Bradley Newbie

[rjvale]

Hi all,
I have been smoking meat and fish for years on one of those electric torpedo smokers. It finally died and my son recommended getting a Bradley Digital Smoker to replace it. So far I have "attempted" to smoke some shrimp and yesterday I tried smoking 3 racks of Baby back ribs. I followed recipes from the Bradley on line web site, preheated the unit and watched the oven temp over the course of the smoking period.

In both instances, the food was under cooked! Now I was understanding with the shrimp, being they were only in the oven for 30 minutes, but I had the ribs in the oven for 5 hours! I placed each rack of ribs in one basket tray. The top tray of ribs was still rather pink and way under cooked while the bottom try was cooked more, but still no where near falling off the bone.

What am I doing wrong?

Disappointed so far!

[piratey]

I'm relatively new myself.  Welcome to the forums.  Experts will be along soon.  For the difference between the trays, you have to realize that the heating element is on the bottom by the back wall, so the heat changes throughout the unit.  The bottom tray is going to get cooked the best, and the top trays less so.  Most recipes recommend rotating the racks hourly, from top to bottom, and some recipes also recommend rotating the racks 180 degrees, so that the rear of each rack now becomes the front.

Were you cooking the ribs to an internal temperature or just going off of a set time amount?

[dave01]

Hello and welcome to the forum. You don't want to peek to often. Could you tell us the temperature you cooked them at. Did you have your vent wide open? I removed mine altogether

[TedEbear]

What am I doing wrong?

Disappointed so far!

First, hi and welcome aboard.

You didn't say what you had the chamber temp set at.  A lower temp is going to require a longer cooking time.  If you do not see the meat pulling away from the tip of the rib then it needs to cook longer.  Also, rotate the racks at least once.  You had 3 racks of ribs and that's a lot of meat, which absorbs the heat and adds to the cooking time.

A lot of people on here follow this guide:  How To Cook Ribs in a Bradley Pictorial

Here are some more helpful links for smoking with the Bradley:

Our Time Tested and Proven Recipes

Frogmats Non-Stick High Temperature Smoker / Jerky Screen 10" x 13"

Maverick Wireless BBQ Thermometer Set - Maverick ET733

Bradley Smoker Bisquette Saver

Bradley Smoker FAQs

Take some before/after pics of your efforts and post them if you're so inclined.  People around here like to see pics.

Adding pictures to posts on the Bradley Smoker Forum

[beefmann]

welcome aboard,

sorry for your issues,  as for smoking  ribs you  need to have the box temp around 210 - 225 F, top vent " IS " always open.. wide open as it helps with air movement and cooking,

as for the 3 racks of ribs ... that is a lot of meat so it will take a bit longer depending  on  temp,  a good indication of how the  ribs are  doing is when the  meat pulls back from the  end of the  bone 1/2 - 3/4 of an  inch and there done

also no peaking, opening the door once an hour looses a  lot of hear and it takes 30 to 40 minutes  to recover which  means you are looking that cooking  time.

[rjvale]

Hi All,

Thanks for the quick responses. Here is some more info about what I did to smoke the ribs as requested:
I pre-heated the oven to 250 degrees.
After placing the three racks of ribs in the oven I lowered the digital oven temp to 220 degrees.
I had the vent open 1/2.
I used mequite wood bisquettes.
I had applied a dry rub to all three rack of ribs the day before.
I removed the ribs from the fridge two hours before I planned to smoke them to let them get to room temp.
I smoked the ribs for 3 hours "without peaking". I did monitor the oven temp from time to time and it ranged from 205 to 225.
After three hours I pulled the bottom rack of ribs and wrapped them in foil, then returned them to the oven.
I then pulled the second rack of ribs and added a mop to them.
The third rack was left as it (this rack was on the third shelf from the bottom the whole oven time).
After one hour, I removed the foil from the one rack and placed in back in the smoker for another hour of time.
So in total, the ribs had 5 hours of time in the smoker at 220 degrees.
My idea was to conduct an experiment with three different methods in the Bradley.
I had company over so we pulled the ribs after 5 hours, which is about an hour longer then I used to smoke them in my other smoker.
The foiled wrapped ribs were firm, but cooked through (these ribs were on the bottom most shelf the whole time).
The second rack of ribs (which were on the second shelf from the bottom) were very firm.
The third rack of ribs were still pink after 5 hours!!!
I did read the Bradley recipe booklet that came with the smoker and looked at the two rib recipes on their web site. No where does it say to "rotate" the wire racks. No where.
I bought this smoker based on the ad about "set it and forget it". Clearly that is not the case when you have multiple wire racks loaded with food.
I would appreciate any tips and recommendations as this was a big dollar purchase for me and I have to make it work!

[Davemartin88]

I'm reasonably new to the Bradley Digital Smoker as well but have smoked ribs a few times. The method linked in the post above showing how to cook ribs with a pictorial is a great starting point. Rotating the racks one time during the smoking portion of the recipe seems to help a lot. If you know the exact temperature you smoked your ribs at in your previous method, should be able to duplicate the time and results as long as you have a good probe to know exactly how the new smoker is working. I would think that to get ribs falling off the bone tender in about 4 hours would have required more heat than 225 degrees but not sure on that point.

I've found my smoker to run about 10 degrees higher than what I see with a temp probe when the smoke generator is on but seems like a number have users have reported that the temp shown on the digital is actually lower than it is in the oven? A separate probe like the Maverick will tell you for sure what's going on.

Keeping the vent completely open is a big help as well, with my vents fully open, the pucks generate a lot of smoke and you can really see a stream of smoke coming out the vents indicating that there is a lot of circulation to move the smoke from the generator up through the oven along with the heat.

As for doneness and time, we've been setting the oven at 230 and I let them smoke for 3 hours, then cook for another 3 hours wrapped in foil. At that point, they are done. We don't always grill them them and have left them wrapped in foil in the fridge for a few days to reheat at low temps as well and they are still great! So as far as set and forget, after the ribs are loaded, we rotate the racks once during the smoking, then transfer them to foil at the end of the smoking time and don't usually touch them again until the end of the 6 hours.

Hope this and the other posts help and I'm sure other, more experienced users will join in as well. Hopefully your next batch will be better for you, good luck.

[dave01]

I use the 3-2-1 method, 3 hours of smoke, 2 hours rapt in foil and then 1 hour with the bbq sauce on to firm up the ribs. I use 230 degrees thru out the process with the vent wide open. Use whatever juice you like when they are in the foil, I use V8 juice and they turn out great

[Grouperman941]

Worth noting that the 3-2-1 method popular in the forum adds up to 6 hours, and that thicker baby backs may take longer.

Also, you don't need to rotate, but that is a way to help make sure the different racks are done at the same time.

An important thing to remember is, "They're done when they're done."   The meat doesn't care that I think 6 hours is too long.