Smoke generator shutting off prematurely?

[Curtis Jackson]

Well, since I replaced my original Bradley with the new digital model a few weeks ago, I have been less than impressed. Here's the latest problem:

I was cold-smoking some cured salmon, and wanted to smoke overnight for 6 hours. I started the smoke generator timer at 6:20 to give the burner time to warm up a little. I put the salmon and some trays of ice in and advanced the first puck onto the burner, and verified that the timer showed 6:05. About half an hour later I glanced to see that smoke was coming out of the top vent (which, as usual for me, was about 2/3 open). Then I set my alarm and went to bed.

This morning I went out and the smoke generator was switched off (that's OK, it had probably been just a bit over 6 hours), but well over half the pucks were still in the magazine and had never been advanced. Nothing appeared to be amiss with the puck advance, it appears that the smoke generator simply shut off for no reason about 2 hours into the smoke.

It is bad enough that Bradley appears to have bought the cheapest and most unreliable thermostat on the planet, and that I can't do a long smoke-and-dry of jerky at 90F because the oven temp can't be set below 120F, but now I can't even rely on the damned smoke generator to obey the timer without shutting off.

Has anyone else run into this? I am beginning to seriously wish that I had just bought another original non-digital Bradley.

[Mr Walleye]

Curtis

When I first bought mine I had this happen a couple of times and the only thing I could figure that caused it was the cords. It seems the brand new cords will loose contact every once in a while until they are sort of "broken in". For mine I just pluged and unpluged them a number of times, including the sensor plug and this resolved it. I've never had a problem since. I don't know if they have a sliver of plastic in the odd one left over from the injection moulding process or what.

Mike

[Curtis Jackson]

Well, I did some experimentation, and it turns out that when I first turn the smoke generator on, a single puck advances as it is supposed to. After that, no more pucks will advance automatically, and the Advance button has no effect, either. The puck burner still heats up.

I called Bradley and they acted as if they had heard this a million times, and immediately told me to open up the smoke generator and check that the microswitch is plugged in and the motor arm is correctly crossing over the microswitch, and to call them back if that doesn't fix things.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, the Bradley folks were helpful and apparently knowledgeable (I'll know once the unit cools down and I can try their fix). That is certainly better than having someone in India or Indonesia dragging me through hell and back on the phone having my do all kinds of irrelevant stuff according to some braindead script they've been given.

On the other hand, I paid nearly $600 for what turns out to be a poorly manufactured product (note that many other people are having similar difficulties), and as an extra reward I get to try to fix it myself. Add to that the $160 worth of salmon from last night that is essentially ruined, and I am not a very happy camper.

I'll post back here once I either get the thing to work or have to get a replacement, so others can benefit from my pain. But I can tell you that even if their suggested fix works, Bradley's reputation in my mind, which was fairly sterling when I had my original Bradley, has taken a major hit from the various unexpected problems and limitations of this new digital smoker.

[Curtis Jackson]

Talked to Brian this morning, did some more experimentation with the smoke generator open. He thinks I have a motor with a stripped gear or one that is weak because it is starting to go bad. The symptom I observed when I had the smoke generator open was that perhaps 60% of the time, the brass arm attached to the pusher plate would shudder and move at most 1mm, but would not actually travel far enough to come off the microswitch.

Brian said that the usual cause for this was not having the feeder tube (the vertical magazine that holds the bisquettes) seated all the way down, and this caused the pusher plate to jam bisquettes as it tries to push them and thus put too much strain on the motor. I don't think I was guilty of not seating the feeder tube, and I certainly had my original Bradley for a number of years with no such problems. He also said that although they are using the same motor on all units, for some reason they have yet to fathom the motors on the digital smokers seem to fail more often.

They're sending me a new motor assembly. It doesn't look like it'll be too difficult to install, although there are so many wires and connections in the box that I am always afraid I'll accidentally loosen a connection without noticing it and suffer some future problem as a result.

My newest cookbook, "Charcuterie" (EXCELLENT book, BTW), recommends the Bradley and only the Bradley as a non-home-grown smoker for cold smoking. But even it says, "While we had some wear-and-tear issues with the smoker the company gave us..."

So, bottom line, I still think that Bradley could make their smoke generator design more robust, but at least when there is a problem they are fast, responsive, knowledgeable, and accommodating. I can't think of many companies these days that I could say that about.

[Mr Walleye]

Curtis

Glad to hear things are maybe moving in the right direction. Keep us posted how you make out with it.

Mike

[Habanero Smoker]

Curtis;

To save yourself some possible grief; if you have a digital camera take a picture of the wiring prior to disconnecting anything. I've learned trying to rely on my memory is a bad mistake.

[Mr Walleye]

That's an excellent suggestion Habs! I use this all the time on things.

Mike

[Habanero Smoker]

That's an excellent suggestion Habs! I use this all the time on things.

Mike

No thanks necessary. I picked that tip up off this forum, I believe it may have been from you.