Customer Reviews

Bradley BTIS1 Original Fully Automatic 4-Rack Outdoor Food Smoker

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I've owned this smoker for 3 years and have been very happy. I've cooked ribs, brisket, picnic shoulder, boston butt, and salmon and they all have come out fantastic. Using the Bradley is very simple. I've tried smoking the traditional way but for the occasional weekend smoker keeping the heat low and slow is nearly impossible; the constant monitoring of heat and fuel for 6-12 hours took out all the joy of eating. Bradley is the way to go!

Besides making sure there were enough "pucks" of wood, you have to check the water pan to make sure it doesn't go dry. If you're smoking something fatty like a boston butt, I would recommend tossing out the oil and ash that drips into the pan after 3 hours or so and add more water. Other than that it's set and forget.

We don't have a much of a selection of wood where I live (mesquite is king) so it's great how easy it is get different woods to try and mix them like the pros do. It's not expensive to run, Bradley recommends that you only need to smoke the food for only half the total time it takes to cook your food, so if it takes 12 hours to finish, you only need 6 hours worth of pucks.

The only reason it doesn't get five stars is because it doesn't get hotter than about 250 degrees. If it had a more powerful heating element it would have greater versatility and you could cook perfect chicken with crispy skin, or use it during colder outdoor temperatures.

Side note: Just as important as the smoker is the rub and sauce. The best cookbook for BBQ I've found is Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue. It gives you the REAL award winning recipes, not the common "based on" recipes from some well-known BBQ pros. In addition, there are valuable hints on prepping and cooking that most other books don't give and a great guide that will help you develop your own signature rub.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas to replace an old (scary-looking) smoker. It was a real pain having to ask his folks to send mesquite wood from Texas to Massachusetts, then cut it up, soak it, etc.

We tried the Bradley smoker this weekend while we had the unusually warm weather. It comes with pellets of wood which get fed in automatically; much easier. The prime rib was done in no time at all; we finished it off in the oven for a crispier outside. We also smoked fresh kielbasa. Both were amazing. Can't wait to try the cold smoke feature!

First off, GREAT choice looking at the Bradley Smoker!

I have a barrel smoker I have used for a few years and I needed to get something to make my life a little easier so I could smoke over night and not have to get up every hour to add wood.

The Bradley Smoker 4 Rack is an awesome tool backed up by an awesome company. I have had mine for about a year now. I have smoked, ribs, brisket, pork butts, and cold smoked cheese. I have chicken wings, pork belly, and other meats lined up for the rest of this summer.

I do not suggest the digital smoker as it resets itself every 10 hours or so and requires you to unplug and restart. The Original Bradley Smoker has a sliding knob at the bottom that is used to control the heat. Normally you start out at max and leave it there for a while. After a time you will need to move it over an inch to set the temp.

Yes you do need to buy special briskets from Bradley but they are on sale here at Amazon and else where most of the time. I purchased one box of each flavor and have not needed to resupply in months and I do a lot of smoking.

Check out BradleySmoker.com and their forum and see for yourself. Great Product, Great Company! There is also a 6 rack/shelf unit out there and some come wrapped in stainless steel for a nice look!

The one and only downside to this smoker, it does not produce a smoke ring. There is NOTHING missing from the flavor but there is no smoke ring. My solution to that is starting meats in my barrel smoker for a couple hours then moving it to the Bradley Smoker for an overnight cooking!

I had high hopes for this smoker, as my family loves smoked food, which we'd always done on a Weber grill in the past.
The Bradley Electric Smoker started out okay, but now has ultimately proven to be unreliable. We've had it for about 1 1/2 years, but have only used it perhaps 10 times.
The smoke generator stopped functionally correctly first: it is supposed to change the smoke chip every 20 minutes, but this became erratic, and it would leave a chip without changing it for an extended period creating acrid smoke. I called Bradley; they kindly sent me a new timer for the generator, which I installed, but it continues to malfunction and has to be watched like a hawk. The internal parts of the generator are clear and not clogged with grease or debris.

Second: it has never gotten as hot as I would have wanted; maximum temperature is 180 degrees for the first few hours even with pre-heating, and starting the desired meats in the oven before putting the ribs and chicken in the smoker.

And last, the base developed a crack in the plastic, in front where the temperature control is, with no history of damage to the unit.

