Newbie Help!

[mrielly]

Hello all,

I am a newbie at this. I used my smoker for the first time yesterday and it worked great! I smoked a rack of ribs with no issues. They were perfect! Since I never did used a smoker before I wanted to do a "test run" yesterday before today -- Memorial Day.

But today the temperature is not getting over 150 degrees. I have the temperature set to high but it's not moving up. The only thing I did differently is I have the smoker in my garage because it is sprinkling outside. Other than that there is nothing different from yesterday.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Saber 4]

Make sure your top vent is open to allow moisture to escape, that can cause a low temp in addition to the size of the hunk of meat you put in the smoker which acts as a heat sink that sucks a lot of the heat out of the cabinet until the meat get's up to a higher temp. You can add boiling or hot water to your water bowl to help with heat retention, others wrap bricks in foil and heat them up in the smoker before loading the meat. Others will come along shortly with their solutions and opinions and that should give you plenty of options.

[KyNola]

Sounds like only your puck burner may be heating.  Check the element in the tower to see if it is glowing red.  Unplug and replug all of the cables on your Bradley.  They may have jostled loose when you moved it to the garage.

[mrielly]

Well it all worked out. I opened the vent as Saber suggested. That seemed to do the trick. Ribs came out wonderful! Can't wait to try something else. May try smoking some chickens next. :D Thanks all!