Guide
The stall, and when to wrap a brisket or pork butt
Partway through a long cook, a brisket or a pork shoulder often stops climbing. The internal reading sits still, sometimes for hours, and can even dip. That is the stall, and nothing has gone wrong.
The best-supported explanation is evaporative cooling: moisture reaching the surface evaporates and cools the meat, the way sweat cools you, until the heat going in and the cooling going out balance. It ends when the surface runs short of moisture to give up. Wrapping stops the evaporation, which is why it is the usual way through.
Before you start
Safe and done are different questions for these cuts. A brisket or pork shoulder reaches its safe minimum and required rest long before it turns tender, and pulling it there on the grounds that it is safe gives you tough meat. The cards below show both answers, each under the question it answers.
What keeps smoked meat safe is the whole cook, not the stall: keep the smoker at its recommended temperature throughout, and use a thermometer to confirm the meat reaches its safe minimum and required rest.
What you’ll need
- A leave-in probe thermometer
- An instant-read thermometer for checking tenderness in several places
- Heavy-duty aluminum foil or plain food-grade butcher paperIf you use paper, make sure it is not waxed or silicone-coated.
- Heat-resistant gloves
Step by step
1. Plan time for the stall
Build the stall into the plan rather than hoping to avoid it. How long it lasts depends on the cut, its size and shape, the cooker, its airflow, the humidity and how hot you cook. A hotter cooker tends to shorten it. Spritzing or mopping wets and cools the surface and can delay the cook. A water pan changes the cooker's humidity and heat behavior, and its effect on the stall and total cooking time depends on the setup. Because no two briskets stall the same way, treat the finish time of a large collagen cut as an estimate, and plan to finish early and hold rather than to finish on the dot.
2. Keep the smoker at its recommended temperature
Put the meat into a smoker that is already up to its setting, and keep it there for the whole cook. Use a thermometer to check the meat's internal temperature; a leave-in probe can stay in while it smokes. The stall does not change what makes the meat safe: reaching its safe minimum and the required rest, which the brisket card below shows.
Source: USDA FSIS — Smoking Meat and Poultry
3. Decide when to wrap: at the stall, or when the bark is right
Most cooks who wrap do it once the meat has stalled. Others wait until the bark has darkened to the color they want. Either way, look at the bark before you wrap it: whatever color and crust it has when it goes into the wrap is roughly what it will soften from, so wrapping sooner gives a softer, lighter crust and wrapping later a firmer one.
Source: AmazingRibs — The Texas Crutch
4. Choose foil, butcher paper or no wrap
All three can make a very good brisket. Foil traps the most moisture: it stops evaporative cooling almost entirely, pushes through the stall fastest, and softens the bark the most. Plain butcher paper also holds moisture in but cooks a bit more slowly and is more forgiving on the bark. Not wrapping keeps the firmest bark and takes the longest. Wrapped too long, meat can go soft and mushy, so do not leave it in the wrap long after it is tender.
Source: AmazingRibs — The Texas Crutch
5. Wrap tightly and keep the probe in
Wrap snugly, with the seams where juices will not run out. A gap or a tear lets evaporation start again, and that is a common cause of a second stall. Put it back on the cooker and keep a probe reading so you can see it climb again.
6. Cook to tender, not to a number
A brisket is done when a probe slides into the thickest part of the flat with very little resistance, and the point checks out separately. The probe-tender window on the card below tells you when to start checking, not when to pull; reaching it does not prove the meat is tender, and the safe minimum above it is nowhere near done. Check several places, and if the probe still drags, give it more time.
Beef brisket
Temperature tells you when to start checking, not when to pull. Probe several places in the flat and check the point separately: the lean flat generally governs, and it is ready when the probe meets very little resistance, usually somewhere around 195–205°F. Reaching any particular number does not by itself establish tenderness. Rest a whole packer at least an hour; a longer hold has to stay at or above 140°F.
Can it be eaten?
Required safety rest before serving3 minPart of the safe minimum: it has to stay at or above that temperature this long.Source: USDA FSIS — Safe Minimum Internal Temperature ChartIs it good yet?
Probe-tender window – feel is the test, not the number195–205 °FEating quality, above the safe minimum — not a safety requirement.Source: BBQuill — BBQ doneness guidanceWhat happens after it comes off?
Typical carryover once it comes off5 °FNever counts toward reaching the safe minimum.Source: BBQuill — BBQ doneness guidanceHot-holding floor140 °FA holding temperature, never a pull temperature.Source: USDA FSIS — hot-holding guidance7. Unwrap only when it is done, then rest it
Once wrapped meat is opened, the moist surface starts evaporating and cooling again, so leave it wrapped until it is tender. Rest it wrapped before slicing. If it has to wait longer than a rest, hold it hot rather than letting it cool on the counter — the hot-holding floor on the brisket card is the line it has to stay above, and once it is no longer being kept hot, the clock on the danger-zone card below is running.
