When does yours arrive Mr. Bone?

I have no idea. The wife was the one who actually bought it. I just sent her the link. I would assume before christmas. I'm going to talk to her tonight about breaking it out before Christmas so that I can cook Christmas dinner with it.

It would be awesome if she got free 2 day shipping. Highly unlikely though.

Oh well that's cool. Mine arrives Wednesday. Did I mention that already? Oh yea, and I bought it myself! Amazon Prime shipping is the best.

You going right to work with it?

Well season it Wednesday night and cook with it Saturday. Pork butt and baby back ribs.

Daaaamn. Good luck. Take some pics.

Smoker pics posted here.

Nudes sent to you PM.

:thumb:

Anxiously awaiting both.

:thumb:

Virtually everything I know about preparing Q I learned from this place. If you've smoked before you probably know a lot of it, but there is still some good info about electric (cheater) smokers.

Here's the thread I started. Tons of good info.
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=178969

Listing of good books to get about Q
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=220084

Thread about smoking turkeys
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=220109

This place rules.

You usually have to let it run a few hours to burn the chinese worker funk out.

I'd start with a chicken. That way you get the best feel for the heat and how it works. It's cheap and hard to **** up.

Solid points all around.

Season...........Smoke something cheap like chicken thighs.....Move on to ribs or more expensive meats.

I don't think you will find anyone who says differently. I'd been smoking with cheater smokers for 5 years but when I got the new one, did the same steps again. You need to know your smoker a little before you waste a $100 worth of meat.

How do you season the smoker? Just by doing some cheap chicken the first run?

Run it without meat. Just the heat and smoke.

Yea, I'm going 9 pucks deep on high temp my first night to season it. I think that would be enough, right? 3 hours.

here's a good step by step

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/h...lectric-smoker

Smoker arrived just now! Hellz yea!

I read online that many buy those throw away aluminum cake pans measuring 13"x9"x2" in order to not have to refill the drip bowl as much during a smoke as the one provided is pretty small.

That's a GREAT idea!

I'm washing the racks and drip pan/bowl. Will coat inside in PAM tomorrow and smoke for 2-3 hours. I should be ready to roll for Saturday after that.

She looks beautiful on my back porch.

Seasoning dis bitch right now. Got her up and rolling to 250 in about 40 minutes. She looks beautiful.

**** yes. Have fun, Lew! Dec 11-17 is estimated arrival time for mine.

The bradley smoker forums are a great resource if you need advice before a smoke.

Just an fyi, you can usually find those at the dollar store for way cheaper than a grocery store. Quality isn't as good, but it's a disposable pan...

I buy the throw away pans. One less thing to clean. Thats the point of having a cheater smoker. Less work for smoked meat.

or just wrap the pan in aluminum foil...

The problem is the bowl is still small, for longer smokes you have to dump the pucks halfway because they fill up the bowl too much. With the throw away pan I don't have to worry about that.

ah, wierd. So they don't just become ash?

They would if they weren't pushed off and the outside sort of does, apparently after 20 mins the smoke they give off is not good for taste so they are pushed into the water bowl and extinguished.

This is true.

The smoke is also nasty if there's no water to extinguish the pucks.

I have a Bradley, but the smoking element went out. It still cooks the meat, but it's basically an oven now. Sucks because I think it was $600-$700. It's probably only a $50 repair or so, but I don't want to **** with it, and I just bought the exact same smoker as Lew.

Anybody need a smoker that is willing to replace/repair the smoking element? I've also got about $50 worth of the biscuits. (That's the only shitty thing about the Bradleys...you have to buy their wood, and it's ridiculously overpriced.)

How long did you have it before the smoking element went out?

Less than 6 months. I'm sure it would be under warranty, but I threw all that shit away.

It probably just got knocked loose when I was moving it or something, but I don't know shit about that kind of crap...and I'm REALLY lazy. I was going to fix it (would have been on my to-do list for years before I ever got around to it), but I saw them on sale at Academy and said **** it and bought a new one.

Bradley probably would still cover it from what I've read. Both they and MB seem good at covering things out of warranty.

Yeah, anybody who gets that smoker from you is likely to get that fixed for free. A lot of the reviews I read about Bradley mentioned that their customer service was outstanding.

