New 4-rack...Smoker oven temp is 20degrees below reality.

[cfarr]

I have placed two separate probes in the oven which agree with each other but indicate internal temp about 20degrees higher than digital display shows for oven temp.
Is this typical?  Is this a warranty item?  What should I do?

[devo]

Yes this is typical and no this is not a warranty item and you should just smoke something and go with the two external ones.

[mikecorn.1]

Keep going. It'll be fine.


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[tskeeter]

C&S, as with many other cooking devices, the Bradley Smoker operates across a range of temperatures that deviates from the set point that is displayed.  It is not uncommon for Bradley Smokers to operate across a range that is 20 degrees above and below the set point.  This degree of variation is most often observed when a large amount of cold food has been put into the smoker.  As the contents of the smoker increase in temperature, the range of variation tends to decrease.

Long time Bradley users do not find that the range of temperatures is problematic unless they are smoking something that is quite temperature sensitive, such as smoking sausage.  The folks that need better temperature control than the standard Bradley controls provide often use a PID as a temperature controller.  If you look through posts, you will find references to an Auber plug and play PID.  This seems to be the PID of choice among the smoking gurus who hang out here.

For a low tech approach to minimizing temperature variation and speed heat recovery times when the smoker door has been opened, aluminum foil wrapped bricks can be used as a heat sink.    Some folks will preheat the bricks as part of the smoker preheat process.  I have had good luck preheating my smoking bricks in the oven and transferring them to the smoker at the time that I put the food into the smoker.  I have used the oven approach because I wanted the brick temperature to be higher than the set temperature for the smoker in order to shorten the cooking time of the nine pound turkey breast I was smoking.  I used three bricks because the turkey was at about 45 degrees when it went in the smoker.  I believe that most folks use one or two bricks.

By the way, freezing the bricks should help keep the smoker cabinet cool if you are cold smoking during warmer weather.

When you have a bit of free time, read through the posts here.  If you are not an experienced smoker, these forums are a great resource.  There are several very experienced smokers who hang out here who are a great source of advice and coaching on technique, and there are often links in posts to really great recipes that have been developed and refined through extensive use.  Because the others are smoking on the same type of equipment you are using, their advice is quite specific and relevant.   I wish I had found these forums when I started smoking, these forums have been much more informative and helpful than the small library of books on smoking that I have amassed.     

[viper125]

Not a science project here. We smoke meats. Lol!

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[Habanero Smoker]

Hi C&S;

Welcome to the forum.

You can find a lot of answers by clicking on the below link.

Bradley FAQ's

[KyNola]

tskeeter, that is one of the most well written pieces I have read on this forum in a long time.

You really get it.

Thank you, you have helped a lot of newer Bradley owners today.