​Bradley Digital Smoker review: Make a great barbecue even better

Different types of smoke

You can buy different types of wood chip bisquettes. We used Maple Chip but there are many other choices like Hickory and Jim Beam infused 'flavour.' Frankly, these wood cakes look appetising on their own. You can see the full list of official Bradley bisquettes here.

They’re available in 24, 48 and 120 packs with price and availability depending on your location. We contacted The Barbeque Store in St Leonards who told us they mainly sell 48 packs for $52 or 120 packs for $100. So they’re not cheap but they should last a while if you’re only smoking for two hours per session.

Conclusion

We loved this thing. But we can’t use it very often because of our close proximity to neighbours. Our own clothes reeked (in a good way) of smoke when using it and we suspect neighbours won’t appreciate their homes and laundry smelling the same.

It’s also very big. The four-rack unit we tested is not small and weighs 20KG so you won’t want to move it around too much. Also be prepared for a lot of cleaning as the racks are designed to drip to the bottom leaving you with a lot of mess to deal with. None of these concerns affect the value or performance of this great cooker though.

The one thing that is missing is a rain cover of some kind. The size and nature means it can’t easily be brought indoors or even undercover (in many instances) and the exposed electronics mean that none of it can get wet.

But beyond all that, we really really want one. The (relatively) precise nature of the cooking, the design and simplicity of use mean that fantastic results can be achieved with minimal skills, effort or experience. If you can cope with the inherent issues involved in smoking, then this is a great buy for anyone who’s ever enjoyed a barbecue.

The 4 rack version (tested) costs $999 (with The Barbeque Store telling us that delivery is free) while the 6-rack version is $1,165. A non-digital manual version (with dial operation) is cheaper but will rely on more guesswork and intense management.

So it’s not cheap, but for what it is it’s good value – even better value if you’re able to use it whenever you want. Despite our warnings, we can’t really fault it. Bradley has knocked it out of the park with digital smoker.