Cheap Bradley 4 Rack Digital Smoker

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List Price: $549.00
Sale Price: $359.00
Today's Bonus: 35% Off

It looks like a very small refrigerator.

Every piece of sheet metal is sanded on the edges, no cuts from sharp edges.

Easy to put together, no more difficult than putting together a refrigerator.

Quiet as a refrigerator too.

Read the instructions and season it first as directed.

You will need extra wood pellets. It does not come with any in the box, so order some extras. Each pellet lasts about 20 minutes.Bradley Apple Bisquettes 48 pack

NOTE: you have to put at least 4 pellets in the stacker to get it to burn 1 pellet. Just the way it works. I put in two pellets and nothing smoked. It needs 4 pellets to push the pellets along the tray to the burner. Not a problem, just try to remember that 3 of the pellets won't burn.

So, if you want to cook for 4 hours you need: 3 pellets per hours x 4 hours = 12 pellets + 3 pellets to get them to burn plate = 15 pellets.

I tested a Butterball Turkey Breast first. I followed the Bradley instructions in their cookbook Bradley Recipe Book Volume 1 for the turkey cooking temperatures. I used their glaze recipe under the skin. I also used a wireless remote meat thermometer Oregon Scientific AW131 Grill Right Wireless Talking BBQ/Oven Thermometer feed the probe wire through the roof vent of the smoker. I used the apple pellets from Bradley Apple Bisquettes 120 pack

I sat back and waited. A few hour later the Oregon Scientific AW131 Grill Right Wireless Talking BBQ/Oven Thermometer began to chirp "almost done" "Almost done". The wireless thermometer is great because I was smoking the week of Thanksgiving and it was in the 30's outside so not having walk out to the smoker to check the meat was ideal. (My wife was concerned about the smoker being able to maintain cooking temperature in the cold outside. This smoker was stable, the temperature stayed steady. the outside of the unit did not get hot to the touch, except around the smoke vent which is to be expected.)

I used a Taylor Analog Instant-Read Dial Thermometer to verify the temperature of the meat when the wireless told me it was done. Both thermometers were within a degree of each other.

I took the turkey breast out of the smoker and let it rest for about an hour. The color was extremely golden skin. Not black or Smokey but as if was dipped in golden lacquer. A gorgeous turkey breast. No burnt places, not excess smoke, perfect. When I carved the Turkey breast it was as moist as a wet sponge. Unbelievably tasty, nothing like store bought smoked turkey. The taste of the turkey was like that of caviar compared to fish sticks, it was rich, smooth and wonderful.

This smoking robot works. Just add a Oregon Scientific AW131 Grill Right Wireless Talking BBQ/Oven Thermometer to you don't have to walk outside and let it do its job.

Also, we ran the smoker on our back porch, about 10 feet from the house. It only exhausts a small amount of smoke while working. It did not look like a fire at the, just a little smoke, less than the steam from a tea kettle. If you cheat and peak while it is cooking you will get your clothes smoked and have to change for dinner, but the smoke from the smoker did not get into the house otherwise.

Easy to setup, easy to control and easy to cook with. Oh, the trays are 11x15 so you could put a 12-14 pound turkey in it. Next is a Roast, Ribs and some Cheeses. The Bradley Recipe Book Volume 1 also includes recipes for cheese, fruit, and more. Just follow the instructions and be patient. It can do both hot and cold smoking.

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This is a very slick little unit with a digital temperature control and automatic smoke generator, using a wood chip biscuit feeder. Technically it should be hands off. More on that later.

It is made in the Orient and resembles one of those small inexpensive refrigerators complete with plastic trim. The interior is lined with very thin gauge Stainless Steel, and has 4 thin gauge racks. It is fairly light weight especially without the smoke generator attached. Assembly was fairly straight forward and is easy to move around.

The smoke generator uses lightly packed disks consisting of small wood chips. These are distributed by Bradley in various wood types. The smoke generator heats them individually on a small plate until they smoke. After 20 minutes another is indexed into place, pushing the used up bisquette as a blackened disk into a water tray, just short of rendering it to ashes. A tubular magazine holds enough bisquettes to last for many many hours.

The main issue I have with it is it's very poor temperature control. The key to smoking meat is to keep the temperature low and slow. This unit struggles with that, deviating considerably from the set temperature, specifically going higher. There is a 500W heating element in the smoke tower that comes on once the thermostat drops 10 degrees below the set temperature. The actual temperature in the smoke tower rises rapidly once the heater comes on but the thermostat lags way behind, allowing the actual temperature to rise well above what is desired. The temperature could be some 40 degrees or more above the thermostat reads. This is an especially serious problem if you are using a sugar based rub, because it will start to burn above 240 to 250F. Not to mention the fact that the meat will cook too rapidly.

Also being that the smoke tower has so little mass there isn't much to hold the heat, so opening the door to check on the status or baste causes the temperature to drop rapidly.

The other issue I have is that after 3 hours of smoking, I was surprised to see that the meat showed little evidence of smoking. The taste was there somewhat but seemed weak.

In my final analysis I would say you get what you pay for. Conceptually it has a lot to offer, and it's design seems very well thought out, but in practice falls short. With just a little more effort in the way of a better thermostat it would be immensely better. Also I'm not convinced it needs a 500W heater, it's possible a 250W unit could keep up and improve heat versus thermostat control.

