Bradley smoker bisquette substitutes?

[martinedwards]

Has anyone tried getting the bradley to feed through say wood disks cut from planks? seems like rather a waste buying fancy things when ive got plenty of good smoking wood on the farm

[Paul Kribs]

Martin

I don't have a bradley smoker but having seen pictures of the briquettes they look to me to be compressed sawdust / chippings. I think a solid piece of timber would not burn anywhere near the same rate as the briquettes., assuming the bradley's are not solid. Am I right in saying that after a pre-determined amount of time (20 mins?) that the smouldering briquette is pushed off and dowsed in water? If that is the case, I think a solid wooden bisquette would hardly have started to smoulder in that time.

I know what you mean about utilising what you have rather than buying stuff in. I just had my first attempt at hot smoking fresh Merguez sausage.
I swept some lathe chippings/ planer chippings and sawdust from the floor in my workshop. It was mainly Roble with some Beech. Put it in a baking tray and sprayed some water on it. Put that on the gas BBQ, preheated and set to low, put the sausages about 4-5 " above then the lid on and after about 20 mins they were done. Absolutely beautiful, and just as they were done a friend called round, he sampled one and also concluded they were very, very nice.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[martinedwards]

I have been cold smoking mostly fish, but also legs of lamb for years on a converted electric oven, the sort with a untensill draw underneath, wich i use as a fire box with a small pile of smoldering wood shavings from my lathe arranged in a horseshoe shape, start it going with a blow torch at one end then add more shavings round and round to the unburning end every hour or two, but its very difficult to stop a flareup if the wind changes, with temp controll very hit and miss. so have bought a bradley to try and get a more consistent result without 24 hr attention, but it realy hurts to have to buy fuel, a 24 hr + smoke gets kind of pricy!! so think I will experiment, will let you know how I get on

[othmar]

Has anyone tried getting the bradley to feed through say wood disks cut from planks? seems like rather a waste buying fancy things when ive got plenty of good smoking wood on the farm

Just recently I talked to someone who has had a bradley smoker and he tried all sorts of things, icluding self cut wooden discs. He said is was no good, you have to use the specially designed pressed sawdust discs.
Seems the bradley people are smart business people, they sell a products which depends on specially designed product to work properly. This is called "desiging repeat business".

Regards
Othmar

[martinedwards]

I have now tried out a few diferent things, what does seem to work fine is 3/4 inch thick discs cut of the end of a two to 2 and a 1/4 inch stick, perfectly round doesnt sem to matter, neither does diamater as long as they go down the tube ok. (it doesnt work nearly as well with discs cut out of a plank, they warp to much and loose contact with the heater plate.) smoke density is slightly lower than the proper brickettes, but is quite enough. Ive just done a 24 hr cold smoke on mackeral fillets useing ash discs, its come out perfectly, posibly better than smoked salmon!!

[othmar]

I have now tried out a few diferent things, what does seem to work fine is 3/4 inch thick discs cut of the end of a two to 2 and a 1/4 inch stick, perfectly round doesnt sem to matter, neither does diamater as long as they go down the tube ok. (it doesnt work nearly as well with discs cut out of a plank, they warp to much and loose contact with the heater plate.) smoke density is slightly lower than the proper brickettes, but is quite enough. Ive just done a 24 hr cold smoke on mackeral fillets useing ash discs, its come out perfectly, posibly better than smoked salmon!!

That is how life plays at times. One person said it wont work and now you seem to make it work.
Thank you for sharing that with us. As I said somewhere else in this forum I have a self made smoking cabinet and thus do not know much about the modern gadgets.

Regards.
Othmar

[Bad Flynch]

I have observed the pucks for my Bradley and have come to a conclusion or two. First is that they are, indeed, sawdust or fine chips that are held together with a binder. Second is that they are losely packed and friable. I am not impressed with their durability.

If we take a lesson from charcoal briquettes, they could be held together by starch. Cornstarch is cheap, nontoxic, and burns or smolders well. One could make a cornstarch paste and try making pucks with it.

[welsh wizard]

I have tried a number of different variations in my Bradley but all to no avail - please be careful, the last time I tried, I gunked up the inside of the smoker , but to be fair it was easy to clean and had no ill effects.