Aftermarket wood discs for Bradley Original?

Stargazer · July 19, 2008, 09:50:24 AM

Quote from: KyNola on July 14, 2008, 07:50:38 PM
Ted,
First of all, welcome to the forum and thank you for posting your concern here. I thought long and hard before I responded as I had several different thought paths I went down. I finally settled on the fact that once you start turning out the quality of food that the Bradley is capable of turning out, the cost of the pucks will be more than worth it. Cost is relative. I just smoked 19 pounds of bacon this weekend. The cost of the 23 pounds gross weight of pork belly was $46.00. The cost of the cure was minimal. I used 9 pucks of apple wood. Go to your local grocery and price 19 pounds of bacon. I know I'm money ahead AND the quality is so much better than store bought. How do I know? When I mentioned I was doing bacon, 5 different friends asked if they could buy bacon from me because they had tasted my first batch. I don't smoke foods to sell but it told me I was doing something right.

I know the economy is tough right now but believe me, you will find the cost of the pucks well worth it. If not, hang around on the forum anyhow. Lots of good folks here.

KyNola

I have to agree with KyNola. Ironically we are both Kentuckians and both did up bacon. I did mine this weekend and one pound shy of KyNola.

Everything Ky said has hit the nail on the head. However I wish to add this. Saddly, I am not a proud bradley owner yet but with some saving and work I hope to be in a few months.

The bacon I did last night in my bullet smoker, using wood chips came out real good, however I honestly was thinking how much easier it would be using a bradley instead of constantly lifting the main body of the bullet smoker up to add more smoke. That is one way I can see the pucks paying for themselves real easily. The second being, I quickly went through a bag of hickory chips.

From all I read not just here but other sites is that the Bradley wood pucks burn much more evenly where as the wood chunks and chips just burn pretty quickly unless you have them soaked good first. Which leaves a really nice mess after.

If that is the case, I would find it actually much cheaper to run the Bradley pucks over loose wood any day.

Like I said, Im not yet a Bradley owner, but thats just my 2 cents in is all.

KyNola · July 19, 2008, 02:00:09 PM

Stargazer is dead on the money with the smoke time on the Bradley vs. the others. The smoke generated by the Bradley is pure smoke. Great example, regular pit pork butt, most guys where I'm from roll the smoke for pretty much 24 hours. With the Bradley, 4 hours of smoke, then roast to desired temp.

I think we all have agreed, the Bradley is an amazing smoker.

KyNola

westexasmoker · July 19, 2008, 02:19:39 PM

You guys both nailed it, BS pure smoke and then roast/cook till done. You can pull it off with your offset also the biggest thing with that is time, and one thing that people do wrong is keep throwing wood into the box. When using your offset same rules apply smoke 4-6 hours then you want to burn your wood down in another box and shovel the coals into your wood box not smoking just to keep the temp up. Again same principal that is applied to the BS. I wouldn't trade my BS for anything, but by that same token I'm not letting go of my offset either! Oh yeah and the biggest key here is use mesquite!

C

Stargazer · July 19, 2008, 02:41:24 PM

My biggest problem with my bullet smoker was the wood chips kept burning up way to fast. I ended up going through a whole medium bag.

I kept thinking to myself over and over last night that if it was a Bradley, I could just add a few more pucks on the side and be done with it.

Sure would beat lifting the main body of a bullet smoker with a full water pan being on a cane, not to mention loss of alot of heat too.

Keeping all that in mind, the pucks, you couldnt put a price tag on. However, adding up how much a puck smokes, which I belive is around 20 minutes per puck, and the cost per puck greatly outweight buying wood chunks/chips by a large margin. Also keeping in mind the conveniance and ease the puck method of the Bradley smokers offer.

Dont get me wrong, I like my bullet smoker only because it allows me to smoke for the time being. But I know now that I want to constantly smoke foods and get creative with smoking meats, and researching constantly on line, Bradley out shines them all.

Honestly, at first being introduced to Bradley from amazon com doing a search for smokers, I also thought the pucks would cause a disadvantage. But thinking of it, the pucks actually make much more sense, and over all lowers man power 'adding more wood by hand' and puck:wood chip ratio, realistically the pucks are cheaper.

