Brand New, Smoke Not Generating

[Nukeboy]

Greetings all,

I've just received the 4 rack digital smoker and am trying to season it.  Ran it per the instructions, the first puck came out slightly charred, but no real smoke.  Pulled the plug, restarted just in case I messed something up.  Digital display works, oven heater appears to be working, but it's not generating smoke.  Pucks are coming out warm (but I think due to the oven and not the smoke generator).  Haven't checked the fuse, but assume that power to the entire unit flows through, so that if any one thing is working, it means the fuse is good.  Smoke generator is also cool to the touch - would think that it would be warm if heating pucks.

[Orion]

Double check all your plug in connections. They often appear and feel fully plugged in and they are not. Quite a common problem.

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Nukeboy;

Welcome to the forum.

This is also referring to your other post. If you are just seasoning and you are having problems with the bisquette burner not burning the bisquettes, do not put water in the bowl while you are trying to troubleshoot the problem. Without water in the bowl that will save your bisquettes, and if they don't burn you can reuse them.

The generator housing should never get warm to the touch, unless it is sitting in the sun. If checking your connections does not work, you may have a loose connection inside the generator.

You can open the generator and not void your warranty. The below link provides instructions on how to open the generator.
How To Clean The Generator

The below link also provides many troubleshooting and user tips.
Bradley FAQ's

[Nukeboy]

Thanks! I'll take a look inside and see what's up.

[Smoker John]

Welcome Nukeboy, when I first got my Bradley a few years ago I had the same issue, I re-seated the connectors inside the generator even if they looked fine and it has worked fine since.

[Nukeboy]

Opened the generator and wiggled/pushed all of the connections.  Everything seems to work, but it looks like the heating element is not getting the pucks hot enough to begin to smolder. :(,  Wait!  Update!  Houston, we have achieved smoke!

The manual says to preheat the generator for 20min, but it looks like it took a little over an hour to start smoking.  Hopefully this is just a burn-in issue.