A big part of this site is our unbiased equipment and product reviews. We love playing with toys and we have no problem calling them the way we see them. Some companies pay a finder's fee if a reader clicks a link on AmazingRibs.com and buys a product. It has zero impact on our reviews, zero impact on the price you pay, and the sites never tell us what you bought, but it has a major impact on our ability to keep this site alive! So before you buy, please click our links. Here’s a link that takes you to a page on Amazon that has some of our favorite tools and toys: https://tinyurl.com/amazingribs
If you have a Weber Kettle, you need the Slow 'N' Sear
The Slow 'N' Sear turns your grill into a first class smoker and also creates an extremely hot sear zone you can use to create steakhouse steaks.
The Good-One Is A Superb Grill And A Superb Smoker All In One
The Good-One Open Range is dramatically different from a traditional offset smoker. By placing the heat source behind and under the smokebox instead of off to the side, Open Range produces even temperature from left to right, something almost impossible to achieve with a standard barrel shaped offset.
The flat top does the burgers and the fryer does the fries. Use the griddle for bacon, eggs, and home fries. Or pancakes, fajitas, grilled cheese, you name it. Why stink up the house deep frying and spatter all over? Do your fried chicken and calamari outside. Blackstone's Rangetop Combo With Deep Fryer does it all!
The PBC has a rabid cult following for good reason. It is absolutely positively without a doubt the best bargain on a smoker in the world. Period. This baby will cook circles around the cheap offset sideways barrel smokers because temperature control is so much easier.
Genesis II E-335 A Versatile Gasser That Does It All!
Weber’s Genesis line has long been one of the most popular choices for gas grillers. The new Genesis II E-335 offers solid performance, a sear burner for sizzling heat and an excellent warranty.
GrillGrates(TM) amplify heat, prevent flareups, make flipping foods easier, kill hotspots, flip over to make a fine griddle, and can be easily rmoved from one grill to another. You can even throw wood chips, pellets, or sawdust between the rails and deliver a quick burst of smoke.
The PK-360, with 360 square inches of cooking space, this rust free, cast aluminum charcoal grill is durable and easy to use. Four-way venting means it's easy to set up for two zone cooking with more control than single vent Kamado grills. It is beautifully designed, completely portable, and much easier to set up for 2-zone cooking than any round kamado.
The amazing Karubecue is the most innovative smoker in the world. The quality of meat from this machine is astonishing. At its crux is a patented firebox that burns logs above the cooking chamber and sucks heat and extremely clean blue smoke into the thermostat controlled oven. It is our favorite smoker, period.
This is the first propane smoker with a thermostat, making this baby foolproof. Set ThermoTemp's dial from 175° to 350°F and the thermostat inside will adjust the burner just like an indoor kitchen oven. All you need to do is add wood to the tray above the burner to start smokin'.
Digital Thermometers Are Your Most Valuable Tool And Here's A Great Buy!
A good digital thermometer keeps you from serving dry overcooked food or dangerously undercooked food. They are much faster and much more accurate than dial thermometers. YOU NEED ONE!
FireBoard Drive 2 is an updated version of a well-received product that sets the standard for performance and functionality in the wireless food thermometer/thermostatic controller class.
The Cool Kettle With The Hinged Hood We Always Wanted
Napoleon's NK22CK-C Charcoal Kettle Grill puts a few spins on the familiar kettle design. In fact, the hinged lid with a handle on the front, spins in a rotary motion 180 degrees. It's hard to beat a Weber kettle, but Napoleon holds its own and adds some unique features to make the NK22CK-C a viable alternative.
Green Mountain's portable Davy Crockett Pellet Smoker is one mean tailgating and picnic machine. But it's also gaining popularity with people who want to add a small, set it and forget it pellet smoker to their backyard arsenal. And with their WiFi capabilities you can control and monitor Davy Crocket from your smart phone or laptop.
The BBQ Guru DynaQ is a two-channel, Bluetooth connected wireless remote food thermometer and thermostatic controller that runs on a supplied AC power supply or an optional 12VDC battery. It comes with an articulated mounting stand that can be attached to a surface with either its own magnet or included screws. There are several adapters available to mate the fan module to a variety of cookers.
Setting up the unit is easy using the free Apple or Android app. Connection between the smart phone app and the DynaQ control is made via Bluetooth.
The display unit is shaped like the letter Q and indicates the temperature status of the displayed probe. If the temperature is below the setting, the color displays blue. If the cooker is within the user-selectable temperature band, it's red. If the temp gets too high, it flashes red. There is also a Bluetooth connection status LED in the lower right corner of the display.
The app allows you to set up your cooking temperature and control a number of features incorporated into the product. You can turn the light show on or off, set target temperatures, enable open-lid detection, control temperature ramping (from the cooking temperature to a keep-warm temperature), and modify the behavior of the temperature controller. You can view temperature vs. time graphs for each probe. The control alerts you to food doneness and cooker temperatures with audible and visible alarms.
The fan module attaches to the cooker adapter and has an integral damper to allow you to restrict airflow. This is helpful for controlling temperature fluctuations due to thermal airflow. The damper can be closed when the cook is done to extinguish and save the remaining fuel.
The probes are advertised as being dishwasher-safe, a rare feature. Most probes are susceptible to damage from submersion, and care must be taken while cleaning the probes. I'm glad to see that this should not be a concern with BBQ Guru's probes.
The temperature control algorithm used in the DynaQ is identical to the one used in its big brother, the UltraQ. Rather than repeat the test, I'm providing the results from the UltraQ. I tested the behavior of the thermostatic controller using a small clamshell cooker to prepare a batch of baby back ribs. As you can see from the graph, the UltraQ held the temperature quite steady. I may have slightly over-fired the cooker, and this resulted in some temperature overshoot at the beginning. Temps stayed within acceptable boundaries until the fuel was exhausted. I had the open-lid detector enabled and ramping disabled. Click on the graph below to see an enlarged version.
A well-written 18 page user's manual is downloadable from the company's website. It covers all facets of operation and should make the learning curve short and easy, even for a beginner. Contact info, including a snail-mail address, e-mail address, website and telephone number, is included in the manual should the user encounter any problems. The control and the fan are warrantied for two years and the probes are covered for 90 days.
This is a well-made thermostatic controller that performs well and is adaptable to a wide variety of cookers. Info on the adapter kits is available on the BBQ Guru website. I didn't find anything to dislike, so I'm awarding it a Silver Medal. If you need more channels and like the ability to access the control from anywhere, you might consider the BBQ Guru UltraQ which features four probes and Wi-Fi connectivity. Read the review here.
Bill McGrath is AmazingRibs.com's Thermometer Maven. He has sophisticated equipment, an electrical engineering degree from Cornell University, and an MBA (almost) from UC Berkeley. Despite being mostly retired, he is still the person responsible for developing and updating all of ExxonMobil's electricians' training modules.
If you help us, we’ll pay you back bigtime with an ad free experience and much more!
Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 4,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner like TV network or a magazine publisher to subsidize us.
Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club, but please don’t think of it as a donation. Members get 21 great benefits. We block all third party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial membership, and help keep this site alive.
Post comments and questions below
1) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.
2) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer.
3) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different than your membership login.
If you help us, we’ll pay you back bigtime with an ad free experience and much more!
Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 4,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner like TV network or a magazine publisher to subsidize us.
Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club, but please don’t think of it as a donation. Members get 21 great benefits. We block all third party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial membership, and help keep this site alive.
Post comments and questions below
1) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.
2) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer.
3) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different than your membership login.
Moderators