What time to start smoking brisket, pork butt, or ribs

Worked example: 12 lb brisket for Saturday 6:00 PM

A 12 lb packer at 225 F, served Saturday at 6:00 PM, with a 2 hr rest and a 1 hr 30 min cushion, on an 18 lb hopper at the generic 0.85 lb/hr seed. These numbers come from the same code as the planner above.

1. Cook time: about 16 hr 30 min. Weather does not change the clock in our model, only the pellets.
2. Work back from serve: 2 hr of rest puts the latest pull at Saturday 4:00 PM. The 1 hr 30 min cushion moves the planned pull to Saturday 2:30 PM.
3. Take away the cook time and the meat goes on Friday 10:00 PM (the day before).
4. Light the grill 15 min earlier in mild weather (Friday 9:45 PM), or 30 min earlier in winter (Friday 9:30 PM).

Now the hopper, mild versus winter:

• Mild: about 14.4 lb of pellets at 0.85 lb/hr. A full hopper runs about 20 hr 46 min from meat on, so no refill on paper. About 3.6 lb is left at the pull, under the 4 lb line on a cook of 8 hours or more, so it still flags "long cook, thin pellet margin". Fill it right before bed.
• Winter: same clock, about 29.8 lb at 1.78 lb/hr (2.1x). A full hopper runs about 9 hr 53 min, so it goes dry about Saturday 7:53 AM. Refill by Saturday 7:23 AM, and one top off carries it to the pull.

If the cook uses the whole cushion, add about 1.3 lb in mild weather or 2.7 lb in winter. The brisket clock by weight is on how long to smoke brisket, and empty hopper overnight covers why hoppers quit at 3 a.m.

How the plan is built

1. Cook hours come from the pellet calculator formula for your meat, weight, and temp. Pellets and hopper hours use your grill's listed hopper and our assumed burn rate, scaled for temp and the weather you pick.
2. Every step is counted as hours before serve: rest, then cushion, then the cook, then preheat. Only at the end do those hours become clock times, labelled serve day, the day before, and so on.
3. The hopper clock starts when the meat goes on. The 0.35 lb startup pad burns during preheat, then a full hopper lasts its run hours at your burn rate. We give a refill time 30 minutes before it is due to run dry, and each later refill assumes you top it back to full.

The cushion is not the stall. The brisket and pork butt lines already leave room for a stall (1.5 hr plus 1.25 hr per lb for brisket, 0.5 hr plus 1.4 hr per lb for pork). Adding stall hours on top would count it twice. The cushion is for everything else: a late start, wind, a lid you kept opening, a cut that just takes longer. If the meat finishes on time, the cushion simply turns into a longer hold.

Clock times ignore daylight saving changes. If your cook crosses one, shift the early times by an hour.

Where the defaults come from

• Brisket rest: 2 hr. Meathead's brisket recipe says to hold it wrapped "for at least 2 hours", and in a cooler for 2 to 4 hours. Aaron Franklin told a Texas A&M audience he holds his in a warmer at 140 F for two to three hours. Sources: AmazingRibs (Meathead), Texas brisket recipe, NPR, The Salt: rested barbecue (quotes Aaron Franklin).
• Pork butt rest: 2 hr. NPR's backyard cooler method says to leave the wrapped meat alone "for a couple of hours, depending on size," and that big meats like pork shoulder improve with a long hold. Source: NPR, The Salt: rested barbecue (quotes Aaron Franklin).
• Spare ribs and baby backs: 30 min. Beef ribs: 1 hr. The same NPR piece says a rack of pork ribs wants "only about a half-hour to an hour of resting." We use the short end for pork ribs and the long end for beef ribs, which are bigger. Source: NPR, The Salt: rested barbecue (quotes Aaron Franklin).
• Pork loin: 3 min. Salmon and sausage: none. That is the FSIS 3 minute rest for whole cuts of pork. FSIS lists no rest time for fish or ground meat. Source: USDA FSIS, Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.
• Turkey rest: 20 min. Whole chicken: 15 min. Wings: none. FSIS says to let a turkey stand 20 minutes before carving so the juices set and it carves more easily. Traeger's whole smoked chicken recipe rests the bird 15 minutes before carving. FSIS lists no rest time for poultry otherwise, and wings have nothing to carve. The rest comes after the bird reaches 165 F, not instead of it. Sources: USDA FSIS, Let's Talk Turkey: A Consumer Guide to Safely Roasting a Turkey, Traeger, Whole Smoked Chicken recipe.
• Cushion: 1 hr 30 min. Turkey: 1 hr. Whole chicken and wings: 30 min. Meathead's advice for long cooks is to start "an hour or more earlier than you think necessary" and hold the meat if it finishes early. We default a little past that hour. Source: AmazingRibs (Meathead), faux Cambro. The shorter poultry cushions are our call, not a published number. A bird cooks in hours, not half a day, so there is less time for the clock to drift, and a long hold is mostly time spent keeping it at 140 F.
• Preheat: 15 min, or 30 min in cold and winter. Traeger says its AC and D2 grills typically preheat within 15 minutes, lid closed and no food on the grate, and that weather, a dirty grill, and set temp can stretch it. Its Timberline and Woodridge grills can take up to 30 minutes, and touchscreen Timberline and Ironwood grills 30 to 45 minutes on the first few cooks. Source: Traeger Support, How to Start Your Traeger Pellet Grill.
• Refill lead: 30 minutes. This one is our call, not a published number. Hopper hours are an estimate, so the refill time sits half an hour ahead of the dry time.

