New Bradley and its first smoke

[thepiro]

Ordered a Bradley Original yesterday and will pick it up in Castle Douglas on Monday. I was tempted by the digital version but in the end decided to keep it simple, the more gadgets, the more there is to go wrong.

Smoking must be getting popular in the UK as Bradley UK had all the pucks except hickory in stoke, but I will survive. As there is no hickory in stock I was thinking of using Mesquite for a meat smoke but will take advice on that from the more experienced. I will grab some Alder pucks for a fish smoke.

I can’t decide what to do with my old off set smoker, was thinking of keeping it as a barbeque or sticking it out front with a, free to a good home sign on it.

I intend to run some pucks through the Bradley on the Monday to get the newness of it and give me some experience of its capabilities. I will then do a meat smoke on the first practical day after the trial run and will update this post with the results and Pics.

 

[beer-b-q]

Sounds like you are all set up to go.

Why not throw something in while you are giving it a test run so as not to waste pucks.

I doesn't have to be anything fancy just something to get the feel of the smoker...

 

[bassman]

Congratulations on your new smoker. Looking forward to some pics.

 

[rdevous]

My OBS was delivered today. Seasoning it tomorrow.

Beer-B-Q...shouldn't you season it first to keep your food from tasting funny?? I bow to the knowledge of my smoke scented brothers if not necessary!

Ray

 

[bluefrog]

Yes season it first so that you don't get that metalic taste. However you could try putting a can of spam or somthing similar in and if it does not come out tasty...no great loss.

 

[beer-b-q]

Here is what The setup instructions say as for how to season it...

Using something like the spam mentioned in bluefrog's post will just give you a little feel for how thing work... It doesn't have to be something expensive, just something for practice, it will also help in getting rid of the new smell...

 

[thepiro]

First thing tomorrow morning I will be checking with the agent to see that they have the Bradley in from the UK distributors before the hours drive to Castle Douglas.

Once I have the smoker on board it’s of to the local Tesco to get some supplies
for the test run and the main smoke.

Main smoke will be a joint of beef or pork. For the test run I will get a tin of spam and some sausages and perhaps some flat sausage and some bread rolls.

One of the neighbours is supplying some mackerel for a third smoke, so it looks like being an interesting week.

 

[mballi3011]

Congrats on the new smoker. I'm with Beer and throw in some meat on the test run what can you do to it smoke it or burn it now thats hard to do here.

 

[thepiro]

Got the Bradley back to the cottage mid day Monday unpacked and set the wee beastie up in the after noon. Packaging was excellent and the construction/operating instructions were spot on, looks good, well imprested, even Hamish approved.


The local supermarket didn’t have any decent sized joints of meat so I had to settle for a small beef and pork joint, will have to find a good butcher in the area. I also got some snags and flat sausage for the test run. The neighbours have supplied a bag of mackerel which I have frozen.


Fired the wee beastie up after dinner, for a run of 4 pucks. Loaded the second from top rack with the snags and flat. After running a charcoal box the electric was a walk in the park, basically the Bradley is idiot proof. Load the required number of pucks into the shoot, set the temperature slid and switch it on. Getting the temperature right was easy and no hassle. I suspect that Bradley’s digital model would be even easier, possibly even being fire and forget.

The 4 pucks went through the wee beastie with no problems with the temperature set at 150 which gave the snags an inside temperature of 130.


The snags were still not done on the inside so I put 2 more pucks in the stack and put the heat up to maximum for the rest of the smoke, which produced the right result.


Test finished successfully and well contented with the results. The only problem on the horizon is the weather; we are down for rain the rest of the weeks, so I cant give the smoker a good run