Maybe I'll call them and see. I can throw it on Craigslist or something if it gets repaired.

They will most likely ship whatever part to you along with instructions on how to fix it. I had an issue with the feeder on mine, it was very easy to take apart and fix with basic tools.

Ok CP pros. Tell me what to do to my pork butt for some awesome pulled pork. Anything I need to do overnight? I've done it a few times before but can't really remember what I did. And nothing stands out, which probably isn't a good sign for doing things right.

For the ribs I am doing what Glorydayz suggested in a thread a few years ago. I love the way the ribs come out and they get great reviews!

Trim the fat cap off. Don't buy into the nonsense about fat basting the meat. Leaving that fat on is losing a bunch of bark, and bark is goodness.

225 degrees to internal temp of 190. Wrap in foil after you remove it and rest it for an hour. Look up faux cambre.

Yes I do all of that. I more meant if I need to do anything to it over-night or any recommendations for basting/rub secretes?

I use a variation on the Britu dry rub, apply it the night before and wrap in plastic. I don't baste because it's unnecessary and prolongs cook time.

If you make your own rub, write it down. Then you can record changes to see what works or doesn't in future variations.

I usually baste but I would love not having too! What's the best way to get more bark?

I normally use a dry rub only. I let it sit for at least 24 hours rubbed in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap. I've played around with more or less time, I can't taste much difference between 24 and 48 hours but can between 12 and 24. Sometimes I will inject with a mixture of apple juice, apple cider vinegar and the dry rub. I've seen people slather with mustard before applying the dry rub but never tried it myself.

In the bradley I normally apply smoke for 4-6 hours. After 6 I've found they don't take much more smoke flavor.

I like to alternate hickory and cherry or apple. I use these to make quick work of pulling http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Paw-Produ.../dp/B003IWI66W.

I really wanted to buy the bear claw deals, but I have a couple heavy duty forks that I can hammer it out with and can't justify spending the cash.

I haven't ever had good bark coming off my electric. But I have found that you can foil it after the first couple hours. In the links I posted earlier, someone said that the meat doesn't take much smoke after 2 hours, so if you're going to do it overnight, you can foil it before you go to bed and it can help keep it from overdrying it.

I don't know how the Bradley works, but the Masterbuilts have a tray over the heating element that you can side-dump chips into. So the chips are getting hot if the element is warming up the smoker. I've found that if I want to hammer the smoke, I don't want to preheat the smoker, then dump cold chips in there when I put the meat in. I usually put the meat in cold and then there is a lot of smoke off the bat because the element is running trying to get the unit to temperature. On mine you can mess with how much you preheat to adjust smoke flavor.

The mustard rub is very good at helping rub adhere and helping to form a crust. A highly recommend it. And no, you can't taste the mustard.

Wouldn't foiling it prevent the bark? I've never had a problem with one drying out or not having a good bark. I normally cook mine at 225 till an IT ~190. I make sure my vent is wide open doing pork butt.

Yeah, it does, but even without foiling, I don't get a good bark.

I've only foiled it a couple times, when I was worried about there being enough fat cap.

I mustard and dry rub mine. Foil it after a few hours to carry it through the stall.

Yeah, good bark and smoke rings are almost impossible to get with electric, but to me the convenience makes up for it.

Forgot to post this last week when I used this for the first time.

I had pork butt going about 6 hours on top rack around 225 with first 3.5 hours smoke. After 6 hours running, added 3 racks of ribs, cut in half to fit in smoker, on the rest of the three racks and smoked another 3 hours. Trouble is, the smoker dipped to 150-175 degrees for 2 hours even though I had it turned up to max heat. Even after 2 hours on max heat it was only sitting at 200 and struggled to get above that. It set things back really late and they ribs didn't come out done enough.

Maybe I put too much food in? The temperature outside was 60 degrees so don't think it was the weather.

It sucked. :(

Seems like a lot of meat at one time. How many times you open the door?

it's going to be a while before you get your smoking rhythm. Trial and error.

Opened it to start it. Checked it twice in those 6 hours. Got it back up to temp and had the door open a bit to stick the 3 rib trays in, don't really have a choice there. Maybe it was just too much cold ribs at once and it never recovered, even on max temp? Pork baby backs shouldn't take 6 hours to cook and still not be done!

