Hello From The Buckeye State!

[JakeDatank51]

Hello from Ohio!. New to the forum, and new to Bradley smokers. Currently I use an offset stick burner. Brinkman Trailmaster with baffles tuning plates and a few other mods. Perfect temps side to side. But I am a big deer hunter and love making snack sticks. I have been making good snack sticks on it for a few years but I want GREAT! Its so hard to keep low temps on the offset smoker for long periods of time.  I have been doing a lot of research and it seems like Bradley's are the way to go for snack sticks. They smoke well at low temps from what I have read.( compared to the masterbuilt smokers). I have my eye on the original Bradley and a PID. From what I have read the PID is a must for snack sticks. I also saw on amazon this Inkbird Digital Temp control. (Not sure if I can post links on here if I can please let me know and I will remove.) http://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Itc-308-Temperature-Controller-Thermostat/dp/B011296704/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1452083282&sr=8-17&keywords=pid+temperature+controller. I was wondering if any had experimented with this on a Bradley. Any input is great! Thanks so much!


O-H-I-O

[beefmann]

welcome aboard

cant speak for doing  deer as i do not  hunt,,, the controller looks good though i  do not  use it,,, maybe  some one else does

[Salmonsmoker]

JakeDatank51,
I don't think this is the kind of controller for this application. It's not a PID controller. You will get overshoots on the temp. on both the high and low sides. I use this type of controller for my beer fermentation fridge. The fridge is plugged into the high temp. side and a small ceramic heater inside the fridge is plugged into the low temp. side. I have a 1-2 degree spread between the two set points, but the temperature swings are probably 10 degrees each side of the set points. The mass of liquid in the fermentation vessel buffers  the temperature swings of the liquid and they're way less the the air temp. swings. Air inside the smoker can't buffer the temp. change like a liquid does, so you'll end up with wild temp. swings. You might look at a PID controller like the Auber Instruments controller. They have one and two probe controllers that are tuned for the Bradley smoker. Hope this helps.

[JakeDatank51]

Thanks for your input I was just looking to see if there was any cheaper PIDs then the Auber ones. Anyone know of any. Thank you!!!

[TedEbear]

Thanks for your input I was just looking to see if there was any cheaper PIDs then the Auber ones. Anyone know of any. Thank you!!!

If you buy the Auber plug-n-play they are rather expensive.  However, they also sell PID controllers for around $46 for people who link to tinker.  With everything you need to make it all work, the cost comes out to around $70-$80. I have one of them in my Bradley.  I installed it in the smoke generator.

PID Controller