Bradley Smoker Grills & Smokers

The same cabinet, racks and bisquette feeder as the Original, with a digital controller that sets temperature, cook time and smoke time as three independent numbers and a thermostat that actually holds the set point. That last part is the reason to pay the $160 difference: the Original's dial is a power setting, this one closes the loop. Ceiling rises slightly to 280°F.

Bradley's smoke source is unlike anything else in this catalog: instead of a chip tray or a pellet auger, a feeder advances a compressed hardwood puck onto a 125W burner every twenty minutes, then drops the spent one into a water bowl before it can turn to ash and acrid smoke. Load the tube and it produces nine hours of clean smoke unattended. The Original is the analog model - a dial for the 500W oven element, a separate switch for the smoke burner, and nothing else. Four 11 x 13 in racks, 572 sq in, a polished stainless interior.

Bradley's top cabinet and the only one with PID control: 1000W across two 400W elements and two 100W bisquette burners, a full stainless body, dual meat probes, and a controller that adjusts in one-degree steps and stores up to fifty programmes over USB. Ten hours of smoke per bisquette load against the smaller models' nine, 806 sq in of rack rather than 572, and an 86-320°F range that reaches both cold-smoking territory and a usable finishing temperature. The 4.3-star average over 248 reviews is the lowest in the line, which is worth knowing before spending $1,100.