Water pan? Were you adding water? I skip the water pan, but if you are adding water, add boiling water.

Might have been too much meat, but still seems odd that you didn't get back to temp. Six hours isnt too crazy for ribs. 3-2-1 takes 6 hours not accounting for starting in a below temp smoker.

Water pan had been in already with the pork butt but I think I did empty it and refilled with cold water prior to ribs going in. They say smoker needs water pan to extinguish the pucks before they start burning or smoldering.

Too much cold stuff at once, I suspect. Too much for it to recover from.

So should I have done the ribs in increments? Which sucks because I wanted it done at some time. Or have taken the pork butt out and put in oven to finish? Although that was hot so should have added to temp by then?

I'm no expert on the electric smokers. I think you might have had better luck starting it all at the same time, then holding the ribs in foil, wrapped in towels, and stored in a cooler. But really that's a guess.

I'm thinking the cold water refill (always do boiling water) and the cold meat just brought your internal temp down too far for it to recover.

the cold water refill was probably it/

I've done exactly what you are trying to do without problems in cold ass weather. It lets all the heat out when you open the door to check, but it should have enough wheaties to get the temp back up.

Does it have a vent in the top? If so, maybe you need to shut it to keep some heat in.

I'm and idiot.

Yea I kept the vent open for when it was smoking and never closed it, but probably should have closed it more once I wasn't smoking and just cooking it.

Good idea.

Had that smoker rolling all night with just a pork butt in it. Got it to sit at around 215 in only 30 minutes and threw the meat in around 10pm. Nearing 8 am now and butt is sitting at around 195 degrees, looking great, with smoker cooking at 235.

Gonna pull shortly and Faux Cambro it in a cooler until kickoff for my guests.

:thumb:

Here's my setup. LOL

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/g...g_5/smoker.jpg

I don't open my vent for the first 2-3 hours of a long cook, Thats the best time to get the smoke into the meat. Settles my temp to a consistent temp. I never open my vent all the way. I always have a plan anytime I open the smoker to minimize time.

They always say smoke requires oxygen though so don't close your vents fully when smoking?

Just what I do. No issues with keeping the smoke going. You need oxygen for fire, not smoke. The vent doesn't seal exactly. There is a little O2 getting in. Been going this electric smoker thing for 10 years or so. Just letting you know what works for me.

Best thing to do is experiment and see what works best for you.

No it makes sense. I trust all of you over shit I read in these smoker manuals. I'll try that next time sir. :thumb:

I usually close mine unless it is like 85+ outside. Like brc said they're far from a vacuum seal. My vent is on top so it lets A LOT of heat out. I usually keep it shut or almost shut.

I honestly haven't cooked much with mine, but I also keep it barely cracked.

Very nice... Rep!

I'm gonna use my electric this week on some homemade Canadian bacon. I've got the loin in the cure right now. Maple and sage cure, figuring straight hickory smoke.

Whats the update? Going well?

I change mine depending on the temp and type of meat. Mostly it's about keeping moisture in or letting it escape and not heat for me. It can normally maintain 225 in most weather. Pork butts it's wide open, brisket or other things I don't want to dry out I keep it shut more.

Oh yea, sorry! So with my last picture I smoked a pork butt over night and it was ready to go after about 12 hours. Woke up to smoker cooking at about 230 and I didn't touch it overnight. Served to my guests for the Steelers/Chiefs games and they loved it. All went back for seconds and even the 6 and 3 year old at a whole sandwich!

There ya go. The life of owning a cheater smoker.:thumb:

Awesome. I bought a Treager pellet smoker over the holidays, partly due to reading this damn thread. I have used it for a small brisket and some odds and ends.

I plan to do a big pork butt tomorrow. I cant wait.

I would be correct in assuming if I bought an Amazen pellet smoker box, loaded it with pellets, and ignited, I could do that instead of the briquettes with my Bradley unit?

Just purchased a Traeger, and it is a lot better than my Louisana Grill.


The Louisiana is a piece of ****ing shit, and there is no way I could trust it to smoke something overnight.

Why not? Same principle as using wood chips. There is a lot of space below the first rack and the guard. But, I have no idea about that thing. Smoking forums should have feedback if no one here has any experience.