Timing, temperature and doneness: what happens to the meat once the fire is running.
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 Aug 2026
One widely read guide puts a pork butt at six to eight hours. Another puts the same cook at fifteen to twenty. The two hours per pound most people plan around only describes the part of the clock that actually scales with weight.
Updated Sep 2026
Google's own AI Overview gives a 45-minute minimum, a 2-to-3-hour sweet spot, and an 18-hour overnight hold for the same question. They are not rival recommendations. One is a cooling curve, the other is a temperature held flat on purpose, and only one of them has a safety floor underneath it.
Updated Sep 2026
Every source agrees the range is 195°F to 205°F, then splits over which number to trust. Both are right, because collagen does not melt at a temperature. It melts on a clock that a thermometer only tells you when to start checking.
Updated Sep 2026
Google's own summary gives 2.5 to 4 hours for a whole chicken, then a table two lines down that says 4 to 5. Both come from the same answer box. The spread is real, and it collapses the moment you stop asking for a time and start asking for a temperature.
Updated Sep 2026
The published answers run from 150 degrees to 185. The same pages that hand you a number then tell you to ignore it and look at the bark. Both instructions are honest. They cannot both be followed, because breaking the stall and protecting the bark want opposite timing.
Updated Aug 2026
Nine results, times running from three hours to six for the same rack at the same temperature. The spread is real and everyone in it is correct, because a rack of ribs is thin enough that almost none of that clock is the meat heating up.
Updated Aug 2026
Google's answer box gives the stall as 150 to 170 degrees. Its own first page carries reports of 130, 145, 150, 180, and a second plateau near 195. That spread is not noise, and it is not the meat. It is a reading of the air in your pit.
Updated Aug 2026