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Does anyone have a review of the new IQ120?

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CORNDAWG

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I have been looking to buy a temp controller for my UDS for long cooks. I have seen reviews of the others, such as the Party-Q, IQ110, Digi-Q, etc, but haven't seen anything on the IQ120. It looks good. If someone can give a review or share their experience using one, it would be helpful. Pictures and or video would help also.
 
Last edited:
I should be receiving mine tomorrow, and will use it this weekend. I'll post a review of it as soon as I'm done cooking.
 
I just got the IQ120 and can make a comparison to the IQ110.

The IQ110 did a really good job of temperature control once I got the vent set right. (You want to have the vent set so that if the IQ110 fan is off, the fire will slowly choke out) I learned that if I have the vent number too high, the IQ110 can't prevent enough oxygen from getting sucked in through the unit to kill the fire down to cool it off. The IQ110 did a good job but it sometimes took a long time to ramp up to temp (45 mins) and then would overshoot a little and then stabilize if the vent setting was set right. I was always plus or minus 15degrees F. I run my offset smoker at a vent setting of 1.

Now for the IQ120...

The IQ120 came up to temperature faster without an overshoot. It was amazing to watch it come right up to the dialed in number and stop. I used a Maverick ET-732 to cross-check the temperature and both probes were within 2 degrees F. I really like that I can dial an exact temperature to the single degree as well as see the pit temperature on the IQ120 display. There are a lot of other bells and whistles in the IQ120 but that is for a later date. As far as cooking, the temperature is incredibly stable, I'll have to say more stable than the IQ110 (which is saying a lot). I had a stable temperature for three hours +/- 1 degree F, no exaggeration. The only 6 degree F overshoot I got occurred when I through a couple more pieces of Hickory into the firebox. I could just hear the IQ120 cursing me because it had the fire running perfect and oxygen intake just right. It took the IQ120 about 15 minutes to drop the temp back 6 degrees F to the dialed in temp..AMAZING :)

I was going to say that if you have the IQ110, you don't really need the IQ120. But now that I think about it, the IQ120 is really impressing me with how well it controls everything. If you have neither the IQ110 or 120, I'd say get the IQ120. YMMV.

Thanks everybody for the tips and recipes!!
 
thekubiaks said:
I just got the IQ120 and can make a comparison to the IQ110.

The IQ110 did a really good job of temperature control once I got the vent set right. (You want to have the vent set so that if the IQ110 fan is off, the fire will slowly choke out) I learned that if I have the vent number too high, the IQ110 can't prevent enough oxygen from getting sucked in through the unit to kill the fire down to cool it off. The IQ110 did a good job but it sometimes took a long time to ramp up to temp (45 mins) and then would overshoot a little and then stabilize if the vent setting was set right. I was always plus or minus 15degrees F. I run my offset smoker at a vent setting of 1.

Now for the IQ120...

The IQ120 came up to temperature faster without an overshoot. It was amazing to watch it come right up to the dialed in number and stop. I used a Maverick ET-732 to cross-check the temperature and both probes were within 2 degrees F. I really like that I can dial an exact temperature to the single degree as well as see the pit temperature on the IQ120 display. There are a lot of other bells and whistles in the IQ120 but that is for a later date. As far as cooking, the temperature is incredibly stable, I'll have to say more stable than the IQ110 (which is saying a lot). I had a stable temperature for three hours +/- 1 degree F, no exaggeration. The only 6 degree F overshoot I got occurred when I through a couple more pieces of Hickory into the firebox. I could just hear the IQ120 cursing me because it had the fire running perfect and oxygen intake just right. It took the IQ120 about 15 minutes to drop the temp back 6 degrees F to the dialed in temp..AMAZING :)

I was going to say that if you have the IQ110, you don't really need the IQ120. But now that I think about it, the IQ120 is really impressing me with how well it controls everything. If you have neither the IQ110 or 120, I'd say get the IQ120. YMMV.

Thanks everybody for the tips and recipes!!
Click to expand...
Great to know because i love my 110. Make and use the rain box because you never have to worry about rain or wind...best plastic container i've ever gotten.
 
Fwismoker said:
Great to know because i love my 110. Make and use the rain box because you never have to worry about rain or wind...best plastic container i've ever gotten.
Click to expand...


I just got the IQ 120 and as it is my first controller, I have nothing to compare it to. It worked great right out of the box and was holding right on temp. I built the rainbox and was very happy with my first controlled smoke.

In fact, with my stick burner, I had never even considered running the really low 225* type smokes. Now I want to compare running 275 to 225 to see if the real low and slow stuff will have any appreicable difference.

Rock
 
Got the new IQ120 this week; just did a quick trial run doing some smoked wings on my Brinkmann Trailmaster LE (COS) with split oak.

Set-up: It is easy to set up, and I was surprised with the number of pretty advanced features, including lid open and ability to program a different pit temp once the food hits a certain temp. Programming your desired temps and alarms are pretty easy. Also has variable fan speeds, alarms for pit and food temps.

During the cook: I set the temp for 300, planning on a two hour cook. However, the fan shut off at 280, and then would only run 2-3 seconds then shut off for about 30 seconds. It never hit 300; I gave it about 20 minutes, and I re-set the pit temp for 320. As soon as I did that, it held between 298-304 the rest of the cook. I've never had my smoker hold a temp so steady, and throughout the entire cook. I lifted the lid once to flip and rearrange the wings, the lid-off feature worked as advertised - but the fan doesn't kick back on immediately when I close the lid. Might have taken 1-2 minutes for the fan to kick on.

Smoke: When the fan shuts off, I was getting much thicker puffier white smoke than I like. That eased towards the very end, so maybe I just needed to make a bigger fire; or let the fire burn alot more before starting the cook.

Overall: Works as advertised; and I'm pleased with it - I just need to learn how to keep the thin blue smoke going when the fan shuts off. Temp held rock steady, even though I had to set it 20 degrees higher than my desired temp to keep it there. I also used less wood, even though I was cooking 50 degrees higher than I normally do.

Hope this helps. Doing some ribs tomorrow, planning on doing a video review.
 
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