How long to smoke beef, cut by cut: brisket, chuck roast, ribs, prime rib, tri tip, steaks, burgers, pastrami and jerky, with pit and pull temperatures.
Recipes for a similar sized meatloaf run from 90 minutes to 4 hours at close to the same chamber temperature. The spread is not disagreement. It comes down to a shape the cook decides before the smoker is even lit.
Updated Sep 2026
Recipes for the same burger swing from 8 minutes to 90. The disagreement is not about heat, it is about a shape nobody measured before starting the timer.
Updated Sep 2026
Recipes for beef ribs range from three hours to ten, and most of that gap has nothing to do with temperature. Back ribs and plate ribs share a name and almost nothing else: one is a thin rack with barely any meat on the bone, the other behaves like a small brisket.
Updated Oct 2026
Recipes pull a prime rib anywhere from 118°F to 140°F for what's billed as the same doneness, and most blame it on taste. The bigger reason is carryover: a heavier roast keeps climbing well after it leaves the smoker, and how far it climbs tracks the pound count, not the number on the dial.
Updated Oct 2026
Most recipes agree a tri tip needs about 1.5 to 2 hours in the smoker. Where they split is the number on the thermometer when it comes off: anywhere from 115°F for a reverse sear to about 203°F for a version cooked like a brisket.
Updated Oct 2026
Recipe cards for a chuck roast run from 6 hours 30 minutes to 9 hours 10 minutes at roughly the same weight, and Google's AI Overview lands at 6 to 9. Weight barely explains the spread. This site already smoked the same raw cut in under 5 hours as poor man's burnt ends, cubed first, which is the variable most recipe cards never isolate.
Updated Sep 2026
Every recipe agrees poor man's burnt ends take three to five hours. None of them explain why that is nowhere near the twelve to eighteen hours a real burnt ends, cut from an already-smoked brisket point, actually needs.
Updated Sep 2026