Smoking at 225 compared to 180 or lower on pellet smokers

[kstone113]

Hey all,

What are people's thoughts are smoking on pellet smokers on lower temps vs a slightly high temp like 225 which still gives a good amount of smoke but gives that little bit more heat. Does that little extra heat allow more smoke to be absorbed compared to the lower temps?

I've had my Rec Tec Bull over a year now and just got used to starting a lot of meats at 180(low or Xtreme smoke setting) and not 225. Although a lot of recipes do 225. Perhaps it is just because of time but just got me thinking.

Any thoughts and articles on science of this is appreciated!

Ken

 

[smokerjim]

meat usually slows down taking on smoke when it hits the 140-145 degree mark, so if you want more smoke start at lower temp so the meat stays under 140 longer and spends more time soaking up the smoke. this is my opinion.

 

[tallbm]

Hey all,

What are people's thoughts are smoking on pellet smokers on lower temps vs a slightly high temp like 225 which still gives a good amount of smoke but gives that little bit more heat. Does that little extra heat allow more smoke to be absorbed compared to the lower temps?

I've had my Rec Tec Bull over a year now and just got used to starting a lot of meats at 180(low or Xtreme smoke setting) and not 225. Although a lot of recipes do 225. Perhaps it is just because of time but just got me thinking.

Any thoughts and articles on science of this is appreciated!

Ken

Well the only thing that REALLY matters about the temp is whether or not u are safely cooking the meat.

If you smoke a chicken, meat loaf, or an uncured sausage/lunch meat type item and u put on 180F and it takes 10 hours to hit 140-160F Internal Temp (IT) then I would be very wary that u basically created a botulism or salmonella bombs lol.

If you are smoking something with little to no safety risk like a cured item then there is no issue with going 180F vs 225F.

As long as u can be safe u can start as low as u like. I do my chicken wings really low temp like 180-190 for a couple of hours and then finish them on the grill to actually cook them and to get the skin right. This is safe cause I get that chicken to safe internal temps well before the general 4 hour guideline.

Other things to consider with temp are the following:

• Chicken/Turkey skin comes out like leather or rubber if not cooked at a high enough temp. I find 325F to always give edible skin. Others go lower but I havent had much CONSISTENT luck unless my smoker is at 315-325F cooking temp or above.
• Briskets and pork butts and ribs don't really care what temp you cook/smoke them at. So i go 275F to finish faster. If i could go higher i would but i dont wanna stress the insulation in my rewired MES unit since the insulation is probably not rated much over 300F.
• With a pellet grill/smoker, the lower your temp the more smoke u get. This is just the way fire and smoke works. If you want more smoke with higher temps in this situation then many people use a pellet smoker tube to generate additional smoke separate from what the pellet grill is producing while burning the pellets for heat.
• If something cooks fast like boneless skinless chicken breast then lowering the temp to get more smoke time is something to consider.... again as long as the meat is cooked within a safe time period. I can smoke boneless skinles chicken breast in like an hour and a half but I turn the smoker down low to get at least 2-2.5 hrs of smoke on them so I balance the heat vs amount of smoke in such a case.

I hope this info helps and Im sure others will chime in on what safe vs not safe as I have intentially not covered every case under the sun. My intent was to raise the awareness so u can go from there and the safety needed depending on what u are smoking as different meats and different approaches (cured vs not) lead to different safety practices :)

 

[chef jimmyj]

Tallbm, my friend, you hit the nail,on the head!
Safety is the biggest concern. Most recipes for smoking Uncured Meat recommends 225 because testing, sponsored by the USDA, shows that any Injected, Ground, Boned and Tied, Multiple Punctured, Poulty or Enhanced meat, will get to a safe IT of 140 in about 4 hours.
For Intact meat, only the Surface has to get above 140, to kill active Bacteria, so Smoking a couple hours at temps of 150°F+, is perfectly Safe. It is still recommended that you raise the heat after 2 to 4 hours to 225+. This will kill any Bacterial Spores that may exist.
So, Smoke your Ribs at 180 if you wish but that Meatloaf should be smoked at 225+...JJ

 

[Chasdev]

All I can offer is that cooking a 15lb packer brisket at 225 on my pellet burner takes close to 24 hours.
Meat is very tender with decent smoke profile but perhaps a little dry.
I've switched to hot and fast and like the results more than low and slow.
225 for two hours to set some smoke then up to 350, no wrap, until done.