Holding the meat safely

The plan tells you when, not whether it is done. Use a probe. FSIS sets 145 F with at least a 3 minute rest for beef and pork roasts, steaks, and chops, 160 F for ground meat like sausage, 145 F for fish, and 165 F for all poultry. Brisket and pork butt get cooked far past that for texture. Source: USDA FSIS, Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.

For poultry, FSIS says the smoker should hold 225 to 300 F the whole cook, and its turkey smoking guidance covers unstuffed 8 to 12 lb birds. Sources: USDA FSIS, Smoking Meat and Poultry, USDA FSIS, Turkey: Alternate Routes to the Table.

FSIS says to keep hot food at 140 F or above if you are not serving it right away, and never to leave food out of refrigeration more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90 F. Source: USDA FSIS, "Danger Zone" (40 F to 140 F).

A towel-lined cooler (a "faux Cambro") is how most people hold a brisket or butt through the rest and cushion. Meathead says he has kept meats in one for three hours "well above 150°F". That is his result, not a promise for your cooler, and we do not give a safe hold time of our own. Leave a probe in and check it stays at 140 F or above. Source: AmazingRibs (Meathead), faux Cambro. The food-safety disclaimer has the rest of the USDA minimums.

Questions people ask

What time should I start a brisket for 6 PM dinner?

For a 12 lb packer at 225 F with a 2 hr rest and a 1 hr 30 min cushion, the meat goes on about 10:00 PM the day before, and the grill gets lit at 9:45 PM (9:30 PM in winter). A heavier packer goes on earlier. Put your weight in the planner above.

Should I start a pork butt overnight?

Often, yes. A 8 lb butt at 225 F is about 11 hr 42 min. For a 6:00 PM dinner with a 2 hr rest and the default cushion, it goes on about 2:48 AM (serve day). Meathead's pulled pork advice is the same: to serve at noon, get up in the middle of the night (AmazingRibs (Meathead), pulled pork recipe). Ribs are a day cook: a 2.5 lb rack of spares goes on about 10:12 AM for the same dinner. For pork fuel, see pellets for pork shoulder.

Will my hopper last overnight?

Depends on the grill and the weather more than the meat. In the example above, an 18 lb hopper covers the mild night with 3.6 lb to spare, but runs dry about 7:53 AM in winter. Pick your model in the planner and it gives you the dry time and a refill time. Listed hoppers are in the grill database.

What time should I put a turkey on?

A 14 lb turkey at 325 F is about 3 hr 33 min in our model. Traeger puts a 14 to 18 lb bird at 325 F at 3.5 to 4.5 hours, and the USDA roasting chart says 3 to 3.75 hours for an unstuffed 12 to 14 lb bird. For a 6:00 PM dinner with a 20 min rest and the default cushion, it goes on about 1:07 PM and the grill gets lit at 12:52 PM. At that heat a full 18 lb hopper runs about 13 hr 21 min on the generic seed, so it covers the cook with about 13.0 lb left.

If the bird finishes on time, rest plus cushion is 1 hr 20 min of hold, since a turkey defaults to a 1 hr cushion. Keep it covered and at 140 F or above. Pull on the probe, not the clock: 165 F in the thickest part of the breast and the innermost part of the thigh and wing. Do not stuff a turkey you smoke. FSIS says the stuffing can lag behind 165 F at smoker heat, so stuffed timings only apply to roasting at 325 F or above. Sources: Traeger, How Long To Cook a Turkey On a Pellet Grill, USDA FSIS, Let's Talk Turkey: A Consumer Guide to Safely Roasting a Turkey, USDA FSIS, Turkey: Alternate Routes to the Table. A 5 lb whole chicken at 350 F is shorter still, about 1 hr 45 min, so for the same dinner it goes on about 3:30 PM.

How long should brisket rest?

We default to 2 hr, the minimum in Meathead's recipe and the low end of what Franklin described to NPR. Longer is fine if it stays at 140 F or above. If the brisket finishes on time, the cushion adds to the rest, so plan a cooler that holds it.

Still sizing the cook? How much meat per person turns a guest count into raw pounds, and the methodology writes the whole formula out.