unburned pucks

[oopseadaisy]

Hi, I'm a newbie with the Bradley and have noted inconsistant burning of the pucks.  One will be consumed completely and only ashes drop into the bowl, then the next puck is only blackened on the bottom and is still whole and has uncharred wood on the top.  During a 4 hour smoke yesterday, I put in 12 pucks and when it was done 6 of them were still whole in the bowl and only half burnt.

am I doing something wrong or is this a timer issue on the puck advance?

thanks in advance for any suggestions.  jack

[RAF128]

You're not alone.   That's common on Bradley digitals.   Mine has done it all along.   I also have an OBS and it seems to burn the pucks more completely.   I can't give you an answer why but my opinion is the burner on the OBS seems to burn hotter.   The only advice I can give you is make sure the burner is clean and without any residue and preheat the smoke generator but you start advancing pucks.   It helps a bit.

[DTAggie]

As RAF, said, always turn on the SG when preheating the cabinet, then put pucks in when you get ready to put meat in.  Always clean the burner area with a wire brush before each use.  I have an OBS and every one in a while a puck or two will not burn as completely as the others.

[JT-MO]

Moisture in the pucks maybe? Are they opened from a previous use and then you put new opened ones in with them?

My OBS burns them all pretty good, completely black top and bottom.

[boxofrain]

I get a few here and there that have a very small amount of "wood" left as well.
Butt, I live on the S. Oregon coast and it is a bit moist most of the time, so I figured that was my issue.

[classicrockgriller]

The softer woods my smoker will burn all the way.

I do/have a problem with Jim Bean pucks. (Special Blends does this sometimes too.)

They seemed to be compressed a little more.

I have even tried drilling holes in them and it did help, but still didn't burn all the wood.

You might turn on your smoke generator (with no pucks in it) and get a temp reading.

I can't remember the temp range for it to smoke the wood without starting a fire.

I started a thread (and got some great answers) on this a while back and I will see if I can hunt it down.

[oopseadaisy]

Thanks everyone.  I do have an OBS but not the digital one, I bought an Auber PID instead after reading the many comments in the forums about the digital.  I guess I'm still confused about some of the pucks, is the end result supposed to be that the puck has been completely consumed and is all ashes, or are pucks still mostly intact, but blackened all over when done?
thanks, jack

[classicrockgriller]

intack, and mostly black, NOT ashes. Just good smoke from the Bradley.

[Habanero Smoker]

Just a thought to rule out a potential problem. If you hooked up your PID incorrectly, you will cause a problem with the bisquettes burning completely. The cabinet should be plugged into the PID. If you plug the generator into the PID it will cycle the generator on/off cutting the power to the bisquette burning and thus will cause this problem.

Here is a link to some other trouble shooting tips:
Bradley Smoker FAQ's

[oopseadaisy]

Thanks Hab, I figured that out right away when I got the Auber, no problem there.  I'll just live with the semi burned pucks.
jack

[BuyLowSellHigh]

I can think of two possibilities, one of which I have had on my digital six-rack:

1.  loose or intermittent connection in the heating element circuit for the bisquette heating plate on the SG;
2.  intermittent failure of bisquette advance - this is the one that is still hitting me on my six-rack at times.

Suggest you call the Bradley tech support folks, and let them guide you on checking it out.

[JT-MO]

That was the other thing I was going to mention. What BLSH said above on item 2.
Maybe your pusher isn't working all the time and some burn longer, like 40 minutes instead of 20 minutes. They should be black but intact for the most part.