Pitmaster IQ-120 Review

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Pitmaster IQ-120 Review

Postby matt318 » 22 Sep 2013, 18:53

Hi all, I have had my new Pitmaster IQ-120 for a few days now and so I thought i would do a review. I did a short test with it the day I got it and did some pork belly, mainly I ran it so I could get an idea of how it performs but I thought what the hell I'll put something in there to eat too. I have the small Weber Smokey Mountain and it was easy to set up. At first the instructions were a bit confusing as there are so many settings but I read the instructions and just decided to get on with it and test it out. The settings are really easy and there is a cheat sheet on the back of the unit to refer to. You plug it in and wait a few seconds for it to run a diagnostic and then to edit any of the settings you just push the knob in for 3 seconds and then it enters program mode. You then scroll to the setting you wish to change and press the knob once and then do your changes by turning the knob, when finished press the knob again to go back one step then press and hold for 3 seconds to exit, easy.

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I set it to 225f for the belly pork and let it run for 5 hours. It slowly got up to temp and held pretty much rock solid, it did spike a little and went up 10f or so but took itself back down again within mins. I set the damper on the unit to 3 so as to reduce the passive air intake a little. I used water in the pan for that run but will do another test with nothing, some clay saucers and with sand also for comparison; I will post the results when I have done the cooks. It performed really well in the first test so I decided to smoke a 3lb pork shoulder overnight tonight (saturday 20th/09, I'm gonna try to sleep too yay!). So far it's been an hour in and all ok, touch wood, I did a lid lift test and sure enough the unit flashed saying lid off, when I had replaced it it got straight back to temp. I am once again using water in the pan and I have also set up my Maverick wireless thermometer so I can check the progress in the house, I will pull when the internal is at 195f, I am using the Maverick for the meat temp and not the IQ at the moment. I have to say that my Maverick is reading between 8 to 10f higher than the IQ and I'm not sure which is correct, I will have to calibrate them in some boiling water tomorrow to see which is the one which is out, both probes are right next to one another so it's a bit puzzling, the Maverick has a brand new probe too.
The pork reached 195 at 11am, it took 14hrs to cook. I should have taken some pics of the meat but I forgot and by the time I remembered it was all gone. The IQ performed outstandingly, I had to chuck a bit more lumpwood on it at around 9 just to keep it going the rest of the day as we were not going to eat it until the afternoon. I wanted it to keep a 150f temp until we were going to eat it so I put a bit more water in the pan and turned the setting down to 150f, half closed the top damper and turned the damper on the unit to 2. It easily went down to the 150 mark and stayed there all day while we went out and when we got back both the meat and the pit were reading exactly 150f which is pretty damn amazing! I pulled the meat out at about 7pm and we ate it with some roast potatoes, yorkies and veg, it was awesome. The IQ comes with a neat rubber cap to put over the air intake when you disconnect the blower hose, this comes in really handy when you have finished the cook and want to take all the gear inside and kill the fire, just pop it on and close the top damper. I would say for this cook, about 14hrs at 225f and about 8 hrs at 150f I must have used about 3kg of lumpwood which is pretty good performance, I am interested to see how it compares to the clay pot and sand methods. Overall this is a really great piece of kit and I would recommend it to anyone. I am perfectly able to use the WSM with just a Maverick and the passive method but this little beauty lets me get on with doing other stuff while I am doing a long cook, most importantly going to sleep at night, being able to ramp it down to keep things warm for hours is amazing.
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matt318
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Joined: 30 Jul 2013, 13:07
Location: Near Bere Regis, Dorset

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