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I have owned a Bradley smoker for about 2 years now. I bought this unit mainly because it can cold smoke, which means you can make authentic jerky and gravlox (cold smoked salmon).

For those who don’t know anything about smoking food, there are two main techniques: hot and cold. Hot smoking, like putting wood chips on a barbecue or in hardware store smokers, depends on a fairly hot burn of wood to generate smoke. The smoker itself is generally hot enough to cook the food. However not all food should be cooked when it is smoked, such as traditional smoked salmon, cheese, nuts, sausages, etc.

This is where Bradley smoker comes in. It can smoke both hot AND cold. How it achieves this is with a very low power hot-plate like burner, that smolders a single compressed “puck” (what Bradley calls a bisquette) of wood chips at a time. For real cold smoking the burner can even be detached from the main unit, and the smoke can be “piped” in with a dryer vent hose.

For hot smoking, there is an additional heating element that can be adjusted with a thermostat.

The real genius behind the Bradley smoker is in how it automates the smoking process for you. It does this by automatically pushing a fresh bisquette onto the burner every 20 minutes, with the spent biskette dropping into a bowl of water sitting in the bottom of the smoker, that promptly extinguishes it. All you have to do is stack enough bisquettes in the feed tube for the amount of time you want to smoke, turn on the unit and walk away! Bradley claims that this is “healthier” than a traditional smoker, by avoiding overburning the wood, hence fewer carcinogens. (Personally I think this is debatable since the danger comes from the carbonization of fats, not from overburning of charcoal).

The smoker itself appears to be a modified mini-fridge, with a hole in the side for the smoking unit, an adjustable vent on the top, and racks for the food for smoking. Even this small unit can hold quite a bit of food: I have smoked and then slow roasted a 20 lb turkey, or 12 lbs of smoked salmon in a single go. There is also a large dial thermometer on the front door, which makes it easy to control the temperature of the auxiliary heating element.

Bradley recommends “seasoning” the smoker. This can be done by running bisquettes through the unit for a couple of hours. I find that food has tasted better as time goes on, and it is important not to clean the inside walls of the smoker. It does get quite a dark red colour, but not as dark as the inside lid of your gas grill.

This smoker is very efficient when it comes to burning wood. For example, most foods smoke in an hour or less, even a turkey. The only thing I find that takes longer is smoked salmon, which I find is best with a 3 hour smoke (but even then some find it too smoky tasting).

The efficient use of wood is offset by the slightly higher cost of the bisquettes that of course, you must buy from Bradley. Overall I find the cost is about the same as running a smoker with wood chips, and at least there is some assurance of quality control (you know you there is no treated or scrap wood that could be releasing harmful chemicals with the Bradley product). The other advantage is that Bradley produces a very wide variety of different wood flavors. I have personally tried Cherry, Alder, Apple, Maple, Oak, Hickory and their “Special Blend”. Each wood has its own character, and it is fun experimenting to see what gives the best results.

The smoker also comes with a booklet of recipes. I have tried many of them, and so far they have been proven excellent, especially the recipe for cold smoked salmon. The cold smoked salmon I make is a huge family family and friend favorite, and I have received comments like “oh my God, this is the best smoked salmon I have EVER tasted”.

Smoked pork ribs, pulled pork and turkey (when properly brined and seasoned) are also big hits. Typically this only requires a 1 -2 hour smoke, and a bake at around 190 -200 F. A 15-20 lb turkey takes about 6-7 hours to bake to an internal temperature of 170F, and it comes out beautifully browned and astonishingly juicy. Ribs and pork also benefit from slow roasting, and it is great to be able to smoke AND bake in one unit.

The downside of this unit is that you can’t effectively cold smoke fish unless the outside temperature is 50 F or below. For some this is not very practical, and even in higher latitudes like here in Montreal, we are limited to early spring and late fall for cold smoking.

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