IQ v. Stoker

[Mark B (azmark)]

I've been looking at these for a while and kind of formed my opinion that I will likely pick up the IQ but I'm curious on what other have to say about both if they have history on using them.

I like the Stoker but I love bbqing a lot because it is easy and I over complicate things and the Stoker seems like something that will flare up an Acquisition Disorder lol.

 

[Amir]

Do a search and you should find a thread or two on people who have owned both. I am biased of course

. But stoker can be used without any complication as just an appliance just the same. Turn it on, go to the menu, set your temp and it does its thing. Most of us use a PC with it because it makes the whole process so much more fun and informative. Imagine having an issue and posting an entire graph of how your cook went. You see many examples of that here. We can't taste your food but we can share in your experience that way still

.

 

[Bruce Bissonnette]

Mark, I love my IQ, I'v ehad it since April. Use it in competitions and use it at home. You set the temp and it will bring your pit up to temp within 15-20 minutes.

Did an overnight pork butt cook last night set the temp at 250 and it held btw. 248 and 257 the whole 12 hour cook. I had an accurate digital therm in the WSM just to verify the IQ's temp.

For the cost, I don't think you can go wrong. Not all the bells and whistles but it does what it says it will do.

 

[Mark B (azmark)]

That's a lot of good information, thank you! I'll likely spend some time reading on both of them

A question on the use of a temperature control. The controller only controls temperatures from going to low but isn't the temperature going high just as bad or even worse?

 

[Amir]

The controller attempts to anticipate the overshoot and attempts to avoid it. That said, it is not always successful. Various factors such as air leak, vent settings, how you started your fire, etc impacts that.

In general, short term spikes should not have an affect in indirect cooking.

Here is my last 13 hour smoke of pork butt.

The spike at the end was me opening and checking the meat and then setting the temp to keep the foot warm (done from inside the house with a click of the mouse and keyboard

).

As you see, stability was superb at just 1% across the entire cook! Other times I have had flare ups and got a spike or two and it still worked out just fine.

The biggest risk with an overnight cook is fire going out. These controllers reduce the chances of that due to active air flow. Should the fire go out still, stokerlog can send you notifications, play any music file as an alarm (naturally inside the house as opposed to the thing itself waking people up outside and not you) so that you can remedy it. That said, I have never had the fire go out on me.