Cheers All,

I have used a Little Chief for over 20 years with pretty good results. However it tends to dry out the final product. Looking at the new Bradley smoker with electronic controls. Anyone have experience with the Bradley smoker? What are your thoughts on Bradley smokers? Which is best: regular unit or the new electronic control unit.

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

I have owed Cheifs for years both size and more then one at a time. Bought a Bradley and gave my Cheifs away. I will never go back. I do not have the digital model. Nor do I want a digital model. If you buy one FG let me know I will get a present off to you.

Cheers,

I have a Bradley and I cold smoke salmon and hot smoke turkeys. I use an external burn box for the salmon to reduce the smoking compartment temperature. I don't have the new digital temperature control, but I'm sure it's a lot better than the older model which has a very inaccurate temperature reading. The hopper that feeds the biscuits is a great feature, although the biscuits are expensive. The results have been very very good and I cannot imagine switching to another device.

Gerry I mentioned this to you but I have friends that love bradley, although I've never used it. I use the little chief and get results though. The thing that I like about the LC is you have to watch it so you get a product exactly how you want it. My friends use the Bradley but they usually "set it and forget it" so they get a mediocre product.

When I think about it though, it probably has more to do with bad brine and low attention to detail.

This seems more like the norm then anything else

Hey Fishing Assassin,

Why would you not want the digital Bradley? Curious....

Does the digital model know when your fish is over or under cooked? Does it know when the box is humid and open the door for you? Does it fix a puck jam on it's own? I like to stay with my product till it's done. Keep a close eye on it well it's cooking. I own a Bradley but I will not buy the lazy mans model. Save your money.

Only thing I might do is buy the bigger one model some day.

Cheers Fishing Assassin,

Thank you for the information. Very good points.

Thank you again!

We've been using our Big Chief (3-4 times a year) for almost 20 years. There's never been a problem, except New Years Eve about 18 years ago (don't try smoking, even in an old shed, when it's -10°C and snowing outside), when we smoked from 8:00am until 3:00am on New Years Day (~20 hours).

When the CT flyer came out the other day, I've been looking at upgrading to one of Bradley's smokers ($300 - $400), until I came across this web site: http://www.charcoalstore.com/kb/article.php?id=008. Now I'm not so sure. I know, I know, the post was done by the owner/vender of CookShack Smokers, but there is a lot of info here.

Gerry, if you smoke as hard as you fish, this might be worth looking at.

DT

Owned one for years and I take care of mine. That person beat his to death. I fish hard each year and have put tons of fish thru mine and I bet I could sell it to anyone.

I would think I smoke at least 200lbs of fish a year. Plus nuts, cheese, chicken, ribs, jerky and so on. I have also used the same style units in commercial kitchens and catering companies.

As for puck price if you watch for sales as I do they don't cost much at all. About $0.30 each and I only normaly use 6 pucks on a batch of fish. So under $2. Best deal I saw this year was at Gone Fishing I bought 4-120puck boxes.

Beware of some fishing stores selling refurbished units as new ones. It's easy to tell. Look for dents and touch up paint covering chips. I wish the boxes came marked as refurbished. You can go directly to Bradley and buy these refurbished units.


I returned 3 units to a local store till I gave up and bought one from Canadian Tire each of the units from that store was refurbished and recived from a reputiple fishing store supplier. I was pissed

Bradley smoker all the way