Timing, temperature and doneness: what happens to the meat once the fire is running.
Every cut on this site so far has had a target internal temperature that decides when it's done. Bologna doesn't. It left the factory already cooked, so the one to four hours recipes call for is about crust and smoke, not safety.
Updated Aug 2026
Traeger's own recipe pulls turkey legs at 165°F after four to five hours on the smoker. Hey Grill Hey pulls the same cut in about ninety minutes. Neither recipe is wrong. They are answering different questions, and this site already knows why dark meat runs two clocks at once.
Updated Sep 2026
A picnic shoulder usually weighs less than the Boston butt this site already measured, yet published guides run it at a lower pit temperature for more total hours. The gap isn't the cut's fault. It comes from a thicker fat cap and a skin option a butt never has.
Updated Aug 2026
Ten to sixteen hours is the number most guides give for a whole brisket, but Google's own AI Overview contradicts its own math inside that range. This site had already measured the three moments responsible for the gap, the stall, the wrap, and the rest, in three separate pieces. This is the first one that adds them up.
Updated Aug 2026
Recipes for a smoked rack of lamb range from about thirty-five minutes to two hours, but almost all of them land on the same rosé finish. Unlike the leg of lamb this site already measured, the spread here is not a second lane at pulling temperatures. It is the chamber, not the doneness, that keeps changing between recipes.
Updated Sep 2026
Recipes for a smoked leg of lamb range from ninety minutes to eight hours for what is supposedly the same cut. The gap is not disagreement. A leg of lamb carries enough connective tissue to end as a sliceable roast or a pulled one, and only one of those finishes actually crosses into collagen-conversion territory.
Updated Sep 2026
A duck carries a subcutaneous fat cap that chicken and turkey do not, which changes the timing rules. Whole duck, duck breast, and the render-then-crisp method, broken down by weight and cut.
Updated Sep 2026
Recipes for corned beef split into two camps: some stop at 2 to 4 hours and 165°F, others run 6 to 9 hours past 200°F. The gap is not a disagreement about doneness. A cure changes flavor and color, not collagen, and this cut still needs the same breakdown as a raw brisket.
Updated Aug 2026
Recipes for smoked jerky run from 2 hours on a hot pellet grill to 10 hours on a cool electric smoker loaded with thick slices. The spread isn't really about disagreement on temperature. Sliced this thin, the meat reaches chamber temperature in the first half hour. What takes the rest of the time is water, not heat.
Updated Sep 2026
The AI Overview gives a flat rate of 15 to 30 minutes per pound, worked out for a 12-pound bird. Search a little further and the same engine gets asked whether a 20-pound turkey is too big to smoke, a question a flat rate should have already answered.
Updated Sep 2026