Update: It's Superbowl Sunday 2012 and I'm using my Smoker for some Chicken Thighs. It's only the 4th time I've used it in just short of a year from when initially purchased it. It heated up initially but then packed it in after about 30 minutes. The heating element has failed. I now get to check out their customer service.

Update: Customer service is so far excellent.

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I've owned the OBS for about a momth now and have smoked all kinds of meat. It's so simple and easy that I know I will be using it far more frequently than a standard smoker just because it's easy. I'm able to run it on my deck without worry of torching the house since it cooks with electric element.

One of the cons of this product as I was researching it is that you have to buy Bradley's wood chips (biscuits) to use in the feeder mechanism and the cost associated with that. I don't see that as a problem at all since you'd be spending money for charcoal and or standard wood chips anyway. True that running this unit would be a bit more expensive than another electric smoker. But, it's well worth the additional operating cost to be able to run an overnight smoke without having to get up in the middle of the night several times to add wood for smoke or stoke a fire.

One last thing....if you're comparing the Original Bradley to the Digital Bradley; buy the Original and purchase the Auber digital PID with it instead of buying the Digital Bradley. The Auber digital component is a plug and play digital temp control unit that is much more accurate than what is provided with the Digital Bradley. I find on the Bradley forum that many who bought the Digital Bradley end up purchasing the Auber PID to override the standard Bradley digital component anyway.

Honest reviews on Bradley 4 Rack Digital Smoker

Note, comments relate to the 6-rack digital but I believe are largely applicable to all the Bradley Smokers

I was really excited to get this product and spent over a year trying to get it to work. After a year and a bunch of research I came to the conclusion that the product is crap. You are welcome to do your own research but I think what you will find is that this product is very easy to use. However, the ease of use comes at the cost of a smoker that does an unsatisfactory job of actually smoking. As you know the key to good smoking is maintaing conistant heat and the Bradley is simply not designed to do this.

My list of issues are as follows:

1) The six rack smoker has the same heating element as the four rack smoker. So while it is significanlty larger it has no more power than the smaller model. I believe its heating element is only like 500 watts and I believe my wifes hair dryer has more power than that.

2) The heating element in the smoker is way underpowered for the six rack unit (and I suspect the four rack one as well). It takes over an hour to heat up to 200 degrees and then drops way down when you open it up to put the food in and takes well in excess of another hour to get back up to tempeture. It was so under powered that I would just leave the unit set at its highest setting, like 300 degrees, and I do not think I ever got the unit up past 250 degrees. Since it was so underpowered it took very long cook so that towards the end of my use with it, after the smoke had set, I would take the food out and put it on the gas barbque at 250 degrees to finish off.

3) Owing to the design every time you have to open the unit to check on the food you loss all of the heat (i.e. there is no effective heat sink) which then takes for ever heat up. Think about it, to service the unit you have to open the door competely allows all the heat to escape.

4) the design of the heating element creates hot spots along the back of unit and it is significanly hotter at the bottom than it is at the top. Bradley themselves recommend rotating the racks front to back and top to bottom to get an even cooking. This means you need to open the door which allows all the heat to escape.

5) the digital thermostat is located just above the heating element so it reads high. The spread between the tempeture reading on the digital unit and one taken manually from the top of the unit is like 30 degrees.

6) the digital thermostat has like a 20 degree varience between starting and stoping when it is at tempature. Do research, I read that people recommend buying the orginal and an after market digital thermostat which is far superiour and overall cheaper than buying the digital Bradley.

7) An electric smoker will not give you a smoke ring. The smoke ring comes from a chemical reaction related to the carbon burning off from charcol or wood. The smoke ring is a sign of good smoked food.

My reasoning for giving it 2 stars is because the smoke generator works wonderfully well.

The cons in my humble opinion so far out weight the pro's that a cheap guy like me gave the Bradley away. Spending almost $500 on a smoker to dump it becasue it does not do a good job hurts, expecially when all of the issues that I listed above are well documented on the net and I failed to do the detailed research before hand.

Rather than trying to modify the Bradley to try to get it to work I decided to buy a Weber Smokey Mountain. While WSM is lacking the electronics it is wonderful to use. It maintins the heat like an oven, I actually cannot believe how fast it heats up and how long it will maintain a constant tempeture without any adjustment. There is lots of support for the WSM on the internet and I really do not see it being any harder to use. Personally, I also like the idea of cooking with charcoal, it just adds to the mistique of smoking food and impresses the neighbors.

This product in my mind is just a gimmick which produces an unsatisfactory product. Please, do yourselves a favour and read the Bradley sites on the net and you will see all of the issue I mention above are documented and the modifications people are doing to deal with heat and tempeture issues. Knowledge is power.

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I've actually had this for nearly two years. My wife initially scoffed at my purchase, suggesting it would only be used a couple of times before it was forgotten. However, she's since come around and we use it frequently -she actually uses it more than I do. We've probably put about 150 pounds of salmon and easily 600-800 pounds of brisket through it. In addition to ribs, turkey legs, sausage, potatoes and even eggplant.

My one complaint is that the fuse holder broke about a month ago (20 months after I bought it). I repaired it with a $1.99 fuse holder from Radio Shack and about 15 minutes of labor -by no means is this a deal-breaker, but at the price they could have sprung for a more durable component.

All-in-all the ease of use of this la-z-que is unbeatable. I can put a brisket in before I go to bed, load the feeder tube with pucks, set the temp and know it'll be perfect when I wake up.