 

[thirdeye]

meat usually slows down taking on smoke when it hits the 140-145 degree mark, so if you want more smoke start at lower temp so the meat stays under 140 longer and spends more time soaking up the smoke. this is my opinion.

Cold moist meat will take a little more smoke but it's the reaction that forms the smoke ring that stops in the 140° range. Meat will continue to take smoke flavor until it's inedible.

 

[kstone113]

Well the only thing that REALLY matters about the temp is whether or not u are safely cooking the meat.

If you smoke a chicken, meat loaf, or an uncured sausage/lunch meat type item and u put on 180F and it takes 10 hours to hit 140-160F Internal Temp (IT) then I would be very wary that u basically created a botulism or salmonella bombs lol.

If you are smoking something with little to no safety risk like a cured item then there is no issue with going 180F vs 225F.

As long as u can be safe u can start as low as u like. I do my chicken wings really low temp like 180-190 for a couple of hours and then finish them on the grill to actually cook them and to get the skin right. This is safe cause I get that chicken to safe internal temps well before the general 4 hour guideline.

Other things to consider with temp are the following:

• Chicken/Turkey skin comes out like leather or rubber if not cooked at a high enough temp. I find 325F to always give edible skin. Others go lower but I havent had much CONSISTENT luck unless my smoker is at 315-325F cooking temp or above.
• Briskets and pork butts and ribs don't really care what temp you cook/smoke them at. So i go 275F to finish faster. If i could go higher i would but i dont wanna stress the insulation in my rewired MES unit since the insulation is probably not rated much over 300F.
• With a pellet grill/smoker, the lower your temp the more smoke u get. This is just the way fire and smoke works. If you want more smoke with higher temps in this situation then many people use a pellet smoker tube to generate additional smoke separate from what the pellet grill is producing while burning the pellets for heat.
• If something cooks fast like boneless skinless chicken breast then lowering the temp to get more smoke time is something to consider.... again as long as the meat is cooked within a safe time period. I can smoke boneless skinles chicken breast in like an hour and a half but I turn the smoker down low to get at least 2-2.5 hrs of smoke on them so I balance the heat vs amount of smoke in such a case.

I hope this info helps and Im sure others will chime in on what safe vs not safe as I have intentially not covered every case under the sun. My intent was to raise the awareness so u can go from there and the safety needed depending on what u are smoking as different meats and different approaches (cured vs not) lead to different safety practices :)

Thank you for the great explanation. I think I was just thinking about it too much.

And thank you everyone for your responses! Greatly appreciated!

 

[mike guy]

I didn't really care for the result. The smoke flavor was increased a bit, but I don't like cooking at that low of a temp for a while for a few reasons. I like to smoke at a little higher temp. 275-300 even. I feel like the fat renders a little better that way and results in a better cook. Not to mention it cooks faster.

What I did instead was increase the thermal mass of the cook chamber with water pan and a firebrick. This means the cooker could tolerate swings in fire without heavy swings in temperature. So for the first few hours of any cook, I'd set my cook temp at about 275 or whatever I was feeling. Then I would cycle the low smoke setting on and off every 15-20 minutes. You can set a temp alarm to remind you if the cooker drops below 250 or whatever. Little 15 degree swings are fine. With the extra thermal mass, you can easily get 20+ minutes out of this cycle so you aren't doing it a bunch.

I don't really do this now that I'm using the smoke daddy cold smoker, but I had pretty decent results with it on a few cooks.

 

[thirdeye]

Smoky Hale, the author of The Great American Barbecue & Grilling Manual is one of the true Lo-N-Slo cooks, and he cooks in that 215° to 225° range. It's pretty hard to maintain those temps on some wood or charcoal pits so most people call 250° their Lo-N-Slo choice. I cook prime rib at 225° and I still cook pork butts in the 230° - 240° range unless it's for competition, but my butt is so trimmed down and I'm only using a few muscle groups anyway. The rest of my meats are cooked around 275°.

However, a pellet cooker is designed to monitor and hold temps, and my only concern would be cooking things like ribs, butts, or brisket in the 180°'s because their finish temps are 200°+. You would never get there.

