Enclosure, Cold Smoke, PID

[austinsmoke]

Hello, long time user of information on the forum, but first time post.

I have a Bradley Original (does not have a temp slider on the door) [which has confused me when referred to]

Last night I added a second element, running high temp wire from the original element, grinding a groove into the ceramic holders and running that wire out the ends of the holders, and to the new element which I drilled a hole through the reflector to use as a "holder" Pretty much the same as on the susanminor tutorial. I gathered the supplies that I thought were needed according to the instructions, but I didn't get ring terminals (don't think it says that they are needed?).

I stripped the coating off of the high-temp wire, twisted the wires into a bundle, and "hooked" the wires to the metal end on each side of the (two) elements connecting them, and using washers and nuts to keep the wires held in place.

I went to Menards in town, and they did not have any high-temp ring terminals. Anyway, I plugged the smoker in to the wall, and both elements grow bright with no noticeable or apparent issues with the way I connected the wires.

Should I be concerned with it being wired this way? I have to smoke ~50lbs of meat this weekend and don't want it to quit on me in the middle.

Enclosure:

I want to build a wood rolling cart/shed for the smoker which lives on my deck. I would like to be able to cold smoke, and hot smoke without making alterations to the setup, and was wondering if anyone has their smoke generator hooked up through some sort of "cold smoke" setup, and successfully uses this while also hot smoking?

I would like to have the smoke generator "underneath, an to the side" of the smoker in the cabinet, with its own space for a water pan, but also be able to hot smoke the same way by just turning the element(s) on when not cold smoking.

PID:

I purchased the Auber dual probe PID for Bradley Smokers and it came in last night. I have read around on the forums some, but haven't quite hit whether I need to do anything special to calibrate the PID due to having dual elements?

Where should the reading for the PID be taken from? (Primary Probe) - Should it be near the middle of the smoker, the top back/front etc.

This probably came out jumbled and incoherent so if there is any clarification that would be helpful, please let me know.

Thanks in advance

[cathouse willy]

Hello Austin welcome to the forum. I have my bradley original in a small rubber maid shed and leave the smoker set up in the cold smoking mode permanently and it works just fine. The smoke gen/ cold smoke box is beside and below the smoker cabinet,I leave the cabinet heater off for cold smoke.
Bill

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi austinsmoke;

Welcome to the forum.

Your wiring sounds alright, as long as long as the washers and nuts secured the wiring.

As for cart, a member GusRobin built a cart that may fit your needs. Do a search under his user name, and you should be able to find it.

[tskeeter]

Austin, your Auber PID is set to run a single element configuration.  This will result in significant over shooting of your set point because the dual element configuration will heat much faster than a single element set up.  I suggest you run the auto tune routine to allow the PID to learn how fast your smoker heats up with two elements.  Note that you might need to run auto tune more than once to get the temperature control dialed in nice and tight.  And running auto tune with a load in the smoker will cause more accurate results than running auto tune on an empty smoker.

[TedEbear]

I went to Menards in town, and they did not have any high-temp ring terminals.

A regular ring terminal works just fine as long as you remove the plastic insulator off the metal.

[rexster]

I found this information on Auberin's website. I used it to set my dual probe Auber many 4 years ago, and once set, never found a need to go in and do an auto tune

" increase the P value from 70 to 140 for an extra 500W element."

[austinsmoke]

Thanks for the information everyone!

I did some beans last night and the PID kept the temp to +- 2 degrees, and the recovery time was much faster than without the dual elements.

I will go in and check the P value when I get home from work today and put the chicken(s) in.

Good to know about the terminals, but since it worked with no issues last night for the beans, I think i'll order some high temp terminals from Amazon or something and replace them after this weekends' smoke.

Also good to know that having the smoke generator separate from the cabinet for hot smoking doesn't adversely affect the smoke flavor. I bought some 4" dryer vent, aluminum tape and some ducting steel to make a cold smoke box.

The plan is to make the cold-smoke box out of plywood, line the inside with the ducting steel, tape on the 4" dryer vent to the box, and the smoker (eventually I'll build a box into the cabinet and line it). Is there a desired distance from the cabinet for cold smoking, and smoking in general that isn't too far, but also not so close as to add too much heat? I got (2) 4 foot sections of 4" venting.

Thanks again everyone!

By the way, the beans are from a recipe on this forum, and they've been a hit for the last couple of years!

[cathouse willy]

My cold smoke box is about 30 in below the smoker It works good for hot and cold smoking so I leave it there permanently.When you build your shed it really helps if the smoke generator is located where it's easy to remove for cleaning etc.

