Smoking Time and Temperatures
Every once in a while we like to do a guest post. Today is one of those times. Below is a chart and intro made up for us by Joe, at SmokedBBQSource. He’s developing a website full of resources useful to the BBQ community, and he has shared his latest efforts with us. I found this little chart of smoking times and temperatures to be an effective and handy reference, thus we humbly pass it along to the PotP readership for your kind perusal. Enjoy!
And thanks Joe!
-PotP
From Smoked BBQ Source:
You probably already know how important managing temperature is when you barbecue. You’ve got to closely monitor your smoker and make sure it stays within the right temperature range for hours at a time.
You’ve also got to know the right time to pull your meat off the smoker so you’re not left with a dry, overcooked mess.
While most meat can be smoked between 225 – 250°F, the best temperature to pull is going to vary a lot with what you’re cooking.
While there are no hard and fast rules, this visual, smoking time and temperature chart is a good resource to check before you fire up the smoker.
Just remember that it all comes down to your individual setup. Use this guide as a starting point, and then experiment to see what works best for you.
Here are a few other pieces of advice:
The smoking time suggestions as a very rough estimate: The problem with using hours / lb to estimate smoking time, is that the thickness and diameter of what your smoking is more important than the total weight.
There’s also a lot of other factors like humidity and how well insulted your smoker is that can effect total smoker time. Bottom line, always use a digital thermometer to determine when your food is ready.
There’s a big difference between ‘done’ and ‘ready to eat’: If you always pull your meat when it reaches a safe internal temp, you will be missing out on a world of flavor. In many cases you want to go well past the ‘recommended safe temperature’ as the collagen and fats continue to melt and make your meat even more juicy.
-smokedbbqsource
Patrons of the Pit 
That’s some extremely valuable information! It’ll be my new “go to” for meat temps. Takes all the guess work out, don’t ya know. Thanks for sharing.
March 20, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Roger that Mrs Deerslayer. Thanks to Joe for sharing. We will just reap his efforts. Yeah, it’s good info for the carnivore cook!
Bless ya, Mrs Deerslayer!
March 20, 2017 at 4:44 pm
Bookmarked that one! Mahalo PotP for sharing. ⭐
March 21, 2017 at 11:36 am
Good stuff. I’ll have to print that out and post it on the fence. I should make a copy for my mother-in-law, too. She invited us over for dinner on Sunday. Pulled pork tacos was on the menu. Her recipe told her to put the pork shoulder in the oven at 300 degrees for three hours. I let her know that we would be eating raw pork if we followed that recipe. We kept it in for 4 hours just to get enough cooked meat to work with, but much of the slab was still a bit raw. I would have cooked it longer, but it was after 8pm on a school night so we needed to eat and get home. Mom learned an important lesson: leave the pork shoulder cooking to her dear son-in-law. Cheers.
March 21, 2017 at 11:09 pm
Mercy! The plight of the big butts. She is lucky to have a student of the smokey arts at her disposal, in you. Big meats take time for sure. Most good things do, it seems.
Hey, it must getting closer to that hallowed time of year where Todd Baker performs his annual “first light” of the grill, signifying the start of the 2017 grilling season. Your winter’s hiatus surely must be wrapping up sometime soon. And the wood smoke will curl again in Washington.
March 22, 2017 at 8:29 am
Yup. My daughter’s birthday is April 2nd, so I think we’ll be celebrating with a couple slabs of spareribs. Grilling season is upon me.
March 22, 2017 at 8:45 pm
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