Built by a wood-fired restaurant owner · every rule cited

Light the fire at the right time.

Seven free calculators for the questions that decide whether dinner is on time: how long the cook takes, when the meat goes on, when the stall hits, how much to buy, and how much fuel to load. Times come from the published pitmaster guides and USDA FSIS, and the thermometer always gets the last word.

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Smoking Time Calculator

19 cuts, 225–350°F, wrap or not. Total time, meat-on time for your dinner, stall window, pull temperature and USDA minimum.

Plan a cook →
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Brisket Planner

Packer or flat, paper or foil, hot and fast or overnight. Start-to-slice timeline built to finish early and hold.

Plan a brisket →
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Pork Butt Planner

Pulled or sliced, one butt or five. Timeline plus pounds of pulled pork and sandwiches you'll get.

Plan pulled pork →
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Rib Calculator

Baby back, St. Louis, spare, beef plate. Unwrapped, 3-2-1, 2-2-1 or hot and fast, each phase on the clock, racks to buy.

Plan ribs →
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Smoked Turkey Schedule

Thaw date, brine, smoke and rest, working back from Thanksgiving dinner. The USDA 12-lb rule flagged with the fix.

Plan a turkey →
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Meat Per Person

Adults, kids, appetite, sides, which meats. Raw pounds to buy with cooked yield, racks, sandwiches and cost.

Size the crowd →
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Charcoal & Pellets

Kamado to offset to pellet grill. Pounds, bags, briquettes, cost, and whether one load lasts the cook.

How much fuel? →
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The numbers to know

RuleFigureSource
Brisket at 250°F1–1.25 h per lb, unwrappedAmazingRibs, Destination BBQ, Franklin method
Pork butt at 225°F / 275°F1.5–2 h per lb / ~1 h per lbHey Grill Hey, Destination BBQ
Spare ribs at 225°F5–7 h; baby backs 3.5–5 hAmazingRibs
Whole turkey, smoked8–12 lb at 225–300°F, 20–30 min per lbUSDA FSIS
Pull temperature, collagen cuts~203°F (195–205°F), probe-tenderAmazingRibs, ThermoWorks
USDA safe minimums145°F + 3 min whole cuts · 160°F ground · 165°F poultryUSDA FSIS
The stall150–170°F; foil saves ~2 h, paper ~1 hAmazingRibs
Meat per person⅓–½ lb cooked; 1 lb raw brisket; ½ rack baby backsSmoked BBQ Source
Pellets1–3 lb per hour by temperatureTraeger
Briquettes18 per lb; ~15 per hour to hold a smokerVirtual Weber Bullet, USDA FSIS

The one-page chart

All 19 cuts at six temperatures with pull temps, USDA minimums and rest times on a single printable page: Smoking times & temperatures chart.

How to use them together

Start with the meat-per-person calculator to know what to buy. Run each cut through the smoking time calculator (or the dedicated brisket, pork butt, rib and turkey planners) with the same serving time, and you'll have the order everything goes on. Then the fuel calculator tells you whether one load carries the longest cook or you're setting an alarm.

Why a restaurant owner built this

I cook over wood for a living. Every smoking-time chart online is either a vague range on a recipe blog or a lead magnet for a grill brand, and none of them do the part that matters: work backward from when people are eating, account for the stall and the rest, and tell you honestly that the clock is a guess and the thermometer is the answer. The site is run by the owner of Rolling Oven, a wood-fired pizza and taproom business in Kentucky; every rule here is cited to the pitmaster or agency that published it, and where the sources disagree the calculator uses the range.

What these calculators don't do

They don't know your smoker, your weather or how many times you'll open the lid. They give you a planning window and a schedule that lands early, because finished meat holds for hours in a cooler and underdone meat doesn't hold at all. Cook to temperature and feel; use the times to know when to light the fire.