Pellet Smoker Cooking Times Reminders
Want the lowdown on understanding smoker cook times and how they affect your meat? Check out these essential reminders.
1. Environmental Variables Affect Grilling Times for Pellet Grill Cooking
Some pellet grills allow you to set a specific temperature. Others give you a general temperature. All grills can be affected by outside influences, including climate.
As a result, you may need to adjust your temperatures throughout your smoke. Plan to return to your pellet grill regularly just to check in, or use our Alpha Connect technology to monitor your pork chops without ever leaving the couch.
2. Smoker Cook Times Do Not Include Carryover Cooking
Carryover cooking happens after an ingredient has been removed from the pellet smoker. While resting, the ingredients usually continue to cook. For instance, meats may heat up an additional 5 or 10 degrees. That could potentially be enough to push your ideal medium rare up to a medium or even a medium well.
You’ll want to take this factor into consideration when you’re figuring out how long to keep your food on the pellet grill, especially if the temperature matters because of food safety or your doneness preference.
3. Smoked Meats’ Temperatures Still Need to Be Measured Internally
You’ve been smoking your brisket for hours and hours. Why bother with the meat probe, right? Wrong. You still need to check to ensure that your meat has hit a safe temperature.
Many types of meat will hit a stall period during a low-and-slow smoke. During the stall, the meat’s internal temperature doesn’t budge for a while. Never assume that meat has reached its safest level of doneness.
A high quality meat probe and/or meat thermometer is a must-have for anybody who loves grilling and smoking. Check out Grilla Grills’ instant read thermometer and meat probe, and know that you’ve gotten the perfect internal temperature every time.
4. Pellet Smokers Cook via Indirect Heat, so It’s Natural for Foods to Cook More Slowly
Cooking directly over a heat source, like the flame from a charcoal grill or gas grill, will cook your food much more quickly. Pellet smokers, however, use indirect heat to cook food more slowly, evenly and with tons of wood-fired flavor. That doesn’t mean they can’t cook hot and fast, too, but slow cooking via indirect heat is a big part of why many pitmasters choose a pellet grill. If you’re looking for hot and fast direct heat cooking, our Kong kamado grill or Primate gas grill and griddle are both excellent choices.
5. Smoking Temperatures Tend to Hover Around 250 Degrees
In a moment, you’ll be able to check out our Grilla Grills smoker cook times chart. We’ve developed the chart as a starting point for your pellet grill smoker cook times.
It’s important to know that most smokes happen at around 225 to 250 degrees. If you’re in a hurry to get to your BBQ faster, you can bump up the heat to around 275 degrees and shorten the overall cooking time. Because you’re cooking via indirect heat, you won’t have to worry about scorching your food.
Ready to cook and smoke your ingredients to perfection? Use our guide as a jumping-off point. You’ll feel more confident every time you accept a new pitmaster duty! For more helpful charts and infographics to level up your grill skills, see our grill size comparison and our cookout food planner.
