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Need opinions BS1019

Started by bigcatdaddy, February 15, 2022, 11:08:46 AM

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bigcatdaddy

All right everyone...really thinking hard about buying one of these bad boys now that they've been out for a while.  Please let me know your thoughts good and bad.  Don't hold back, I'm a big guy and can handle it!!!

Habanero Smoker

#1
I like mine, and I'm hard to please. Like any outdoor cooking device, you need to practice with it a bit, and learn how it cooks. Though mine maintains tight temperatures throughout the cook, I find the display is reading around 10 - 15 degrees lower than what my third party thermometers displays. But once you learn how it cooks, you can adjust your settings.

If your main goal is to smoke/cook barbecue (using temperature between 200°F to 325°F), this will get the job done. But it is almost impossible to cold smoke with, and I find it difficult to keep the temperatures below 180°F, while the smoke generator is on. So that may rule out smoking sausage, and to some extent making pastrami and bacon very difficult.

The two 400w heating tubes are evenly space, which helps with even heat distribution - though with the smoke generator on, the back left area cooks a little faster. Very easy to clean. the drip tray is porcelain coated and easy to clean. The side rails are removeable, so all walls can be easily cleaned (when necessary). The trays are large enough to hold whole racks of either St. Louis Ribs, or Baby backs length wise, on occasion if you get racks that are longer you can definitely fit them diagonally, or trim them. There are six self positions, but if you are careful you can use the area between the self brackets.

The programing is easy. It has two meat probes, but I don't use them often, and prefer to use a third party probe to read the temperatures. The alarm system sucks. Even when standing next to the smoker you can barely hear it. The two 100w bisquette burners seem to produce a slightly more stronger smoke than the other Bradley generator; but that may be my subjective opinion, because I haven't seen anyone else mention this. I just apply less smoke than I did with my other Bradley. Cleaning the generator is more challenging

It's not wi-fi or Bluetooth enabled, so to see what is going on you need to go to the smoker and look at the display. The child lock is a pain in the shorts. It disables all buttons if a button is not touched after a certain amount of time. The programable CookTool is very frustrating to setup and use, so I don't bother with that.

There are more pro's and con's, but I can't think of them right now. I you have specific questions, I would be glad to answer them.

PS
I just read a post where CZ-smoker also feels the smoke is strong.



     I
         don't
                   inhale.
  ::)

UncleDuke

I initially purchased the Bradley P 10 smoker because I anticipated smoking larger pieces of meat. After some debating with my wife over the amount of money I would have to spend on the P 10 versus the consumer versions, she relented and I purchased this in November 2021 from an authorized third-party (acme tool). I have since smoked 3 turkeys, 2 chickens, 4 slabs of pork belly, a king salmon, a pot of baked beans, tasso, guanciale, buffalo mozzarella and some speck.

I have found the controls a bit finicky as they lock out too quick. After having an issue with the sensor going out after only having it for four months, I had to replace it. Most of the screws that were used to assemble the chassis were crammed out and required a Torx screwdriver to remove. One of the screws was unable to be removed and resulted in a slight bending of the chassis of the burner unit. I also had to use tap out a couple of the screws. Although I was able to replace the sensor (slightly over an hour of labor and bad language), I was able to replace the sensor. However, I've been unable to keep the burner at a low temperature to do true cold smoking.
Uncle Duke

Master Distiller
Amateur Blacksmith

Habanero Smoker

You can try using blocks of ice inside the cabinet to try to keep the P10 in the cold smoke range, but I have found that very difficult to keep the temperature in at that range. Other things you can try is to cold smoke during the early morning, or late evening or night time when it is cooler. Keeping the smoker out of direct sunlight is a must.

With the two 100w bisquette burners, I even find it difficult to keep the smoker in the hot smoke range, without using ice. You can try using a device called A-MAZE-N tube pellet smoker, but I find these devices don't add enough smoke for my tasted. I also have an original Bradley, and I'm looking at using that generator to provide the smoke into the cabinet. The air intake for the P10 is at the bottom of the smoker. So I plan to rig up a table with a hole cut out of it, and pipe up the smoke through there. If I ever get around to this, I'll post what I did, and the results.

Question: I didn't have the difficulty of removing the screws that you did, except for one screw that was corroded. Where any of your screws corroded?



     I
         don't
                   inhale.
  ::)