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BBQ GURU?

Eggspert
Eggspert Posts: 142
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
Is it worth the money? What is so great about it? I looking for justification on spending that for that, please help.

Comments

  • The advantage is that it keeps your egg at the exact temp you want. The real beauty is that you will never be on here starting a thread saying how your overnight cook went south because the fire went out, and asking if we think your $40 hunk of meat is still safe.
  • bubba tim
    bubba tim Posts: 3,216
    I have had my egg for 14 years. The Guru is the bomb. No more sleepless nights, you set it and go. Go to sleep, shopping, or whatever. It take ALL the guess work out. You will learn the difference between pit vs dome temp and how to master temp control. Use it for low and slow cooks not for high searing of meats. Nothing above 500 is my recommendation. Bottom line, it is worth it! :)
    SEE YOU IN FLORIDA, March 14th and 15th 2014 http://www.sunshinestateeggfest.com You must master temp, smoke, and time to achive moisture, taste, and texture! Visit www.bubbatim.com for BRISKET HELP
  • batt
    batt Posts: 40
    Good thing about Guru or Stoker is your can go about your normal business and let ATC worry about the cook. Just got my stoker and I am cooking brisket right now.

    Before Stoker: Light fire set vents at about I think they should be. Go back in house wait 15mins or so, check temp. Repeat about 4 times till temp is stable.

    Put on brisket, check temps again half an hour to see how addition of colder temp meat affect cook fiddle with vent a bit more if needed.

    If its a overnight cook. go to bed, set clock for a couple of hours, get up check temps again. If this a a large ambient temp drop, fiddle with vents a bit more. Stay up for a 15 or 20 minutes to make sure temp is stable.

    A couple of hours after sunrise check temps again to see if increase of ambient temp has affected temp.

    Repeat some variation of this till meat is done. If its get windy and you get more air in firebox. Adjust temps.

    Oh, and dont leave the house for more than a trip to the store and dont stay away for to long.

    With ATC you just lit the fire, wait for nasty white smoke to clear, put your meat on and sleep or go about your normal day with no worries. If your or anal, like me, just look at your PC screen and watch a rock sold cook that will stay +/- 2 degrees with your intervention. If you are really anal, use your cell phone or pda to check your cook from the local bar or work.

    I put on my brisket at 1:43am and its 7am. I have not been outside since. As I type right behind this browser window, is my Stoker Log sitting pretty at 234 degrees. If you do low and slow overnite cooks, it well worth the money. If you mostly grill and do high temp cooks, it might not be.
  • I've done several overnighters without a guru and they went well. The first few I ended up sleeping in a recliner so I wouldn't wake my bride getting up to check on things. After success with the first few, I would maybe get up once to check on things. Once the dome temp was down but was able to recover and once the dome temp was up and was able to recover - just glad they were butt cooks and not a brisket. I'm on my 4th smoke with a guru - the first three were simple 6-7 hour rib cooks and like bubba tim said I went shopping, etc. without worrying about the cook. Doing my first overnighter, a brisket, and to be honest I just forgot completely about the cook. It's cruising along just like it is supposed to. I guess it's a piece of mind thing but I'm also glad I did several without a pitminder to bond with the Egg. :woohoo:
  • batt
    batt Posts: 40
    I'm also glad I did several without a pitminder to bond with the Egg.

