Help!

[Chomondely]

Started o pork butt tonight. Smoke working fine. Temp set on 220. Temp only showing 139 after 2 hours. Too much smoke to see if the heating element is on. All connections are tight.
Thoughts?

[TedEbear]

You might try reseating the connections again just to be sure.  If it still won't get up to temp you can move the butt to your oven after the smoking part is done and finishing cooking it there.  Then later you can see what's going on with your smoker when the smoke isn't blocking the view.

To everyone else, 11 views thus far and I was the only one to offer any help???

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Chomondely;

Sorry to welcome you to the forum in this manner.

It looks like your element is working. The bisquette burning would not get the cabinet up to 139°F by itself with a butt in the cabinet. Did you preheat the smoker prior to placing the butt in the smoker? You should preheat 25 - 50 degrees higher than you plan to smoke at. Once you open the door you loose a lot of heat.

Did you let the butt set at room temperature for 1 - 2 hours prior to placing the butt in the smoker? If not the meat is like a heat sink; absorbing a great amount of heat. So if you didn't do either or one or the other; it will take the smoker a while to get up to the set temperature.

Also what is your vent setting? If you have it too closed it will keep the temperature down, if you have it too open that will also keep your temperature down. For one to two butts, I set the vent setting to 1/2 - 3/4 open.

Here is a link to some handy tips:

Bradley Smoker FAQ's

[Wildcat]

To everyone else, 11 views thus far and I was the only one to offer any help???

Now now. It is possible that 11 new folks looked at the thread that did not have the experience and/or the confidence to answer.

As far as the butt - Habs has provided some good information and is someone to listen to on here. Your cabinet temp being at 139 after 2 hours is not unreasonable. As long as your element is working, the temp will increase as the meat temp gets higher. You are cooking with a light bulb. Have patience, it could take 12 to 24 hours to cook that critter.

Sorry this post is a little late but it is the first time I saw your post. Let us know what all you did and how it turned out.

[mikecorn.1]

To everyone else, 11 views thus far and I was the only one to offer any help???

Now now. It is possible that 11 new folks looked at the thread that did not have the experience and/or the confidence to answer.

As far as the butt - Habs has provided some good information and is someone to listen to on here. Your cabinet temp being at 139 after 2 hours is not unreasonable. As long as your element is working, the temp will increase as the meat temp gets higher. You are cooking with a light bulb. Have patience, it could take 12 to 24 hours to cook that critter.

Sorry this post is a little late but it is the first time I saw your post. Let us know what all you did and how it turned out.

Ditto on the on everything above especially Wildcat's first sentence. There are member or guests that just lurk around. Some for years and never post or don't have the experience or know how to answer.
If I can offer any help, I always do. This was last night around 9:30. Sleepy time or getting ready for sleepy time for some of us that have to get up early and drive 50 miles to work (one way) ::) ;) :)



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[Chomondely]

Thanks for the thoughts. The butt is in the oven up to 173 now. I did not preheat. Butt close but not up to room temp. The reading took almost three hours to get tup to the 139 reading.  When I took the butt out, I left the door open. I did not see the main element turn red. This my fourth butt and the others got up to temp pretty quickly, say 30 minutes or so. The vent is wide open, ambient air temp was about 91. Looks like all will turn out for tonight's meal.I will turn everything on and see wat the temps do w/o any meat.
Oh, I did unplug and reset. A reboot as my IT foks always tell me to do to my computer.

[slhenly]

We're having the same problem.  Decided heating element is not working- just got it for Christmas.  How do you replace the element.  Smoking is working fine- oven just not heating at all.  Temp 104 after 2 hours.

[TedEbear]

Thanks for the thoughts. The butt is in the oven up to 173 now. I did not preheat. Butt close but not up to room temp. The reading took almost three hours to get tup to the 139 reading.  When I took the butt out, I left the door open. I did not see the main element turn red. This my fourth butt and the others got up to temp pretty quickly, say 30 minutes or so. The vent is wide open, ambient air temp was about 91.

It looks like there is a problem with the smoker.  With an ambient temp of 91*F the chamber temp should have gotten above 139*F in 3 hours. 

No one else has mentioned this yet but did you have your Bradley plugged into an extension cord?  Those have been known to cause heating problems.  I believe it says in the owner's manual to not use an extension cord.

[mikecorn.1]

We're having the same problem.  Decided heating element is not working- just got it for Christmas.  How do you replace the element.  Smoking is working fine- oven just not heating at all.  Temp 104 after 2 hours.

replacing heat element

[TedEbear]

We're having the same problem.  Decided heating element is not working- just got it for Christmas.  How do you replace the element.  Smoking is working fine- oven just not heating at all.  Temp 104 after 2 hours.

It sounds like a bad element or maybe a loose connection.  Be sure everything is plugged in tightly, maybe even unplug and reseat the connections again. 

Replacing the element is not all that hard.  There are a couple of screws that hold a ceramic insulator on each end of the element and a high temp wire on each end.  Once you have one or more of the wires disconnected from the element if you have a multimeter handy do an ohm reading.  A bad element will read completely open.  A functioning one will be about 27-32 ohms.

[mikecorn.1]

Thanks for the thoughts. The butt is in the oven up to 173 now. I did not preheat. Butt close but not up to room temp. The reading took almost three hours to get tup to the 139 reading.  When I took the butt out, I left the door open. I did not see the main element turn red. This my fourth butt and the others got up to temp pretty quickly, say 30 minutes or so. The vent is wide open, ambient air temp was about 91. Looks like all will turn out for tonight's meal.I will turn everything on and see wat the temps do w/o any meat.
Oh, I did unplug and reset. A reboot as my IT foks always tell me to do to my computer.

Somewhat true about the extension cord. You can use them, just need to keep it as short as you can with the biggest guage you can get. There is a recent thread around here that I believe 4given started about the guage and lenght of extension cords.

[mikecorn.1]

Here is the thread on extension cords click here

[Chomondely]

Update-
Reet everything, no extesnsion cord. All connections tight. No het in the main box.
I'll call Bradley today.
Pork was reat! Family loved it.
Used this as the rub:
3/4 cup paprika
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup ground black pepper
3 tbsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp dry mustard
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp sage
Heated to 195in most spots, around 200 in a few spots.
I will increase the cayenne next time.

Thanks again for the great information. I'll rfer back to this post when I get the new element.

[Habanero Smoker]

Glad to see you will be up an running in no time.

The below link will provide instructions on how to install the element:

Element Installation