Overall, I cannot recommend this appliance, and suggest you try other ways to get your smoked meats fix.

I bought mine used and had to buy some parts from Bradley, but they were very helpful and shipped quickly. It works very well, but requires tending to keep the temperature where you want it. Everything is well constructed and it is light enough to move around with one person.

There are only 2 recommended changes I would like to see:
* Recess the temperature control or put a smaller knob on it so it is not so easily broken.
* Make the cover on the burner box easier to take off to clean out the excess chips.

It would also be nice if they included 3 aluminum bisquettes so you actually burn the last wood ones. Once they are on the bottom slide, they begin to desintegrate from the heat and can't be reused in the feeder rack. I've seen the aluminum ones for sale on ebay, but made my own from some round aluminum stock the same size as the bisquettes.

After owning many smokers in my lifetime; And recently building my own, using a Bradley's Smoke Generator; I decided to purchase one of these for the smaller capacity. (My home built is more than triple the capacity and works fine if you're cooking for an army but I wanted something smaller for every day use.)
The design of this unit is brilliant, using the miniscule 125 watt element to generate the necessary plus 500 degrees of heat needed to start the wood to smoke and the larger element to control the heat.
In addition; The folks at Bradley Smokers are very quick to respond in the event of a complaint as I found, after my original smoke generator failed to advance after moving 3 bisquettes,
In my opinion; If you are looking for a smoker; Don't buy anything less, unless you have an unlimited supply of suitable wood. By my estimate; My costs are around a buck an hour, depending on where you buy the bisquettes. Using charcoal, and/or smoking wood has proved more expensive to me, in addition to little (if any) temperature control.
The unit is incredibly well designed to smoke at low temperatures. The problem with this is; You must know what you are you are doing and use the appropriate techniques (such as curing) and food preparation prior to use at the lower temperatures.
This is NOT a grill and never was intended to be one.
Believe me; Iv'e tried the rest; Now try the best!

I purchased my smoker 4 years ago and had problems with the temperature quage from the start. The quage never showed the smoker coming up to the desired temperature and the rubber seal around the door was leaking. I contacted Bradley and they sent me a replacement thermostat and seal with no charge since it was still under warranty. I still has the same problem as before after replacing the thermostat. The next problem I had was the bottom piece that houses the thermostat control broke. I had to replace this part which wasn't under warranty. The final problem I experienced was the plastic bottom on the door, which holds the door on the hinge broke. I checked with Bradley and would have to purchase the entire door to correct the problem. This part and shipping was going to be close to $100.00 to correct. I didn't purchase the door, so I use a bungi cord to keep the door closed when I smoke. I like the ease associated with using this smoker when it is working correctly, but I don't like the thing falling apart in 4 years. I still use an old barrel smoker I bought from Wal-Mart 10 years ago, which cost a lot less than the Bradley. I think they should take a look at using something besides plastic on the door and thermostat assembly.

Nearly caught my house on fire with this product, and please do note I am not alone, especially lately - check out the customer photos and their dates. Either this product is too difficult to use safely for most consumers, or I had a defective unit. I really believe it was the latter, but if it's the former, you're going to have a hard time keeping this product clean enough to be safe.

I bought this smoker in July (five months ago). On the fifth use, it inexplicably overheated, melting the door seal. There was no fire that time. Bradley sent out a replacement door seal, saying that I must have kept the vent closed, but they'd help me this time. I hadn't kept the vent closed, and said I was concerned it was a defective unit and a fire hazard. They continued to assert it must have been a closed vent. I crossed my fingers I had just not noticed my error.

It took me nearly 2 hours to replace the door seal, a dirty job that made me swear to myself I'd maintain the smoker perfectly so there would be no potential of user error going forward. Every single time I removed every single removable part and steel wool clean it. I wiped down the sides each time, and removed any obvious grease.

Five smokes later and my wife looks out the window just in time - the whole thing was ON FIRE. I unplug it, douse it with water, and finish the turkey breast (not a greasy pork roast mind you, a turkey breast) in the oven.

I call them up, assuming the fire was proof I had a defective unit that would be quickly replaced. I figure, hey, they had a record of the first incident, so it shouldn't be much of a fuss. Ahem - no.

