Warranty

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The Bradley Smoker Story (by Wade Bradley)
“Bradley Smoker really got started when my Dad did a deal with a master food smoker back in
the seventies. The story goes that this master smoker knew nothing about catching salmon and
asked my Dad for some advice. Dad said if he wanted to learn how to catch fish, he was going
to have to teach my Dad how to smoke salmon. It was a hell of a lot easier to catch salmon
back then. If this agreement happened today, I doubt Bradley Smoker would have gotten very
far.
Anyway this master smoker learned how to catch salmon. My Dad basically told him the
cardinal rule of fishing: Do not fish where there are no fish, period.
So the guy kept his promise, gave my Dad some smoker recipes,
keeping it simple with very common ingredients, and told my Dad the
secret to food smoking. He said you must control the smoke, plain
and simple. Back then that meant constantly attending to the
sawdust, never letting the heat being generated by the burning
sawdust get too high, and most important, never letting the wood
burn down to an ash. Watch the wood being burned, when it starts to
have glowing embers, and there are flecks of white ash appearing,
get rid of it. Replace it immediately with new sawdust and continue
smoking as the recipe requires. That’s it, simple huh? I just gave it
away.
Not quite yet I am afraid, there is a lot to food smoking that I am still learning about every day. I
am reminded by all the food smokers out there that we still have many things to uncover; never
been tried before. Soon to be the latest and greatest recipe you have got to try. We will try to
keep you posted. Want to know more about us, keep reading. I promise not to leave anything
out.
With this simple principle about food smoking firmly entrenched in my Dad’s masters list of
principles and rules. He set out to make a food smoker that did just what this guy said had to
be done (control the smoke). Back then they used a bread riser for the smoke house, old cast
iron frying pan to hold the sawdust, and a hot plate to generate the smoke. Great, the other
most important requirement was a good deal of free time to do nothing but watch smoke
smoke….this is like watching paint dry. This brings me to my uncle who happens to be a
professional in both endeavors. He also happens to be a pretty good inventor.
They set out to make a smoker that produces clean, continuous smoke without the need for
constant attention. They tried everything to control the burning of sawdust, even studied how
different types of sawdust burn differently and scratched the concept of soaking sawdust in
water beforehand. That just made steam until the sawdust was dry enough to start smoking,
yuck. Larger chunks of wood required more heat energy to start burning, this did not work
because they could never control the heat, and inevitably the wood was burning down to ashes,
eliminating any attempt at making the food taste good.
You would not believe the gismos and gadgets they created that accomplished exactly nothing
until they finally went back to the beginning and decided on the best sawdust for making
“We still have
many things
to uncover;
never been
tried before…”