    I agree with Frank on that point. I cooked on my egg for a year without ATC. I want to master Flying before going on auto pilot.
  • It depends on what you are cooking on a average. If you don't cook Butts, briskets, smokes like this then no save your money. If your into long slow cooks it's worth every penny. It came close for me a few times ruining a good piece of meat. When I got my Guru it made life so easy, now I setup my Egg and Grue and let it go. The first few times I used it I still was up and down all night checking, but now I do like that commercial says, Set it and forget it. :laugh: Good like and happy Egging.
  • Rolling Egg
    Rolling Egg Posts: 1,995
    I will tell you what I did when I started hearing about the guru. As soon as I started posting here as a newbie I was hearing all the rave about this thing. I had just spent 900 on the egg and table so I wasn't about to give up another 250 for a toy. Also, there were veterans on here who wasn't using them and I kinda got the vibe that some felt you dont need it because the egg is great at holding temp anyways. They are correct. If you build your fire correctly and follow the start up and stabilizing steps correctly, then you should not have alot of temp fluctuation all night. You could just ask here and I guarantee there are vets that put there low and slows on and dont wake up all night. With all of that said I personally wanted to learn the egg very well and not depend on the guru. I done this as I've probably cooked several hundred pounds of pork successfully without it. After learning my egg I went ahead and purchased the Guru. It is a wonderfull tool! I like using mine and it does put a lot of insurance in getting a perfect cook everytime. I guess my advise would be to learn the egg well and then go for it. This will help you understand what the guru is doing for you and also If you have a problem with a guru cook, you will probably be able to figure it out rather quickly. Hope this helps. Happy Egging!
  • JPF
    JPF Posts: 592
    You have gotten some great advice up above. I think it's up to you on what you prefer. I have had one for quiet sometime, but hardly use it.
  • flatso
    flatso Posts: 24
    Like Rolling Egg, I just dropped $850 on the egg, so any new toys for it are a while off. That being said, my weekends tend to be hectic and I can't stay at home tending a cook all day. I cooked two butts yesterday and knew I was going to be away for almost 5 hours. I took some extra time and made sure I did my coals right. Everything worked out fine, temp was a little low when I got home but butts came out great.

    I figure I'll crawl a little bit before I start walking the egg. Sounds like something like the guru will be a perfect fit for me eventually.
  • They have a new model coming out in a couple weeks to handle a couple eggs at once.
  • They are if you smoke alot of butts and brisket and LIKE TO SLEEP. We're on the competition circuit and one of my pits *requires* a power drafter. So naturally I bought one from the manufacturer ~ Guru Competitor. It does what it does and does it well.

    HOWEVER, it is not the only game in town. I got another pit and needed another ATC so I did some research and bought a Stoker. With the addition of free software and some network setup the Stoker allows you to:

    -monitor and control your pit over your wireless network
    -If you configure your firewall correctly you can do the above over the internet.
    -Ramp up/ramp down/open door functions
    -charting of your smokes
    -ability to email the chart at regular intervals
    -ability to expand the feature set using custom software developed by third parties

    all that with out of the box features like being able to monitor more than on meat temperature per pit and monitoring more that 2 pits at once. I know some teams competing have 4 WSMs and 1 stoker controlling all of them.

    Now I know the Guru guys have released the CyberQII and it does look pretty and probably has a better user interface but from what I've seen on the features list it falls short on what I already have in the Stoker and at an estimated cost of $100 more.

    It's a little early to start a Stoker vs CyberQII thread here since the Guru guys haven't released a full feature set including the software used to control it via USB port. Once that happens I'll be glad to chime in.

    -rob
  • I have been using one since '03 and a ProCom 4 since I saw it at Eggtoberfest '04. I can check and adjust my temp without leaving the couch! I know all the vent positions for various cooking temperatures like I know the back of my hand, but they're accurate for "average" conditions. Cold days, hot days, windy days, rainy days all throw a bit of a wrench in the works (thank God I don't have snow days!). The Gurus just make perfect temperature control easy to achieve.

    What I'm hoping for is one that has a built in WiFi antenna so that I can mess with it over the Internet.
  • egger66
    egger66 Posts: 385
    Is it difficult to set up? Are any modifications to the Egg necessary?
  • With the Stoker or DigiQII and buying either correctly, no there is no modifications.

    The q2 is probably a little easier to set up than the Stoker. Both are a walk in the park.

    Yes, your fire can still go out early with a vertical burn using a powered vent system. Lighting the lump in several places will resolve that potential problem.