I know I will be intrested in making my own pucks shortly after I get my Bradley, not for cost efficantcy but for fun. I can get Kentucky bourbon barrles pretty cheap depending on the season. Chop them up and make some Jim Beam or Wild Turkey pucks :)

Added: Just to note, if anyone who is still skeptical about the pucks, check out any decent sausage supply catalouge and see their smokers. Usually with a starting price tag of $999.99 for a most basic small 2 rack size. Most of them are also on an auto feed as well. The thing is, Bradley made a beautiful well made auto feed that is very affordable for the common house hold. The bigger ones like FatBoyz ProSmoker and Treager are auto feed as well, but the price tag is so high on them, they pretty much only stick to selling to big commercial out fits.

This is just one more huge plus in my book for Bradley, keping the regular dudes at home in mind designing a smoker.

KyNola · July 19, 2008, 03:21:33 PM

Stargazer,
I have owned pretty much every type of smoker you can own, from the Brinkman bullet to an Oklahoma Joe's offset that was so heavy the folks at Sam's had to put it in my truck with a forklift. I can absolutely with all honesty state that the Bradley is the absolute best smoker I have ever had the pleasure to own. It is so simple and so perfect every single time that I will never have anything but a Bradley. Save as fast as you can and choose your Bradley. You will never look back.

KyNola

Oldman · July 19, 2008, 03:56:50 PM

QuoteWe are looking after their dogs when they are away so if they want their dogs back !!??

You Arse....now that is funny!

SNAGGS · July 31, 2008, 07:46:26 AM

Greetings to the smooooooookers of the world. New to site but smooooooookin for years. Question for you PRO'S. Wood chips vs. sawdust.........Electric using sawdust?........Electric using pucks without a feeder?......Electric using combo of sawdust and pellets?.......Electric using soaked chips?soaked sawdust? soaked pellets? I crapped out my propane smoker. Bought a standard 4 shelf electric. Now recipies suggest a 90 deg. heat for fish for anywhere from 1-3 hours and a smoke at 150 deg for prox 2-4 hours. Now hear this!!!! How can you get smoke at 90 deg?. How can you get smoke with an electric smoker single element 1500 watt at 150 deg spacing the racks equally without the smoker burning the bottom racks and leaving the top racks raw? Who has a good answere of what to use in a standard electric smoker with a chip tray and water tray 1500 watt single wrap around heating element? My problem? either too cold for smoke---too hot for proper length of required smoking---no smoke from chips---sawdust burns too fast---. Oh! I manage to get my smoooookin done but it's a pain to get it all right with little effort. Thanks

Mr Walleye · July 31, 2008, 08:28:48 AM

Hi Snaggs and welcome to the forum.

I don't know what type of smoker you have but here is a link to my setup which may give you some ideas to modify your setup to cold smoke a little easier.

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=6075.0

Mike

westexasmoker · July 31, 2008, 11:14:15 AM

Welcome to the forum SNAGGS!

No cold smoking for me until winter time down here, my box turned off is at 95 right now and we've yet to hit our high temp for the day! Mike has a killer setup for cold smoking, and others like myself, just the basic cardboard box setup. Rotating your racks will keep things smoking/cooking a bit more even!

C

yul · August 03, 2008, 04:25:03 PM

Welcome Ted, Give the Bradley a few more tries and by then I am sure you will love the flavour it gives to the food. The Amazon deal is the way to go. Up here north of the border we never seem to get the pucks on sale, so on a recent visit to relatives in Detroit I stocked up with enough pucks from Amazon to keep me going untill next year.
I had tried all the other methods of smoking too, (sawdust, pellets etc.) with very mixed results. The Bradley is consistant time after time due mainly to the use of pucks and as mentioned in the other posts it is "clean" smoke so you get no bitter taste.
You can mess up an awful lot of expensive meat with the other methods, with Bradley you increase your odds for sucess many times over. :)

Habanero Smoker · August 04, 2008, 03:59:13 AM

SNAGGS;

Welcome to the forum. One of the better features of the Bradley is that you can detach the smoke generator and use the cold setup method of smoking. Using this type of setup, a hot plate and a pan you can use chips, pellets, sawdust etc. I have used this type of setup when I want to use a wood flavor that Bradley does not provide, such as peach.