The smoke generator on/or/off?

[acee]

Hi,  i'm new to the forum and have a question.  During hot smoking after the smoking is complete and more cooking time in the unit is required should the smoke generator be left on so you get the heat from the wood puck burner or should I be turned  off. Thanks,  Acee

[boxertrio]

Howdy acee,

As I understand it the smoke generator has a 125 watt element and the Bradley element is 500wats.  I find it much easier to maintain temps by leaving it on.  It doesn't hurt anything and it aids in temp recovery time when you have to open the door to change water or rotate racks(when I do this I also sweep off any left over puck from the burner).  Plus if you need higher heat for prime rib or something I don't think the 500watt unit could do it alone anyway.  I am new also, and have found this forum VERY helpful.....
Welcome aboard!!

Glenn

White smoke good...Black smoke bad!!

[whitetailfan]

I leave mine on as a personal preference for all the reasons boxertrio says.


<font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green">
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB

[acee]

Thanks for the help ACEE   <blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by whitetailfan</i>
<br />I leave mine on as a personal preference for all the reasons boxertrio says.


<font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green">
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

[TomG]

I hate to be a contrarian[}:)], but with all the problems people seem to be having with generator breakdowns, it seems to me that the better part of valor, until BS debugs the unit, is to turn it off after smoking and find another way to get an additional 150 watts of heat for cooking.  If the generator fails out of warranty, which some do, the $100+ for a replacement will turn out to be very expensive kilowatts. FYI   http://www.bradleysmoker.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2553&whichpage=1

[nsxbill]

Mine stays on during the entire time meat is in the smoker.  

Bill

<i>There is room on earth for all God's creatures....on my plate next to the mashed potatoes.</i>

[manxman]

I agree with nsxbill, mine stays on for the entire time the meat is in the smoker, once the smoking period is finished pucks are'nt being advanced in any case so there is no opportunity for things to go wrong with the advance mechanism at this stage.It is the advance mechanism that seems to be the major problem with the smoke generator.

Manxman.

[JJC]

I leave mine one all the time, too.

John
Newton MA

[iceman]

Leave it on. I have yet to hear of the element failing on a generator. Lots of other problems but not on the burner element. Happy smoking!

[TomG]

Iceman,  You're right, the heating element  apprently doesn't fail, it's the advancing system that malfunctions and doesn't it continue to cycle as long as the generator is left in the on position?  If that is the case, it seems to me that under the best of circumstances, the number of cycles is finite and probably limited.
BTW, last week, I was talking to BS tech support about another matter and asked the tech about the generator problems posted on this forum.  The only failures he was aware of was caused by owners presoaking their briquettes in rum and other spirits resulting in booze swollen pucks which jammed the generator's advancing motor and/or gears.  Go figure.[]

[iceman]

Your right Tom. The advance keeps on ticking but I haven't had any adverse effects show up. Probably because it's not pushing anything but air so it doesn't have a chance to hang up and strip out. Another thing to watch for is the relative humidity that the waffers are stored at. They need to be kept dry and protected from the air if it's humid out. I left one outside overnight on purpose and the thing swoll up an 1/8" thicker than normal and started to decompose which would definately cause problems. I can imagine you having major problems if you got them wet on purpose.[:p]

[car54]

I have a secondary 250 watt heating element. If I remember I turn the advancer off.

Brad