Heating Element Upgrade Options??? Original isn't cutting it....

[bromo999]

I've had my Bradley for over a year now  (I used a cheapo Brinkman charcoal water smoker for 8 years before getting the Bradley).  I have used the Bradley maybe 8-9 times.  ALWAYS struggle with getting the temperature over 200.. usually takes 2-3 hours just to get near 200.  I have read through the many posts on this topic and, I'm sorry to say it.. but the supplied element is deficient. I've read all the comments about the benefit of low and slow... fine.. but I should have control of that.  It has gotten to the point where I don't even attempt using my Bradley of the outside temperature is under 75-80... even with the pain that the ..I would frankly rather deal the pain of tending the charcoal again than this agonizing over goosing this thing to get it to a decent temperature.   

I don't mean to be a jerk but I have read many well-intentioned posts recommending "tricks" to get the temperature up.... I'm sorry, but the only "trick" I should need to know when spending this much money on an appliance is "move the "temperature lever a little further to the right".   

Does anyone know of an after-market upgrade or alternate element that can be used to replace the original?  If not, I'm afraid I'm going to find another smoker.

Bob

[Mr Walleye]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations Bob.

There are a few members that have added additional heat in various ways. I did modify mine by adding another original heating element. Very simple really. Here is the post I did on it.

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=8987.0

Mike

PS
I'll just add that I think you would be best to run the modified Bradley with a PID to control it because it is capable of gaining heat rapidly.

[pensrock]

There are similar type heating elements at Grainger.com They have a 900 watt which is about the same size as the Bradley 500 watt heating strip. That will almost double your heating. You will need to modify the mounting a little and I think both wires are on the same end but it will work. There may be other things to consider as I have not done this yet myself, but have been looking at doing so. Others on here have made modifications to their units as well as built their own boxes. Hopefully one of them will see this and offer more advice.

[macattak]

Did you ever speak with Bradley customer service about your issues?  I've never had a problem getting my smoker up to 200.  It doesn't get much over 225, but then you really didn't buy it for that.  I smoke when it's in the teens and haven't had an issue.  It sounds like there might be a problem with your element or something.  Waiting over a year to vent isn't conducive to getting warranty work, but you never know.  Why don't you fire it up, take some pics and post them here and we'll see if you can help you out.

[Roadking]

Have to agree with macattak a Bradley is a smoker not a cooker. I also have a Cookshack which is a smoke cooker, I can smoke cook 8 whole chickens in 2 hours no heat problems.

[Bradley (Head Office)]

Hi Bob

Your smoker should have no problems getting up to and above 200 degrees
I am going to need some more information about your smoker in order to figure out what is wrong

Give me a call at the office 1-800-665-4188
and i will try to help you


Brian

[Stargazer]

I have to agree with both macattak and Roadking as well.

Before I got my Bradley I had a bullet smoker. It did the job but it was a constant battle trying to keep the temp well below heat that was equivalent to the nuclear testing grounds of Los Alamos. This was keeping the bullet setting on lowest possible at that. I'm surprised I was able to even smoke, was more like a grill then anything.

Smoking is supposed to be nice long times which the Bradley has done for me every time. I do have to keep the chamber cranked up almost completely high or close to it, but it's the perfect setting for what I been doing with it. Mainly thicker meats and such.

Only time I noticed it not reaching past 115Deg was recently, but Im sure that was may fault for not having the power cord plugged in all the way. When done and rechecking all, I did another test run on it and heated up real fast.

But give Bradley a call. They have the best and kindest help desk compared to any company out there.

[bromo999]

Thanks folks. I appreciate all the responses, I will be calling Bradley on Monday.  The most encouraging is to here folks can actually use this with temps in the teens. I am aware that a smoker is not a cooker and as far as waiting 8 months to vent .. If I have waited out of warranty, then yes, shame on me, but I don't think I said anything about expecting warranty coverage. Looking at many of the threads on this topic here it's not hard to get the impression that this is normal so that might discourage folks from contacting Bradley, which in hindsight probably should have been my first call.
And I do appreciate the info about element sources, thanks for that!   





     

[macattak]

I just wondered - are you preheating to get to 200, or are you putting a cold load in the smoker from the get go?  Do you use hot water in the pan or straight from the tap? 

One thing I've done is put some veneer brick in the bottom of the unit to act as an additional heat sink to help the recovery time from putting the load in, checking the meat, adding water, etc.  It doesn't help it heat up, but it helps keep it at the desired temp.

[Father Tom]

Well I will put my two cents in here on this subject.
I have an OBS and it has treated me well except when i overload it.
Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it.  I had the vent opened.  Heated it up to 220 +-.  In went the ribs which were at room temperature.  Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours.  Did not open the door.  Could not get temperature up any higher.  Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.
I had checked the plug in's.  Only thing i found was the plastic at the slide was cracked.  Had 1" wood under front behind legs as had been suggested.   

Any Suggestions.....................

