Bradford White water heater: burner making loud noise towards the end of the heating cycle
Want to share what I learned.

Thanks to Ed Beal who provided suggestion. I opened the unit and removed the burner assembly and cleaned the filter area. There was not much there. This did not help the situation.

Called our local plumber who guessed that the burner assembly was damaged. He was right. The burner assembly which looked like a exhaust on a car had a tear in the mesh. New burner assembly was installed and we are all good. 

I have been told by multiple plumbers that they highly recommend Bradford White including the most recent plumber. With that said, I am not too thrilled with their product. Within the last 5 years (unit was purchased in 2014), we have had to shell out close to $700/- in repairs. This does not include parts because the unit was still under warranty. First two incidents dealt with the control unit by Honeywell that was bad. Now the burner unit. 

Anyway, wanted to share my experience.