[austinsmoke]

From my head on the cabinet/shed for the smoker I'm thinking around 24-32" or so vertical and probably 6-8" horizontal. Also, has anyone found a great resistant, fire resistant thin barrier to add as isolation and a firebreak around their smoker and smoke generator in the cabinet? I'm wanting to line with sheet metal covering a fire retardant material, covering the wood exterior.

[tskeeter]

From my head on the cabinet/shed for the smoker I'm thinking around 24-32" or so vertical and probably 6-8" horizontal. Also, has anyone found a great resistant, fire resistant thin barrier to add as isolation and a firebreak around their smoker and smoke generator in the cabinet? I'm wanting to line with sheet metal covering a fire retardant material, covering the wood exterior.

To me, a fire barrier inside your smoker shed seems like overkill.  Even if you did manage to cause a fire in your smoker, the fire is already contained in a metal box that comes complete with an integral power interruption system to help suppress a fire.  From pictures of smoker fires posted here, it looks like all of few fires reported were well contained by the smoker cabinet.

[austinsmoke]

Last night smoked the chickens, and the original wiring and ring connectors burned to nothing during the smoke. The cabinet sat at 125*, which prompted me to look into it further and found that the elements weren't powered. Pulled the chickens and finished them in the oven at 375*, pulled and refrigerated. After finishing the chickens, I still had to smoke/cook the pork butts, so I spliced and wired up my high-temp wire into the leads in the back of the smoker (one side of the element spliced in after the sensor -- do people generally continue to use this in-line sensor/fuse or whatever it is?). I didn't have ring terminals, so I used the same method to power the element(s); I twisted the lead from the back of the smoker with the lead going to the second element and secured them with washers and nuts, then did the same to the second element. I plan to get ring terminals for all connections this week now that I have a break in my smoking (maybe not for long, food turned out great!).

I heated up the cabinet again, adding Hickory (2) to Apple (1) bisquettes for 3.5hrs of smoke, and put the butts in. I set the PID to run at 225 for 1hr, then 220 until IT probe of 190*, and then to run at 195 for 10hrs (arbitrary number). I tried to go to sleep, but with the wiring fiasco and my uncertainty of whether the PID was doing what it's supposed to do, I found myself with less than 3 hours of sleep total.

The butts got to around 165* and stalled for a good 3 hours, which had me antsy to meet my timeline. I added more smoke (apple for 2hrs), and watched the IT run up to 190*. Pulled the butts from the cabinet, let sit for 10minutes on the counter while I cleaned up some of the smoker parts, and then foiled tightly, wrapped in a towel (3 butts in one towel), and placed in a towel-lined Igloo cooler, and headed for the 'party'.

Got to the party, got the chicken re-heating in a roasting pan, got the baked beans heating in a crock pot and drank some beer. Once it was time to eat, I pulled out two of the butts and pulled them with two forks (it completely fell apart, it was very difficult to move from the alum foil to the foil pan for serving). Served with BBQ sauces on the side in condiment bottles (need better bbq sauce recipes, they weren't great). The Jan's rub on the pork was amazing and the 'crust' I could have eaten it all while pulling the meat before it touched the table.

I also learned today that the family who hosted the party, will be taking down an apple tree soon, and it made me think that I should build the smoke box to accommodate a plate burner which would allow me to use 'chunks' to add smoke instead of the generator. Is this the best way to go about making use of wood chunks on the Bradley, or is there a better way?

[Habanero Smoker]

Glad your resolved the problem. When I added my second element I used the same connectors that came with the Bradley. I haven't had any problems with any of the connectors. Maybe Bradley used a heavier gauge metal at that time. If the wires were not securely connected as you thought, loose wiring can cause overheating at the connection.

I occasionally use different wood flavor chips, and/or herbs, using the cold smoke setup and a hotplate. I really love the flavor of peach wood on pork and chicken.

Using Woodchips or Chunks

[marshalpaul]

Hey! My friend has Bradley Original also, he has asked me to buy wood chips for smoking, I've found this one https://flavourwoodbbq.com/wood-chips, please advise me, is it suitable?

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi marshalpaul;

Welcome to the forum.

Wood chips will not work with the Original Bradley generator. It uses Bradley bisquettes.

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=bisquettes+bradley&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=153717772726&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9017445424495379843&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004618&hvtargid=kwd-2531936636&ref=pd_sl_4mcxj1ocdy_b