Bisquettes Not Advancing Enough

Jack D · October 07, 2015, 09:25:43 AM

In the process of smoking some salmon and thought I would post this query to see if there are any solutions. Since I've owned my Bradley digital smoker, I find that the bisquettes do not advance fully onto the hot plate. With approx. 3/8" of the burning bisquette still on the advance tray, it sets the waiting bisquette burning so by the time the waiting bisquette is advanced through the burn cycle and into the water bowl, it is over burnt. Also, although the advance is enough to tip the burnt bisquette into the water bowl, it will often hang up and stay leaning against the hot plate - resulting in more over burning - a problem if the water bowl isn't emptied after every second bisquette.

Is the above typical or is my problem unusual? Any suggestions to correct would be appreciated.

Jack

tskeeter · October 07, 2015, 10:25:00 AM

I also see some charring on the bisquette waiting to move on to the puck burner. But bisquettes don't bridge between the puck burner and the advance tray. If the bridging hasn't been a problem from the time the smoker was new, I'd clean the bisquette feeder and check for worn parts.

I suspect that your problem with burned bisquettes not falling into your water bowl is related to your placement of the water bowl. By placing the bowl so the bisquettes fall into the center of the bowl, I can normally get a couple of hours of smoke time before I need to empty the bowl.

Jack D · October 07, 2015, 11:58:39 AM

The bridging has been a problem since I purchased the smoker earlier this year and I clean the feeder part after each use.

Grouperman941 · October 07, 2015, 01:47:16 PM

I am having a similar problem lately.

I remember reading in the forum somewhere that there is an adjustment to the pusher arm we can make. I haven't had the time to check it out.

Jack D · October 07, 2015, 05:19:25 PM

I went back to Nov 2012 and couldn't find any posts relating to adjusting the pusher arm. However, there were a few posts relating to what I'm experiencing with no suggestions on how to improve/adjust.

Orion · October 25, 2015, 09:09:05 AM

Hello Jack,

I have looked over and over and am unable to find the thread you would be interested in. One of the members here had the issue of pucks not moving completely off the feeder tray. The puck to be burnt would sit at an angle as it straddled the burner plate and the feeder tray. Like you described, incomplete burning and pre-ignition of the next puck in line resulted.

This fellow did a great modification where he used a dremel to remove a small crescent moon shaped portion of the feeder tray so that when the puck advanced it would drop entirely on to the burner plate rather than hang up by it's trailing edge. This improved the burn and eliminated one puck igniting another.

Wish I could find it and post a link. My unit does the same thing as yours and I'm moving towards doing all the mods required to make the unit maintain a steady and more even heat in the cabinet, proper puck placement and burning and air circulation.

Hopefully one of the more experienced people here can remember the thread I'm referring to and will post a link to it. I remember that the guy did a real nice job and had posted excellent pictures of the mod process.

Can anyone out here help? Thanks.

TedEbear · October 25, 2015, 12:02:59 PM

Quote from: Orion on October 25, 2015, 09:09:05 AM
Hopefully one of the more experienced people here can remember the thread I'm referring to and will post a link to it. I remember that the guy did a real nice job and had posted excellent pictures of the mod process.

Can anyone out here help? Thanks.

This one? Why my pucks don't completely burn

Orion · October 25, 2015, 12:39:38 PM

That is exactly the thread I was looking for! Should help Jack and myself to improve our puck burning. Thank you TedEbear.

beabug · November 10, 2015, 12:20:03 AM

I have had a similar issue with the pucks (bisquette) not being advanced completely through the puck feed area and onto the 'hot plate'. I found it was caused by the sloppy linkage between the shuttle linkage (from the motor) and the shuttle plate itself.
Here's the fix ... Remove the rear plate of the smoke generator and check out the following ....
(1) Cycle the feeder to advance a puck and Power Off to stop the shuttle when it is fully retracted to the rear of the puck feeder...... (2) You will see a small 'brass' pin and sleeve that connects the linkage from the motor to the shuttle plate .... (3) I was able to move the shuttle plate back and forth about 3mm ~ 4mm due to the slop in this linkage... . (4) In order to reduce this slop in the linkage, I removed the spring steel E-ring (circlip - retaining clip) at the bottom of the brass pin linkage.... (5) Withdraw the pin from the linkage and shuttle plate and install and additional 0.5mm (approx.) fibre washer onto the brass pin.... (6) Then re-insert the pin through the shuttle plate, including the brass sleeve, and reinstate the E-ring circlip.
This significantly reduced the vertical play in this linkage and corrected the excess lateral play between the shuttle linkage and the shuttle plate. The stiffening of this linkage now enables the puck to feed several millimetres further to the hotplate.