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My first night with the DigiQ DX

Croy9000
Croy9000 Posts: 5
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
First let me say the DigiQ DX immediately revealed some flaws in how I have always cooked in the past on my large Egg.

In the past I always smoked my butts at 225 on the dome thermometer. I now realize now that I was only cooking at around 190 for much of my cook. This explains why it always took me around 18 hours for a small 7 lb butt.

After much reading up on how to use the DigiQ with the Egg, I opted to clip the pit probe to my v-rack, so measuring grill temp. I set the DFMT to a small 1/8" opening, and the DigiQ damper to 1/3 open. It kept the pit temp at a perfect 225 all night long. And I mean "perfect" 225. I was amazed. The dome temp read 255 until about the 6 hour mark when it settled down to close to 225 as well.

The only problem I had was I ran out of wood at the 12 hour mark (during the plateau). Doh! That had NEVER happened to me before. I read about people having fire issues, and how they had to be very careful about how they built their fire. I always assumed I was lucky, but now I know it was because I was always cooking WAY to cool, and now with the DigiQ stoking the fire all the time, I have to be extra careful about building a good fire.

Anyway. Highly impressed and excited about the DigiQ. Its even making me brave enough to try a brisket now.

Comments

  •  
    Hey Croy

    Glad to hear the DigiQ is working for you. I have the older DigiQ II and love it. Do not forget that you do not have to use both probes if you do not want to. I sometimes use just the pit probe for baby back ribs or other cuts that it may not be convenient to get a meat probe into. Both probes need to be plugged in but you can just let the meat probe hang outside the egg. If I was going to bake anything in the egg this is probably how I would do it as you are right about the DigiQ nailing the temperature.

    You are also right about the dome temperature being higher then the food grate in an indirect set up. When I cook baby back ribs I cook them at 300º for 2-1 (2 hours not foiled, 1 hour foiled) and toward the second half of the cook I have been noticing the dome and the food grate balancing out to about the same. My guess is that as the ribs get closer to the final temperature the space over the plate setter that they occupy heats more efficiently. That is just a guess.

    Welcome to the forum,

    Blair

     
  • Thanks Blair.

    Yeah I guess the DX model has a new feature, according to the manual you can just power up the DigiQ without the food probe plugged in, and it will go into a pit probe only mode.
  • You know I think we make this all to complicated, i.e., being careful in building the fire.

    I just dump in 10lbs of RO, fire up the stoker and forget about it. It will run as long as I want and still have lump enough for more short cooks.

    I got the egg to improve my grilling. After going through a bit of mumbo jumbo I also decided to simplify it.

    Way too much emphasis on techniques that in my opinion don't really make any difference.

    If I was competing some of it may make more sense, but to enjoy the outdoor experience of grilling great food on the egg I say KISS.
  • thegrillster, I think you are right. Ive always been a firm KISS believer. I've learned over the years when things start getting complicated, its usually a red flag you are doing it wrong.

    Just dumping in a bunch of lump has always served me well, its only the flaming out this time that made me question my methods. But now that I think back, I realize I followed DigiQ's suggestion of building a pyramid with the wood. And that likely resulted in me putting too little in there.
  • wnbasac
    wnbasac Posts: 34
    anyone got pic's of this installed on the egg???