After a week of chasing, I finally got to talk to Brian, who is in charge of "fire incidents." I explained the situation, the previous problem, my exact experience and use of it, and he said it's because of user error - that I hadn't cleaned the smoker thoroughly enough, and too much grease is why it caught fire. Then he offered me a "deep discount" that he didn't actually reveal.

I tried to engage him in simple logic. If you're saying this unit, that has caught fire, is NOT DEFECTIVE, and I'm saying that I've used this as responsibly as possible, what you are saying is either A) I am lying to you about how I maintained the product or B) that this product carries a very reasonable risk of a fire starting through normal customer use.

Brian didn't really want to say "A" but he essentially did when he refused to acknowledge the possibility of a defective unit. He said the chances of a defect were "slim to zero," explaining to me about how the components are each inspected before assembly. When I raised the possibility that it had been improperly assembled or perhaps my unit was otherwise defective, he basically said no. When I noted that I noticed others on Amazon were also having this issue, he literally laughed and said every product on Amazon has negative reviews from a few people.

This was pretty insulting given the time that I had invested and my earnest belief that I had used this product right and it was a defective unit. But at that point I realized that any company that would rather insult a customer than acknowledge the possibility that they could make a manufacturing error was not worth a minute more of my time - other than helping assure other people aren't in my exact situation.

I wish I had taken others' warnings seriously and not written them off as being posted by careless people who didn't bother taking care of the unit properly.

You need to know that this product has the potential to catch fire, even if you use it very responsibly - and even if you are as careful as I was. I'm not some random Internet troll - I'm a regular suburban father who wouldn't bother posting this review if the product just stopped working.

It's a dangerous product, and even more dangerous that Bradley isn't taking the recent swell of customer fire reports seriously.

This is the best smoker I have ever owned! It is the size of a larger dorm room fridge, and the door has a magnetic seal that is very similar that of a refrigerator and it seals perfectly. The biscuit loading tool works great also and saves you the trouble of reloading the smoker with more chips halfway through the cycle. Cleaning is a breeze, as you do not have to reach into a tube structure that is a standard design of most smokers. Overall, great product, and while the digitally controlled system looks great, the analog controls on this model are more than enough, and saves you close to $200.00.
If you are looking for a smoker, get a Bradley, you will not be disappointed. The cheap ones do not hold heat very well (with the exception of the "Old Smokey"), you will most likely have to finish the meat in the oven, and they are a pain to clean. Get the cover while you are at it!!

I bought this smoker several months back and waited to give it a review until I got a chance to use it for a while. This smoker has its pros and cons, overall I am happy with the purchase, but with a few caveats.

First, the positive aspects.

- This is definitely a much easier cooking process than the traditional two barrel BBQ unit. Load the meat, load the chips and let the magic happen. In most cases, getting started early in the morning gives you enough time for a tasty dinner. Ribs and chicken came out perfect, turkey and Boston butt were great too, but with some additional work (as explained below)

- Customer service is exceptional. A live person answered the phone every time during the official calling time. I had to replace some parts and they were shipped FedEx the next day with Saturday delivery. Moreover, I had trouble with the cooking temperature and they have people on the phone who are experienced cooks and had some recommendations for the cooking process.

Now, not so good aspects.

- In my opinion (which is shared by some folks on the Bradley forums), the unit is underpowered to be a true BBQ machine. Small loads (one chicken, one or two racks of ribs) worked great. A large load (two boston butts, 15lb total) or a medium size turkey (12-15lb) will bring the temperature down of a pre-heated smoker to less than 150F and it would take over two hours to get it back to 210F. And it would never go above 220F. Bradley support recommended trying opening the vent, but it did not help much. Pretty much every time I made large quantities of pulled pork, I had to finish it in the oven. The same with turkey, although when it was cut up in pieces instead of whole, it worked better.

- The overall quality did not live up to my expectations. I may just had a bad unit. Within one month of purchase, the plastic box housing the temperature control cracked. A few months later, the door started to crack and the rubber seal on it corroded. Bradley is fast to replace the parts while the smoker is within one year warranty. But I wonder how long the unit will last after the warranty expires.

So, overall a good product. I would recommend it, especially to a novice BBQ cook. If the next models up the wattage on the heating element and addresses the overall quality, it would be a superb unit.