Interesting article about the dreaded stall

IMHO the work presented by Dr. Blonder is an interesting Physics lesson and not a scientific experiment intended to disprove a hypothesis.

Ooohh...someone did an experiment and we call it science, but what's the takeaway?

Well, if memory serves from reading it the FIRST time I saw it posted, the fix suggested is to foil after only a couple of hours of smoke or so and to cook faster. Now I'm a big fan of foiling ribs and cooking 'em a little faster, but come on. Oh yeah, and don't have too much pit humidity since it'll only prolong the stall. :crazy:

All my best pork butts so far never saw any foil til after cooking. Some were cooked on my UDS at about 275*, but some were cooked on my wsm a LOT slower and turned out just as moist. As to pit humidity, the UDS has plenty when cooking direct, especially with more than just a couple of butts. As to my wsm, well, not to open a can of worms but I keep water in the pan and never end up with dry meat unless I overcook.

Dave Russell said:

Ooohh...someone did an experiment and we call it science, but what's the takeaway?

Well, if memory serves from reading it the FIRST time I saw it posted, the fix suggested is to foil after only a couple of hours of smoke or so and to cook faster. Now I'm a big fan of foiling ribs and cooking 'em a little faster, but come on. Oh yeah, and don't have too much pit humidity since it'll only prolong the stall. :crazy:

All my best pork butts so far never saw any foil til after cooking. Some were cooked on my UDS at about 275*, but some were cooked on my wsm a LOT slower and turned out just as moist. As to pit humidity, the UDS has plenty when cooking direct, especially with more than just a couple of butts. As to my wsm, well, not to open a can of worms but I keep water in the pan and never end up with dry meat unless I overcook.

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You pretty much missed the entire point of the article. It wasn't trying to explain how to make better food. It simply explained the science behind the stall itself.

bover said:

You pretty much missed the entire point of the article. It wasn't trying to explain how to make better food. It simply explained the science behind the stall itself.

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Really? Well this is what the author of the article took away from the study:

"Based on Blonder's data, I now recommend that you wrap pork shoulders and beef briskets at about 150°F, after about 2 hours in the smoke. By then it has absorbed as much smoke as is needed. If you wrap it then, the meat powers right through the stall on a steady curve and takes much less time. It also retains more juice."

For better or worse, there'd be no lighter fluid without some chemist somewhere. Most likely for worse, in that case.

The article still brings some interesting points regarding techniques such as foiling or not. I'm just starting out in this hobby, but articles like this put my mind to rest when I'm cooking.

I know that a lot of you have done this a thousand times and have honed your technique to always have excellent food, but I still need some guidance. Knowing what to worry about is important to me at this point, especially since I monitor my meat with a thermometer. I'm that kind of guy, someone with an engineer or scientist mindset. As Meathead had said, newbies can get freaked out about tons of things when they don't expect it.

I'm pretty new to this, so having a deeper explanation is invaluable. After all, I really don't have an experienced pitmaster to tell me what to do. None of my friends know what good Southern BBQ is where I am. They think Famous Dave's is fantastic. All I can do is figure out things from what you guys and others on the net say, and the more information I have, the better I feel about what I do when I'm cooking. I don't have a "gut feeling" with my experience. I've already found out the hard way about low n' slowing lean meats. Learning about the minion method from you all has been invaluable. BBQ ain't hard, but there are the things you do to get something that's darn good instead of just ok. All it takes is some reading, understanding, and experience.

This must be why I like watching Alton Brown's show so much. Most everything has a how and why in my head and he feeds that, just like Meathead is doing.

Steve W said:

For better or worse, there'd be no lighter fluid without some chemist somewhere. Most likely for worse, in that case.

The article still brings some interesting points regarding techniques such as foiling or not. I'm just starting out in this hobby, but articles like this put my mind to rest when I'm cooking.

I know that a lot of you have done this a thousand times and have honed your technique to always have excellent food, but I still need some guidance. Knowing what to worry about is important to me at this point, especially since I monitor my meat with a thermometer. I'm that kind of guy, someone with an engineer or scientist mindset. As Meathead had said, newbies can get freaked out about tons of things when they don't expect it.

I'm pretty new to this, so having a deeper explanation is invaluable. After all, I really don't have an experienced pitmaster to tell me what to do. None of my friends know what good Southern BBQ is where I am. They think Famous Dave's is fantastic. All I can do is figure out things from what you guys and others on the net say, and the more information I have, the better I feel about what I do when I'm cooking. I don't have a "gut feeling" with my experience. I've already found out the hard way about low n' slowing lean meats. Learning about the minion method from you all has been invaluable. BBQ ain't hard, but there are the things you do to get something that's darn good instead of just ok. All it takes is some reading, understanding, and experience.

This must be why I like watching Alton Brown's show so much. Most everything has a how and why in my head and he feeds that, just like Meathead is doing.

