What am I doing wrong?

[MPTubbs]

Yesterday I smoked 4 Chickens (2 beer can and 2 flat on their backs) and 1 rack of veggies on my new 6 rack diggi.

Smoked in my unheated garage to stay out of the wind and the average temp was 25 degrees out side.

At 4am I started to preheat @ 250 degrees. At 6am I put in the chickens that were @ room temp. Smoked for 3 hours and then took out the puck bowl (help keep moisture down)and the vent was wide open. The temp was set @ 250 degrees during the whole cooking process.

At 10am I put in the rack of veggies and @ noon rotated the racks. I am also using the Maverick 73 to monitor my temps.

By 7:30pm the tower was only 190 degrees and the chicks IT was 155 and the veggies were not done. It seemed the IT and tower temp would go up 1 degree ever 45 min.

Am I doing something wrong?  Do I have a defective toy?

Any help here would be great!
Mike.

[watchdog56]

are you sure the plugs are pushed all the way in? Do you have a programmable PID? That holds the temp very well.

[Hopefull Romantic]

That long for chicken is way too long. At 250 it should be done in 3 - 4 hours. Like car54 said are you sure that the heating wlement is working? If not re - check the connections again.

HR

[begolf25]

mptubbs,

4 chickens and a rack of veggies is a pretty big load for even the 6 rack. One thing I would do is preheat the smoker to a higher temp of 250 degrees for at least an hour. You may also want to try and use some foil wrapped bricks in the bottom. This will help with heat recovery.

How many total pounds were the chickens? If you turn the temps up with the smoker empty does the smoker achieve the desired temperature? If so, the smoker is probably fine and may just be a case of too much at one time.

Bryan

[MPTubbs]

Never tried with the smoker empty.....I'll do that RIGHT now!

I preheated the smoker to 250 for 2 hours but forgot to see if it acheived it.

Chick were 5 pounds or more apiece (21 pounds of chicken) and about 3 pounds of whole potato's , 2 pounds of baby carrots and 6 whole onions.

The heating element was red hot every time I opened the door to add veggies and rotate racks. I don't think the heating element ever shut off.

Is that too big of a load?

A buddy of mine has a Masterbuilt 6 rack electric and he has no problems getting his smoker up 325 degrees in any weather and maintain it with meat in it. (that is what he says) ::)

Getting disappointed....I bought this smoker to smoke in the winter months and so far me-no-like.

I'll try bricks next time.


Mike.

[MPTubbs]

UPDATE:

Did what Begolf25 said.....Preheat smoker @ 300 degrees empty and vent 1/2 open.

After 2 1/2 hours the temp got up to 248 degrees.

I then closed vent for 1 more hour and it went up to 277 degrees.

Temp outside was 27 degrees and I was in my unheated garage to stay out of the wind. I was using my Maverick to monitor my tower temp.

As for a PID, it seems I won't need one because the temp never comes close to my target temp.

[FLBentRider]

The last time I did four chickens they took a while too.

I think it might be all the moisture the chicken has.

I pulled them and put them in a 350F oven for a little while until the IT was where I wanted it.

[MPTubbs]

FLBent.

Do U think the load was to big?

[FLBentRider]

When I did it I was under a dinner deadline.

I put the chickens in there pretty cold from the fridge and just ran outta time with hungry peeps.

After the smoke is done the Bradley is basically an oven anyway.

As far as the load too big, I would have to say yes. 7 hours is a long time for chicken.

I believe that the sheer mass of it combined with the amount of moisture in the chicken contributed to the long cook time.

Where were you measuring the temp ? under the lowest chicken or at the vent.

I used to measure at the vent, but I realized if I did that, the meat was getting a higher temp than indicated and I was measuring the "left over" heat if you will.

[MPTubbs]

I was measuring up by the vent.

Next time I'll measure down lower.

Thanks for your input!

[OU812]

My thoughts are the smoker never really had time to recover the heat as you opened the door quite often to put other stuff in and then rotating things. I have done similar loads, 2 chickens and 2 large turkey breasts no veggies though and it took about 2 hr to get back to temp. After that it held the temp.

I would try in again and this time set the temp to 280 F before you put the product in then watch the temp till its close to 250 F and then turn it down,try not opening the door, also adding some bricks on the eather side of the drip pan under the "V" pan will help with the heat recovery. Just a little note about the drip pan, you should always have it in there even if there is no water in it, just to catch the drippings.

[MPTubbs]

It would take the smoker 4 hours to get up to 280 degrees in 20 degree temps outside! :o

The smoker never got above 200 in 13 hours! I opened the door 3 time in that 13 hours.

I hear ya on the drip pan, will keep it in from now on.

Does the Bradley really take that long???  I was hoping for better heat than that!

[Hopefull Romantic]

It does not usually need that long to climbto that temp. We had temps in the upper 20s today and was still able to get up to 250 without a problem.

I suggest you call Brian and bounce it off him

HR

[Pachanga]

mptubbs,

Sorry you are having problems.  A lot of good suggestions have already been broght forward.

My six rack digital is not very dependable as far as the set temperature matching the actual temperature.  I do not rely on the set temperature to get the heat up.  I crank it up to 250 or a little higher.  Then I wait until the actual temperature on a Maverick chamber probe on the bottom meat rack hits my target temperature.  The probe is on the door side.  At that point, I adjust the Bradley set point down in ten or twenty degree increments until the Maverick chamber temperature settles into the proper range.  Usually, my digital readout is at 240 to achieve a true 20 -225 temperature and hold there.  You have to interpolate a little.

If in doubt, open the door and see if the heat element is glowing to make sure the thermostat hasn't shut you down.

With your one degree climb per hour, the thermostat may have been clicking on and off.  The chamber temperature was not as hot as you thought but it was hot enough to slowly raise the chicken temperature which allowed the chamber temperature to rise slowly.

For preheating and temperature hold, I replace the water pan with a half size steam table aluminum pan full of boiling water laced with your favorite additives if any.  As others have stated, preheat to 250 or more and most of the time let the meat heat up to higher than refrigerator temperature before placing in the Bradley.

One other comment.  Because the element is in back and the temperature thermostat reading device is in the back, heat rises across the back and fools the digital into thinking that the temperature is high enough.  I loosely foil the back half of the vent/drip rack to force more heat forward which seems to balance things out better.  Classic Rock Griller recently reported on opening the front vents and closing down the back vents some.  That may be another solution.

This link will have a photo of almost 50 lbs of meat and the foil pan, foil covering and hot water technique.  The photos you are looking for are down a ways.

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=12061.0

The Bradley is slow but it works well when you get to know it.

Good luck and slow smoking,

Pachanga

[MPTubbs]

Pachanga,

Had the temp set to 250 for 13 hours and the box never got to that temp.

According to the Bradley electronics the box temp was around 220 when I had it set @250......no reason for it to shut down, right?

The maverick read around 170 to 190 box temp with IT about 155 after 13 hours. ???

To smoke a  20 pound turkey up in Canada this time year would take about what.....24 hours?

Sorry just venting....a little frustrated right now.

Mike.