write up over on the recipe site as well. Here's the link.
http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?p=910#post910
Mike
Newbie myself but a thought or two did occur while reading this thread:
You said you've smoked with the vent opened and closed - do you mean partially open or full open? In my short experience (and something i read on this great site) you may have to adjust the vent as you are smoking. I.E., when you are first smoking with a full load, the vent needs to be a little more open to let some of the moisture out. With my smoker fully loaded, i still didn't open it more than 3/4 of the way. As the time passes and the meat temperatures rise, you can slowly close the vent down (not all the way!). I have had success without ever going below 1/4 open. If all that moisture from the meat stays trapped in the smoker, all of that energy you are creating with the smoking plate and the heating element have to work to raise the temperature of the water to evaporate it.
The "dead spot" on the temp slide I'll admit kind of sucks, but if it's there, then it could explain an issue.
Are you letting it get up to temp before you load it? Is the product you are putting in at room temp? I take the meat I am going to smoke out and put it on the counter, plug in the Bradley, and when the Bradley is ready, the meat is as well.
If I repeated anyone, I apologize. It's because I got all of this great info here :D
Good luck and I hope you get this straightened out. I would have never imagined I could put out darn near competition quality products with such ease. The Bradley makes that possible.
Thanks for the quick response Mr. Walleye. Why do I need to run a PID controller with the modification? I am planning on using the 14 Ga. wire for the second element. I was also concerned about the plug at the back that you attache the wires to and the power cords that plug into it, the smoke generator and from the smoke generator to the outlet. Are they rated high enough? How many amps is the combined unit pulling?
I have done this modification, and the cabinet can overheat and become unsafe in a short period of time if you don't have a PID or other third party temperature control devise. For example my cabinet got up to 300°F in a little over 15 minutes and was climbing fast. The Bradleys have a high temperature fuse (switch) that will cut the power to the original element when the temperature goes over 320°F, but the second element isn't connected to that fuse; so if it over heats the original element will be cut off of power, but the second element will continue to heat the cabinet.
The power cords in the back are more then adequate. I'm running mine with a 10 amp fuse, and haven't had any problems.
Aft53
Habs has it nailed down for you. The only thing I'll add is with the 2 elements (500 watts each for a total of 1000 watts) will draw approximately 8.33 amps. As Habs indicated the plug on the back of the tower is fine. The wiring and electronics in both the DBS and OBS were not designed with this load in mind which is another reason for running a controller such as a PID. With double the heating elements the tower is capable of attaining temperatures that it wasn't designed for without proper controls in place to prevent it.
Hope that helps.
Mike
Last week and for the first time; I smoked four chickens, each maybe 4.5 lbs.
The temperature never got above 200 and was mostly below 170 til the internal temp of the chickens got up some. It took probably six hours to get near 190 degrees. It took about seven and a half hours to cook to completion due to having to rotate the racks. Nobody got sick eating the chickens, but I wonder about the meat sitting in a temperature below 140 for hours.
Normally I would have moved the meat to the indoor oven to complete, but I've removed my indoor oven waiting for delivery of a new one. I didn't realize just how long four chickens would take. I've done two chickens many times, but I think any more than that I'll have to plan on moving to the indoor oven.
Well, I chickened out and did not modify my OBS yesterday, primarily because I haven't purchase a PID as yet and also did not have a second heat cutoff switch. I replaced the heating element, reflector and front panel. It's kind of funny though, the old element had less resistence and pulled 3.98 amps while the new one pulled 3.75 amps. However, after replacement, the smoke temp went to 270 in about 15 minutes. The last time I used it , about 3 weeks ago, I could only get it to about 175 over 9 hours with a full load of cold meat. After reading the posts about pre-heating, meat temperature and a full load of meat, I understand where I might have gone wrong.
I probably will do the modifications in the future after I purchase a PID because I do want to be able to fill it up.
The interesting thing is that I did the repairs with my friend who is an electrical contractor. I have been having a problem with GFI plugs blowing when I tried to plug the smoker in outside. We had no problem, before or after repairs when only the heating element was turned on. However, on 2 different GFI circuits, when the smoke generator was on, the circuits blew. We opened the smoke generator, cleaned out any debris and inspected it. It looked fine. It appears that something in the smoke generator is causing the GFI circuits to blow.
Anyone have any thoughts on the cause or ideas on the solution to the GFI issue?
I wonder if rather than a gfi issue,it might just be the 500 watts it's rated at.
I had the same issue awhile back when I would plug a 19" tv into the socket on my sunporch; it would trip the gfi breaker every time. I could plug in a 32' hdtv, a frige and a space heater on that same socket and they'd run fine, simultaneously. It ended up being just some feedback issue with that small tv, so I chucked it.
I wonder if you have some other appliance around that might draw that much juice, or several that you could plug in just to see if it's a total wattage issue rather than gfi problem. And, I'm not an electrician; I just do basic electrical stuff around the house.
I appreciate the input but my electrical contractor friend did the wiring for the outdoor kitchen and we checked the loads and what was on the circuits to make sure there wouldn't be a problem. When I first got the smoker 3 years ago, it did work sometimes without blowing the GFI plugs. When we tested yesterday, it seems that the only thing blowing the GFI's is the smoke generator but I don't know what in the generator could be causing it.
By the way, when I replaced the circuit board for the temperature slider, I put a spray on insulator all over the board to reduce the possibility of water getting into this area.
Hi aft53
Have your electrical friend disconnect the bisquette burner and then test the unit on the same GFI and see if it trips.
Brian
If an appliance is working properly, all electricity that the appliance uses will flow from hot to neutral. A GFCI monitors the amount of current flowing from hot to neutral. If there is any imbalance, it trips the circuit. It is able to sense a mismatch as small as 4 or 5 milliamps, and it can react as quickly as one-thirtieth of a second.
I agree with Brian. Something in the generator is "leaking" some current. I would take the generator apart and unplug the puck burner and plug it back in to see if that resolves it.
Mike
Thanks. I spoke to him and he agrees with this test. He also suggested that I try doing the same with the timer. What do you guys think?
Quote from: aft53 on June 12, 2009, 07:31:30 AM
Thanks. I spoke to him and he agrees with this test. He also suggested that I try doing the same with the timer. What do you guys think?
Hi Aft
I would do this in stages
1) Unplug the bisquette burner then test the generator on the same GFI plug. If it does not trip the circut then the burner is the problem.
If it still trips the circut then go to step two
2) Unplug the connection to the motor and do the same test on the GFI circut again.
have you checked all connections in the generator for loose or corroded connections
Brian
Thanks, I'll test it that way. It's going to be a couple of weeks because I go on vacation tomorrow. So I guess I shouldn't worry about testing the timer.