    GG
  • Is it worth the money, by all means. However, if you don't have a Thermopen, that is first on the list IMO.

    Most of the advantages have been stated above.

    The justification of getting is probably the same as getting the egg... Your want it!

    Is it necessary, not really. The egg is very capable of doing long cooks, holding steady temperatures without a powered vent system.

    Some will say you need to learn well how to control your egg via the vents before getting a powered vent system. Getting a q2 or stoker is kind of like adding power windows, door locks & air conditioning to a very nice car. None are a must have - but it sure is nice.

    I don't use mine as much as I did when I first got it.

    For me it is not so much loosing the cost of meat on a cook. It is more the possibility of disappointing myself when I want to serve something nice to some guests.

    I love the PVC when braising in the egg, which I do a lot, also with soups and such.

    The powered vent control allows me to keep the liquid at very stable temperature and where I want that temperature.

    GG
  • Owned my egg for almost a year and didn't plan to invest in a guru. Figured it was a "nice to have" item but that I could do just as well without it. I used a wireless Maverick ET-73 thermometer to keep an eye on the temps during long cooks and I got pretty good at controlling the temps, however it still required a few trips back and forth to make adjustments when needed.

    Vent adjustments were almost always needed because the lump burns differently as the lump is consumed and the ash settles. Even if you don't mind making the adjustments manually, you still need to watch that thermometer constantly and worry if it loses a signal. Also, with manual control you will get a wider range of temp swings during the cook because manual adjustments are not as quick or precise.

    I found a great deal on a used guru competitor model and decided to invest. The guru was easy to setup, easy to use, works great, and it keeps the temps locked in a pretty narrow range the entire time. It is still possible for the fire to get out of control with the guru. Poorly stacked lump, damp lump, not enough lump, high winds, clogged fire grate holes, etc. can all cause the egg to jump up too high or too low despite the guru's best efforts. And if you have a power outage during the cook then all bets are off, which is why I rigged mine to run off a 12V lead acid battery with a solar charger.

    After trying both methods I am definitely sold on the guru. I use it for every single cook because it helps to light the egg and bring it up to cooking temps much faster. I only use the meat probe on low and slows and I only use the pit probe when cooking at or below 400 but I use the fan every time. After all the recent attacks on Fred, I decided to buy a DigiQ-II model from his store and give my competitor model to a family member. The new unit should be here any day and I can hardly wait to try it out. The open-lid detect feature will be a nice bonus.
  • You will liek the q2. It will also help you do lower temperature cooks.

    I have found if after the egg is at temperature if one closed down the fan damper the temperature overshooting is all but eliminated. With the damper wide open for me there is still too much free air flowing into the lower vent.

    With the q2 I use the maverick ET-73 as well, gives me remote monitoring.

    GG
  • Thanks GG.

    The lowest setting on my competitor pit temp dial is 175 F. I just used that setting for the first time tonight to smoke a batch of beef snack sticks which were already cooked, they just needed smoked but I was worried about burning or drying them out. The guru did a great job of maintaining 175 F for the entire 2.5 hours.

    I was a little surprised by this because I always leave my power draft fan vent wide open and the daisy wheel at 1/3 to 1/2 open while cooking regardless of the pit temp, so I expected the significant airflow to make anything under 200 F difficult to maintain but the guru handled it with ease. It may help that my egg sits in an enclosed table so it is protected from wind or drafts, and right now I am cooking with the front doors mostly closed because it is winter here and no need for extra ventilation of the table.

    I am anxious to try the DigiQ-II but am mainly looking forward to the open-dome detection feature. The competitor doesn't have that so I had to manually unplug the fan when opening the dome, then waiting 2-3 minutes to plug it back in after the dome was closed again. If it has other new features then those are just gravy, so to speak.

    In truth the main reason that I upgraded to the DigiQ-II is that I wanted to give my existing unit to someone else and I wanted to support Fred. Both goals accomplished so I am feeling good. :)