The danger zone
This is general handling guidance for perishable food, not a doneness rule. When in doubt about how long something has been out of temperature control, throw it out. Both limits are USDA's, for food WAITING, and they run from when it stopped being kept cold or hot — not from when it reached the range, which a chilled item does not do straight away. Food cooking on a lit smoker is not waiting: keep the smoker at its recommended temperature, and use a thermometer to confirm the food reaches its safe minimum and any required rest. A thermometer may stay in the food while it smokes.
Where is food unsafe to sit, and for how long?
Where perishable food is unsafe to sit40–140 °FNot a target or a hold temperature: it is the range to move food THROUGH. The top of it is the way out of the range, not part of it.Source: USDA FSIS — safe food handling: time and temperaturePerishable food waiting out of temperature control2 hoursThe clock starts when the food stops being actively kept cold or hot: out of the fridge or the cooler, or off the heat when cooking or hot holding ends. It runs whether or not the food was ever chilled. Time out of temperature control adds up across separate stretches — the clock does not reset — and that no-reset half is BBQuill's own conservative handling policy rather than something USDA publishes. Once the air around it is hotter than 90 °F the row below replaces this one. Food still cooking on a lit cooker is not waiting: keep the cooker at its recommended temperature and check that the food reaches its safe minimum and any required rest.Source: USDA FSIS — safe food handling: time and temperaturePerishable food waiting, in air hotter than 90 °F1 hourThe air where the food is actually sitting — indoors or out, so a hot kitchen or a closed garage counts — and never the food's own temperature. Same clock as the row above, started the same way; this hour REPLACES that limit and is never a second allowance on top of it. Food still cooking on a lit cooker is not waiting, and is not on this clock.Source: USDA FSIS — safe food handling: time and temperature
Pork shoulder follows the same curve
A pork shoulder, or butt, stalls for the same reason and responds to wrapping the same way. For pulled pork it is done when a probe slides into several muscles with almost no resistance; on a bone-in butt the blade bone should loosen and twist free cleanly.
As with brisket, its safe minimum and the point where it pulls apart are far apart, and the card shows both. Taken off at its safe minimum, a shoulder is still tough and will not pull.
Pork shoulder / butt
Pulling texture usually arrives around 195–205°F, but probe several muscles and pull when they are tender rather than when a number lands. On a bone-in butt the blade bone should loosen and twist free clean — that test does not apply to a boneless one. Below roughly 190°F it tends to slice rather than pull, though temperature alone does not decide it. It clears the USDA minimum once it has reached 145°F and rested 3 minutes — never on the reading alone. Rest 30–60 minutes.
Can it be eaten?
Is it good yet?
What happens after it comes off?
What does and does not help
Cooking hotter shortens the stall, and some cooks run a hotter cooker from the start for exactly that reason. If you want to, decide at the beginning rather than in a panic halfway through.
Spritzing or mopping wets and cools the surface and can delay the cook. That is not a reason to skip it if you like what it does to the bark or the flavor — just expect it to take longer.
A water pan changes the cooker's humidity and heat behavior; its effect on the stall and total cooking time depends on the setup, so judge it on your own cooker rather than by rule.
Opening the lid lets heat out, so keep checks short: open it when you need to look at the bark or wrap, and read the probe the rest of the time.
Keep a record for next time
How long your stall lasts on your cooker is more useful to you than any general answer. Note when the reading flattened, when you wrapped, and when it started climbing again.
BBQuill logs probe readings, wraps and spritzes on the cook's timeline as they happen, so the next cook can start from how your last stall actually went rather than from memory. BBQuill is in private early access at the moment, so if that sounds useful, join the list and we will email you when your account is ready.
Common questions
- What causes the stall when smoking meat?
- Evaporative cooling. Moisture reaching the surface of the meat evaporates and cools it, until the cooling balances the heat going in. The stall ends when the surface runs short of moisture. Physicist Greg Blonder's work for AmazingRibs ruled out the older explanations, fat rendering and collagen.
- How long does the stall last?
- There is no fixed length. It depends on the size and shape of the cut, the cooker, the humidity and how hot you cook, and it can run for hours. Plan for it rather than trying to predict it to the minute.
- Should I wrap brisket in foil or butcher paper?
- Foil gets through the stall fastest and softens the bark the most. Plain food-grade butcher paper is a little slower and kinder to the bark. Not wrapping keeps the firmest bark and takes the longest. All three can make a very good brisket.
- When should I wrap a pork butt?
- Most cooks who wrap do it once the meat has stalled; others wait until the bark has darkened to the color they want. Wrapping sooner gives a softer crust, and later a firmer one, so look at the bark before you wrap either way.
- Is my brisket safe to eat once it reaches its safe minimum?
- Only with the rest: for beef roasts, USDA's minimum is 145 °F, followed by a required rest of at least 3 minutes. Brisket generally needs considerably more cooking to become tender; check several places in the flat and check the point separately.
- What causes a second stall?
- Usually a gap or tear in the wrap, which lets evaporation start again. Spritzing, or a change in the fire or the wind, can also shift the balance between heating and cooling and cause the reading to flatten a second time.