New p10 problems and troubleshooting

[Brewmd]

Got my new P10, after my old Original gave up finaly (I'd replaced burned out wires, and then the puck advance stopped working...  manually advancing pucks every 20 minutes and opening and closing the doors is exactly what I got a bradley to avoid)

It has given us 6 good years, so I figured, lets upgrade.

Well, the new model had clearly had some damage in shipping, with a bent side and bottom, and the grates inside were bent out of shape.  But customer service made me happy with how that's being resolved.

I got a seasoning session in, and planned to cook today.

Now, i'm having problems.

I have no indicator lights on the power/child lock/heating lights.

I managed to set the heat, then the cook time, and the smoke time.

But the smoker isn't starting. 

I've powered it off, powered it back on, and repeated the steps.

I've set each one individually, pressing the button afterwards to set the time/temp.

It should be starting, but it's not. 

Not getting any lights on the top row means I can't tell if i'm doing something wrong, or if its the control board.

Like I said, I managed to get a seasoning burn in on Friday.

Help!?

UPDATE:

After a bit more time, I did it again - and this time the heat inside is finally rising.

Still no indicator lights, and the smoke puck didn't start automatically (despite having its time set)

Is this smoker this finicky for everyone?

I'm seriously having buyer's remorse right now.

What am I doing wrong, or what am I missing?

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Brewmd,

Welcome to the forum.

My first two P10's came damaged. Bradley needs to either change the shipping company, or package the P10 better to reduce damage.

Those top row of lights are very dim, so in sunlight or other strong light they are difficult to see. Shade that area with your hand, or turn on the smoker in dim light to confirm whether or not the lights are being displayed. If not, you may need to replace the panel. When making changes in your settings make sure the Child Lock is disengaged before you are make changes in your settings. If the Child Lock is engage none of your settings will be accepted.

You didn't mention how much time you gave the P10 to produce smoke. It has a feature that it will not advance a bisquette to the burner until the burner reaches a certain temperature. This can take longer than 15 minutes before that bisquette is advance to the burner. If you manually advance a bisquette to the burner it will just sit on the burner then be pushed off when the turntable automatically advances. If it still doesn't produce smoke when the turntable advances automatically, contact Bradley. There have been a few post about bad bisquette burner sensors.

[Brewmd]

Thank you for the reply.

At the time I posted, I had been trying to get it to start heating with multiple attempts over about 30 minutes, so I was a bit frustrated, and didn't time it.

I can estimate that I waited about 10 minutes from the time I finally got it to start heating, and the internal temp was past 175 or so, but hadn't reached 200 (I had set it for 250 for tri-tips)

I tried shading the lights, and even turned the smoker 90 degrees so that the whole front panel was in the shade, no sign of lights. 

I'll try to do a test run this evening after the sun goes down, so I can be doubly sure, but they'd have to be extremely dim for me to not pick them up yesterday.

The good news:

the smoker came up to heat fast, and the tri tips cooked extremely fast- it used to take me a bit longer than an hour in the Original to get them up to 135 internal.  These two were a bit small, at 2.5# each, but they still hit 130 in about 45 minutes, 135 a few minutes later.

I decided to kill the heat and just let smoke roll for another hour or so, and they topped out at 138, (I did have to open the door for a few minutes to vent some of that excess heat) before dropping down to about 133.

They came out perfectly pink and tender, and rested while getting blasted with extra smoke for that extra time.

Now that I know the machine will allow me to hold meat in that perfect rare to medium rare range and keep smoke on them, I might try the same process on a rib roast or a pork loin next.

[Habanero Smoker]

Glad to hear your cook went fairly well. Tri tip is a very good cut of meat.

If those lights are not on that could be a sign of possible future problems with the control panel. If they are not lit contact Bradley. For myself, the heat indicator light is the most important light. It lets me know when power is being applied to the heating elements.

Although the P10 keeps extremely tight temperatures, the displayed temperature may be lower than the actual cabinet temperature. If you have a third party probe run it through the vent so that you can monitor the cabinet temperature. I have a Thermoworks Signal with four probes. I monitored an empty cabinet for over 2 hours. I set the panel at 250°F, and my probes were reading 10 to 15 degrees higher. So when I want to cook something at 250°F, I'll set the display at 240°F. If you have been using the original, a lot of the cook time is the smoker struggling to get back to your desired temperature, so your cook times will be longer. With the P10, there is very little recovery time, so you will find your food will cook much faster.

Depending on the ambient temperature, 10 minutes to get to 175°F is good time. If you need to expel excessive heat, an additional way to do this is to remove the damper.

Since you have had food from both the Original and P10, I curious to know what you thing of the smoke flavor of the P10. Let us know how your future cooks go.

[Brewmd]

I have gone back and done more testing.

The top lights are indeed working, but are absolutely too dim.  Poor design choice there.

The control panel is extremely finicky.  Again, poor design, but it does appear to be functional.

As for the quality and quantity of the smoke, it is fine,  It appears to be getting a fairly complete burn out of each bisquette, possibly a more complete burn than out of the OBS.

I did a pork loin last week and the hickory bisquettes were quite flavorful.

I'm just not sure if the thing is working as well as it could/should, or if its just too damned quirky and finicky..

[Habanero Smoker]

Thanks for reporting back.

My control panel can be picky at times, especially when I'm trying to set the temperatures for the meat probes (but now I rarely use them). When the panel is operating "normally" I have to be careful to make sure I push the buttons dead center, and move slowly. On rare occasions, I found that I had to shut the smoker down and reboot it to get the panel to work better. Most of the problems occur when it is colder. To make sure that yours is operating as intended, maybe you should contact Bradley and see what they. If yours is working as intended, over time you will get use to how to set that panel. Setting the panel works much better in warmer weather.

I'm still getting a stronger smoke taste than I would like. How much smoke did you apply to the loin?