Bradley Vs. Cookshack

There are many threads in the forum where smoke rings are discussed. There are a few on the forum who believe the meat with a smoke ring tastes different than the rest of the meat, but I don't find that to be the case. The pink is simply the curing of that small part of the meat that gets exposed to the nitrates/nitrites in the smoke from wood and charcoal.

Bottom line to me - the nitrates/nitrites that produce a smoke ring are generally not produced in an electric smoker unless you use charcoal in the woodbox or rub the meat with a curing product before smoking.

My experience with smoke in the CS has been that the CS smokes quite a bit at the beginning and very little later on. The consensus is that smoke will not penetrate your meat after the meat reaches 140 degrees. This eliminates the need to produce smoke after your meat reaches that temperature. The only benefit after that point is to fool then neighbors and keep them drooling!

I have not used the Bradley but have seen it in stores. The quality of its construction appears to be less than the CS and it has a much poorer temperature control system. When you add in the much higher operating costs for the wood disks, I don't think the Bradley is in the same league as the CS.

Re smoke production over time in the CookShack, a couple thoughts:

1. Using CS-supplied size chunks and oven setting around 200F-250F, smoke takes a half-hour or so to really pour out the top, then goes for a few hours, then tapers off. You can control this to some degree by cutting up the chunks of wood into little slivers to get smoke faster at lower settings. You can also use one big chunk rather than 2 or 3 medium ones to keep it going longer. Plus, you can always throw in another piece after some hours if you have to. It's much more likely you'll get too much smoke flavor than too little.

2. I'd guess it doesn't really matter how much smoke rolls out the top. It's what's inside that flavors the food. There's been a few times when there's nothing coming out the vent, opened the door, and wound up gasping for breath as a cloud of smoke hit me in the face. These things draw a lot less than wood or gas fired smokers, so the smoke stays inside. Of course, as bbayliff points out, it never hurts to get the neighbors' curiosity up!

This is about the third string on this subject including mine.I have a Bradley and a CS smokette and a model 55 and the bradley is a joke compared to my CS's it's built cheap for the cost and hard to control the temp.with not much taste to justify the work. The only wood you can use is their wood disk.I can use wood off my own live oaks.
I get good smoke in 15 minutes from a cold turn on with both of my CS's and continues on and off with the heat cycle.
The first mistake a new person does with a CS is use to much wood.

Some Good Info...,

Are you telling me your using Green Wood for smoking, I thought that was a no no

Hi wrayman....

I have been using freshly cut oak branches for many years. Never seasoned it or anything, just cut and threw in the smoker.

Never had any bad tastes.

Now, if I had a wood burning pit, I would NOT use green wood. But, using small branches for flavoring seems to work OK.

I looked at the Bradley and the Cookshack before I bought my Smoker, and for me the 'special disks' and the extra moving parts on the Bradley pushed me even more toward the Cookshack. In my simplistic view, the more moving parts, the greater the potential for something to break.

The other major thing I liked about the Cookshack was the high level of customer service. I'm not saying Bradley has poor service, but Cookshacks commitment to customer service is second to none. This forum is a shining example! Just do a search through the archives and you will see real customers comment on the great service they have recieved.

I bought a Cookshack Smokette and I am very happy with it. It sounds like you're really doing your homework so I'm sure you will make out fine. Good luck with whatever you end up with!

-Rich