Tip for Bradley & non-Bradley smoking, Tracking the smoke, hot or cold.

[precookingsmoker]

Are you sure you know where and how the SMOKE in your smoker arrives on the meat?

You may be surprised, especially with fishes with a skin, or meats smoked without any change in placement.

(TIP): Lay squares of soft white napkins EXACTLY where and how you generally place your meats to be smoked. Smoke the napkins for a couple hours......then look at both sides. You may find one side is darkening while the other side stays white. And certain areas in the smoker concentrate the smoke more than others.

On my home-built barbeque cold smoker, the smoke curls downward to the meat, on the Outers hot smoker, the smoke works upward almost entirely, smoking only the meat undersides. Don't know what Bradleys do....... but you will find out.  ;)

[classicrockgriller]

I like that little experiment.

When I first started with my Bradley I was a flipper and a flopper.

I grew lazy and kinda stopped doing it. But ....

I smoke a lot of Boudain and if I don't turn it ...... only the top of the

Boudain gets crispy and "finished".

[Tenpoint5]

Sounds like to much work and a waste of smoke. If I open the door and smoke rolls out from every direction I reckon it is doing its thing and I am good with that. Not saying there's anything wrong with the experiment.  I have smoked salt on commercial coffee filters and both sides and all of the salt turned light brown so I would say I am getting enough smoke from all directions.

[GusRobin]

Puck gets burnt, smoke goes in, smoke comes out the top, meat ends up with smoke flavor, beer is cold. That is about the extent of what I track ;D.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

It's a neat experimental idea.  But from what I've observed the result will vary greatly with the load and how you placed and spaced things inside, just as temperatures do.   A fan addition and a couple of strategically placed foil wrapped bricks seem to even everything out for me.  My solution, add a fan, grab another beverage, let it works its magic however it does.

For those wanting to experiment a "test" used by many competitive Q'ers to get to know and adjust their equipment is line up biscuits from the refrigerated cans (like Grands but get the cheap store brand).

[precookingsmoker]

BuyLowSellHigh.....Exactly. You have said it. That is the reason for the initial experiment suggested as a starter to give folks helpful thought.

Few realize the dynamics of smoke which is dictated by input velocity & direction, exit velocity and direction, both Lateral and Verticle temperature gradients, enclosure shape and size, etc. Most think smoke is just smokey and applies to all parts of a meat equally just because it is smokey inside when door is opened.

Ideally a fully baffled system with a progressive array of momentary fans would be needed to achieve anything close to even smoking on all parts of a meat. Far to technical and expensive to even think about.

But the napkin test will help anyone control how much and where the smoke will be applied to the meat by characterizing the chambers characteristics with normal smoking habits. It is especially important for fishes though because if it is not understood what the smoke chamber is really doing....they may be just smoking only the skin by how they place the fish. 'nuff said I think......