Tom

[Habanero Smoker]

Well I will put my two cents in here on this subject.
I have an OBS and it has treated me well except when i overload it.
Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it.  I had the vent opened.  Heated it up to 220 +-.  In went the ribs which were at room temperature.  Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours.  Did not open the door.  Could not get temperature up any higher.  Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.
I had checked the plug in's.  Only thing i found was the plastic at the slide was cracked.  Had 1" wood under front behind legs as had been suggested.   

Any Suggestions.....................

Tom

Did the wood raise the front feet (legs) off the surface? If there was no weight on the front feet, then there must be another problem. But since I raised my front feet off the surface I haven't had any further problems with the face plate cracking.

[Mr Walleye]

Just to add to what Habs said... You need to make sure your wood blocks are "not" sitting on the plastic for the faceplate on the bottom of the tower.

Mike

[Caneyscud]

Sunday I put eight racks of Baby Backs in it.  I had the vent opened.  Heated it up to 220 +-.  In went the ribs which were at room temperature.  Temperature dropped to 150 and stayed there for 6 hours.  Did not open the door.  Could not get temperature up any higher.  Installing a larger heating element appears the way to go.

Let me say, that I'm going with the heating element mod eventually myself, but for a different reason, so I'm not trying to stop you from installing the mod.  However, not sure, but it sounds like you hit the plateau.  I've hit it anywhere between 145 to 165.  The plateau is a good thing!  It's your friend and you should hope it stays around as long as it can.  While it is with you, great things are happening to your meat.  When you first put meat in your smoker, it gradually, but steadily increases in temperature.  The rate it increases is driven by the temperature differential between your cabinet temperature (CT) and the internal temperature (IT) of the meat.  The greater the differential the faster the energy flows into the piece of meat.  The closer the IT gets to the CT the slower the energy (heat) transfer.  But something else happens at about 140 deg.  At that point the collagen (the tough stuff) starts to breakdown and the fat starts to melt (render).  That is a good thing - a really good thing!  But it doesn't magically do that good stuff instantly when the IT reaches 140 - it takes a while and depends on amount of collage, amount of fat, and how much moisture is within the meat.  Ideally, for pull apart meat, you want most of the collagen broken down.  So the longer the plateau, the more collagen is broken down, the tenderer your meat.  But you don't want all of the fat to melt until you reached your planned "done" temperature - keeps the meat moist.  Why the plateau?  The plateauing is caused by a phase change; the collagen and fat in the meat are changing phase from a solid to a liquid. You must supply heat to accomplish this phase change. While the fat and collagen are absorbing the energy (heat) from the smoker to melt, none is available to raise the temperature of the meat.  It is similar to ice melting. When ice and water are in a glass, the water will remain at 32F (0C) until all the ice is melted, then the temperature will increase. The heat goes into melting the ice, not raising the temperature of the water.  You can decrease the amount of time of the plateau by increasing the CT, but you run the risk of adding enough heat that the fat and collagen cannot use any more and it throws off the extra to the meat.  The meat then gets done (gets to your target temperature) before all the collagen is changed and you have tough meat.  The mod will be useful by providing a greater pool of energy (heat) to transfer to the meat.  I suspect that with big loads, the rate of heat transfer that the meat could stand is greater than what the Bradley heating element can supply.   So cooking times could be less even at the same temperature setting so that the plateau does it's work as it should.  And the pre-heat and the heat recovery after opening the door would be faster.  And, by golly, it is just kewl to have a turbocharged Bradley!  I am not a physicist - so some of the terms may or may not be correct!  I can put spareribs on a big wood puffing smoker, and they are going to take 4 to 6 hours also, because to do them properly, I'm going to keep the temperature down around 225.  I can just do more because of grill space, and because of a greater pool of heat to pull from.  200 degrees is 200 degrees!

Shakespeare
The Bard of Hot Aire
Pontificator Extraordinaire'

[Father Tom]

 ::) Caneyscud: 

That was one hell of a answer.  The more i read the more i have to agree with you.  After 6 hours the IT where checked was about 140 degrees.  The only problem I had was that the meat did not have the appearance of being done.  With 30 hungry adults who were consuming large quantity of
Adult beverages l thought the  best thing to save my back side  was to put them on the grill with a tomato base mop to darken the surface.  It worked.

Your thoughts and comments on the subject leads one to believe you are an expert in the transfer of heat and the breakdown of the fat molecules within the cooking process of the Bradley.  I shall follow your advise.

I will get a PID and work on longer cooking at lower temperatures then up the temperature for the last period to time to brown (Darken) the surface for appearance.

Thank you:

Tom

[aleck]

I am in the same situation.  Got the original smoker around Christmas and out of half a dozen uses, got the temperature above 200 once.  I tried with both closed and open vent.  Initially I blamed it on the outside temp, it's been in the 30es.  But today it was 60 degrees all day, no wind and after 6 hours on full power, the temp barely went over 170.   It was a large load (two pork shoulders, 6 lb brisket and two racks of ribs), but still, I was hoping that after an hour or so the temp would be close to 200.