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Smoking reference charts

8 charts, all built from one shared data file so the calculators, the cut pages and these tables can never disagree with each other. Print them, bookmark them, or prop the phone against the smoker lid.

The one chart to know by heart

Everything else on this site is a preference. These are not. The USDA safe minimum internal temperatures are a food-safety floor, they are not satisfied by colour or by time, and they apply no matter what any chart here says about texture.

USDA FSIS safe minimum internal temperatures. Verify every one with a calibrated instant-read thermometer in the thickest part, away from bone and fat.
Food Safe minimum Rest Why
Poultry, all of it 165°F None required Whole birds, parts, ground poultry and stuffing inside a bird. There is no rare chicken.
Ground meats: beef, pork, lamb, veal 160°F None required Grinding spreads surface bacteria through the whole mass, so the interior must reach temperature.
Whole cuts: beef, pork, lamb, veal 145°F 3 minutes Steaks, chops and roasts. The 3 minute rest is part of the requirement, not an optional extra.
Fish and shellfish 145°F None required Or cook until the flesh is opaque and separates easily with a fork.
Ham, fresh or uncooked smoked 145°F 3 minutes Raw ham that you are cooking yourself, as opposed to reheating.
Ham, fully cooked, being reheated 165°F None required USDA allows 140F only for ham repackaged in a USDA-inspected plant. Reheat everything else to 165F.
Egg dishes 160°F None required Casseroles, quiches and anything with beaten egg as a binder.
Leftovers and casseroles 165°F None required Including anything you smoked yesterday and are bringing back up to serving temperature.

The full page is the internal temperature chart, which sets these against the texture targets people actually cook to. The distinction matters more on this site than on most, because a brisket is pulled at roughly 203°F and is safe at 145°F, and confusing the direction of that gap is how people talk themselves into undercooking poultry.

Every chart

Why do these charts all agree with each other?

Because they are the same data rendered differently. Every hours-per-pound figure, pull temperature, USDA minimum, rest time, wood pairing, brine strength, yield fraction and pellet burn rate on this site lives in a single file, and the cook time calculator, the per-cut pages and these charts all read from it. The fastest way to lose a reader on a cooking site is for the calculator to say twelve hours and the chart on the next page to say nine.

What that does not fix is variance in the real world. Hours per pound are planning estimates, and a real cook moves by 25 percent or more with ambient temperature, wind, humidity, how often the door opens, the individual animal, and whether the cut is wrapped. Thickness matters more than weight: a thick twelve pound brisket takes longer than a flat fourteen pound one, because heat travels inward from the surface and thickness sets the distance it has to cover. Plan against the slow end and absorb the difference in the rest.

Use the charts to plan and the thermometer to finish. That split is the whole method, and it is why the thermometer is the one purchase this site refuses to let you compromise on.