 

[mike guy]

One thing I've learned about old school bbq methods is that temperatures were seldom measured properly at the grates, so take specific numbers with a huge grain of salt. And the other thing I learned about cooking with all wood fires is that you cook at the temp your smoker runs best at. Your cooker dictates your temperature, not your meat. Your firebox size, metal thickness, air draw, and all kinds of variables means every cooker is going to be different. One thing I've noted is the bigger the pit, the easier it is to draw clean smoke at 225.

The smaller backyard pits tend to need to push more air through the firebox to keep the fire clean. More air means more heat. Well usually, depends on fuel mass, but a lot of backyard cookers don't go with small splits. A lot of lang backyard owners swear by 275 as their magic number. Franklin runs his commercial pits as 275 for all meats. He has said he does that because there is more momentum through the stall for briskets, but also because that's just what the pits settle in at.

Anyway, not trying to counter point anything or say any temp is wrong. Just that I wouldn't get too hung up on specific cooking temps quoted from others because you never know what kind of cooker they were running.

 

[thirdeye]

One thing I've learned about old school bbq methods is that temperatures were seldom measured properly at the grates, so take specific numbers with a huge grain of salt. And the other thing I learned about cooking with all wood fires is that you cook at the temp your smoker runs best at. Your cooker dictates your temperature, not your meat. Your firebox size, metal thickness, air draw, and all kinds of variables means every cooker is going to be different. One thing I've noted is the bigger the pit, the easier it is to draw clean smoke at 225.

The smaller backyard pits tend to need to push more air through the firebox to keep the fire clean. More air means more heat. Well usually, depends on fuel mass, but a lot of backyard cookers don't go with small splits. A lot of lang backyard owners swear by 275 as their magic number. Franklin runs his commercial pits as 275 for all meats. He has said he does that because there is more momentum through the stall for briskets, but also because that's just what the pits settle in at.

Anyway, not trying to counter point anything or say any temp is wrong. Just that I wouldn't get too hung up on specific cooking temps quoted from others because you never know what kind of cooker they were running.

You are generally correct. The first smoker I bought with a thermometer was in 2002 or 2003. So, for 15 years before that I was cooking by feel, by watching and by listening to the meat sizzle. I so have a number of remote thermometers, forced draft fans..... nothing bluetooth yet though. I guess the longer I cook, the less complicated it becomes.

 

[bregent]

However, a pellet cooker is designed to monitor and hold temps, and my only concern would be cooking things like ribs, butts, or brisket in the 180°'s because their finish temps are 200°+. You would never get there.

You don't need to get to 200° - the finish temp is the temp at which the meat reaches the tenderness you desire, not a specific temperature. If you cook at brisket at 180F, it will take a long time but will eventually become tender. I've cooked a brisket on my pellet cooker at an average temp of 200° and when it was done the IT was 190°.

 

[bregent]

All I can offer is that cooking a 15lb packer brisket at 225 on my pellet burner takes close to 24 hours.

Wow, that is a long time. A 14lb (after trim) brisket on my pellet cooker takes about 12 hours - running at 180 for the first 6 and 225 for the last 6 for an average of 200°. Have you verified the grate temperature?

 

[thirdeye]

You don't need to get to 200° - the finish temp is the temp at which the meat reaches the tenderness you desire, not a specific temperature. If you cook at brisket at 180F, it will take a long time but will eventually become tender. I've cooked a brisket on my pellet cooker at an average temp of 200° and when it was done the IT was 190°.

But cooking at 180°, the meat never gets higher, just like your sous vide bath. For conversation purposes..... How long do you suppose a brisket takes to tender up at 180°?

 

[waltiti]

Hello, I see people with a lot of knowledge and maybe can give me some advice.

I like smoked Boston butt, picnic, brisket, and beef ribs. I like a light smoke flavor not too strong, so I cook around 275 smoker temp and I use cherry or not strong woods.

Normally I remove the meat from the smoker at 200 meat internal temp.

I love meat super tender but dont fall apart when you cut it, for example, if I pull it by hand comes out in chunks, and if I want to slice it, can make a slice, and dont fall in small pieces.

I think 180 is when the collagen is fully dissolved, so If I remove it at 170 because the temp will keep rising on the rest time, will be at the end 180 or close?

So, what is the recommended internal temperature to remove the meat from the smoker and reach at the end 180, or what do you recommend to me so the meat finishes super tender but does not fall into small pieces.?

