Disapointed/Frustrated

[renoman]

Don't get me wrong. I think the Bradley is a great appliance. I have only done about half a dozen smokes and i'm getting to know it. I have had no failures yet just a few gliches that were my fault and easily rectified on my next attempt. I think if I had to do one mod it would be to add a circulation fan in the tower to even out the heat in the oven and get rid of cool spots. I am a sausage guy and don't really need the higher temps. I can keep a pretty steady 225-250 on my Weber grill if I need to slow cook.

[tskeeter]

I think that the forte of the Bradley is it's design as a low temperature smoker and the automatic puck feeder.  My experience has been that it excels at both.  One of my observations is that people who experience some initial disappointment and consternation with their Bradley seem to encounter those feelings because the Bradley doesn't have the power to cook more like an oven.

In recognition that a Bradley is primarily a smoker, many of us who want to use our Bradley as a cooker, too, have modified our smokers to suit our expectations.

I suspect that the folks who hang out on these forums are not the typical Bradley owner.  Any more than the person who spends their weekends at the race track is your typical car owner.  Modifying your Bradley to suit your smoking/cooking needs is the functional equivalent of the hobby car racer modifying an engine to provide more horsepower, or changing out suspension components to improve handling.  Heck, back in the days when I was building figure eight cars, which are about as stock as you will find on a track, for a friend, we used to change the tires to a softer rubber compound (read we used cheap tires that wore out fast), shim the front suspension to improve cornering for heat races, punch out baffles in mufflers to reduce engine back pressure, and cut away as much as possible to improve the power to weight ratio of the car.  Doing a heating element mod is kind of like slipping a high performance cam into your race motor.

I don't think you're going to find many showroom stock Civics on the race track on Saturday night.  And I don't think you're going to find all that many showroom stock smokers among the smoke house hero's who hang out here.

Dang, all this car talk has me thinking about schlepping the Bradley over to the body shop for a flame treatment down the sides!     

[KyNola]

And I don't think you're going to find all that many showroom stock smokers among the smoke house hero's who hang out here.

And I wouldn't take that bet Skeeter. 8)

[Grouperman941]

And I don't think you're going to find all that many showroom stock smokers among the smoke house hero's who hang out here.

And I wouldn't take that bet Skeeter. 8)

Me neither. I think pondee is right -- if you have modded your Bradley, you are more likely to mention it, which gives the appearance that everyone here has done it.

The only mod I have done is a brick. After a year of smoking, I got a PID, which is nice, but I don't think I need it for most of the cooks I do.

I once had a 9 pound butt take 20 hours, and it was 80-90 degrees F outside during the cook!  Cook temp hung right at 200 the whole time.