Thanks
Walt

 

[Marknmd]

Opinions will vary. Temps are a big part of cooking, but time is also a huge factor.

I think a lot of the magic of tender beef and pork is the rest or the hold AFTER it's cooked. Rest is where you put it in a cambro or cooler wrapped up for a time. Hold is putting it in a warming device such as a low oven at 150 F or so for a time.

Re cooking, my personal opinion is you need the meat to hit at least 190 IT for it to be tender. 180 will not be hot enough. 190 may also not be hot enough, but 180 you have no chance. To take it to only 190, I think you will likely need to hold it for quite a while. Each animal is different. When you think it might be tender, you really need to poke it with a bamboo skewer or similar tool to determine its tenderness.

There is a guy on youtube who suggests cooking a brisket to 190, then wrapping and holding at 150 F for 10-16 hours. I tried this and it was very successful.

Good luck.

 

[chopsaw]

Here's a thread I did on sliced pork cushion . It was also phosphate injected , so that helps with tenderness . I mixed my own , but you can buy some Tony Chachere injections at the store . They work well too .
There's some time and temps in the thread that might help you .

Smoke Roasted Pork cushion

I started buying pork cushions at GFS when they were cheaper that pork butts . They come from the area of the picnic on the animal , and make a great ham . I found a couple in the freezer and thought I would do some roast pork . 185 to 195 is a sliceable temp for this cut . I mixed up a...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[tallbm]

Hello, I see people with a lot of knowledge and maybe can give me some advice.

I like smoked Boston butt, picnic, brisket, and beef ribs. I like a light smoke flavor not too strong, so I cook around 275 smoker temp and I use cherry or not strong woods.

Normally I remove the meat from the smoker at 200 meat internal temp.

I love meat super tender but dont fall apart when you cut it, for example, if I pull it by hand comes out in chunks, and if I want to slice it, can make a slice, and dont fall in small pieces.

I think 180 is when the collagen is fully dissolved, so If I remove it at 170 because the temp will keep rising on the rest time, will be at the end 180 or close?

So, what is the recommended internal temperature to remove the meat from the smoker and reach at the end 180, or what do you recommend to me so the meat finishes super tender but does not fall into small pieces.?

Thanks
Walt

Hi there and welcome!

I Marknmd has great info.

To add to it. Collagen will not fully dissolve fast like. It it is my understanding that it takes 190F degrees AND time.

I believe Marknmd is correct on the rest time.
If I rest a brisket for 6 hours it slices way way way better than if I rest it 3 or 4 hours. I tightly double wrap in foil and then tightly wrap in 3 bath towels and let it sit on the table for 4-6 hours and it is hot and ready to serve after the rest.
Also living in TX I see people constantly cook the crap out of a brisket to where it will fall apart if they mess with it. They have the brisket already wrapped in foil so it doesn't fall apart off the smoker and they then just put it in the fridge until the next day.
The next day they slice it while it's cold and it NEVER falls apart when that called.
They then heat up slices in cambros etc. for serving.

So I say all of that simply to back up the notion that resting = not falling apart.

I would suggest starting with a simple approach.
Cook your meat like you are doing today BUT start checking for tenderness all over by stabbing all over with a wooden kabob skewer.
Do so when the internal temp starts hitting like 192-195F
If you like the amount of tenderness/resistance in most of the meat then pull it when it is too your liking.
Maybe this will do the trick and be super simple because these types of meats are done when they reach desired tenderness NEVER by temp.

If you do a number of smokes and find the tenderness is too uneven (tender in some parts, tough in others), then I think you would be better suited to cook until it is good and tender all over and then use a good long rest before you slice it.

Let me know if this sounds sensible :)

 

[FlyFishinX2]

All I know is 180 seems to be the perfect temp for me when it comes to smoke flavor on anything. I’ve done some ridiculously incredible jerky on my GMG at that temp.

 

[heislord5]

I did an experiment where most of the smoke time was at 160. I describe it on this other thread (page 3): https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/brisket-how-low-can-you-go.318859/. wrapped and finished in oven at 190. After about 6 hours rest in cooler it was soft. I recorded my experience in a YouTube video, now I'm trying a different route smoking at 200 all the way through but with 14-16 hours before wrapping based on another youtube video.