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There IS a lot of science behind cooking. And this article can be extremely helpful. However, this was the topic of a thread just a few days ago, and it was throughly hashed out there. Look up in this thread and you'll see what I mean.

More often than not, I discover amazing new cooking techniques by accident, and then learn the WHYS of how it works afterwards.

My first competition brisket I put on WAY too early. By 8:00 the night before turn in, I was cruising past 160 degrees which means my brisket would've been done by 10:00 or 11:00... I panicked, pulled the brisket off, foiled it, wrapped it in a blanket, and stuck it in a cooler overnight. When I pulled it out the next morning it was down to 100 degrees, I threw it back on the smoker, and cooked it to temp. When I pulled it off it tasted fantastic, and was SUPER tender. I took 2nd place! Missed first place by ONE FARKNIG point!
I learned that denaturing takes place between 120 and 160, and holding my brisket at that temp was pure genious!
(read more here http://steeltownbbq.com/3.html)

Whatever you're doing, have fun with it. Science is about conducting your own expiraments too. You can use the same techniques over and over again, and end up with varying results each time. Figure out what you can do to be consistent, and you'll put out great bbq everytime you fire up the pits!

I don't really have a problem with some folks using science to cook better, but it isn't necessary. How many 'old timers cooked without giving a flip why it took their meat 5 hours...10 hours...18 hours to get finished. They just cooked. Those same pit masters still cook the same way...and I'm sure do a better job than most.

Again, read & learn all you want about the how's & why's. Unless you learn how to cook all that stuff is of no use.

I understand the theory, but really don't care...

My poor ole daddy would turn over in his grave. He was an old style cook and BBQ man.
He looked at meat and when he thought it might be ready, he poked it with his finger...
then he sometimes cut off a piece and ate it.
It was either ready or it wasn't. :doh:
Neither my father before me, or I profess to be anything other than a shade-tree BBQ man.
As a kid I was told to smoke a butt or brisket about 10 hrs. then check it...
I have gone modern... I use a digital Thermometer to check internal temps.
It may take several more hrs. or it may be done.
(It's been pretty good advice) It's not really rocket science.

I do have to hand it to all the competition guys. You have advanced smoking techniques
which help the rest of us. Thanks.

You guys continue the discussion. I'll catch up later, I've got a brisket that's been smoking since 0500 and I'm going to check the UDS.
Sausages and foil pkgs. of spiced cabbage will go on about 1100.

No one ever knew of anything called a stall back when they cooked BBQ until it was done to feel and never thought of poking a brisket or beef quarter with some electronic probe. The stall fad stuff came in with the Internet and the electronic gadgetry that was necessary to help teach some guy 1400 miles away from you how to cook something in which you both were deprived of the sense of smell, taste, feel, sight (real time sight) and even common sense. Heck even hearing is an element of the true pitmaster. The sound of the proper fire, the sound of your ribs weeping on the diverter plate.

2) There is no steaming inside a foil package- and it takes hours for the
temperature to rise to 212F because air simply doesn't carry much heat. Air
is 1000 times less dense than water, and just can't transfer enough energy
in a short time to cause water to boil. Send them to this link for actual
experimental data:

I am not interested in any data on this in much the same way I was not interested in scientific data that supports cigarettes did not cause cancer. This quote either does not match what the experiment was or the person who wrote the paraphrase of the experiment is simplifying things beyond intention. This thread is about stalls and that means BRISKET exclusively. No other cut has a stall quite like brisket. I am not sure at what point this "expert" took his measurements but I assure you, in the case in which I use foil, say for speeding up a brisket when my house temp is 275... you can rest assured the white stuff coming out of the foil when I peek and it subsequently burns my fingers is in fact steam. I have not read the data and no... if he went there, the pressure inside a foil jacket would not cause the boiling temp to lower... or raise significantly.

Regardless of mass... when the brisket gets hot enough there is steam inside.

If the experiment occurred at 220 degrees house temp then you might have a point...but thats sort of skewing the data to achieve an isolated result.

Pitmaster T said:

No one ever knew of anything called a stall back when they cooked BBQ until it was done to feel and never thought of poking a brisket or beef quarter with some electronic probe. The stall fad stuff came in with the Internet and the electronic gadgetry that was necessary to help teach some guy 1400 miles away from you how to cook something in which you both were deprived of the sense of smell, taste, feel, sight (real time sight) and even common sense. Heck even hearing is an element of the true pitmaster. The sound of the proper fire, the sound of your ribs weeping on the diverter plate.

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This has been my point all along.

Again, page 8 and the stall is still an insignificant part of your bbq cook.

jasonjax said:

I think "we" would have to agree on what "insignificant" meant here. I know it freaked the hell out of me the first couple times I saw it with both brisket and butts. Of course, once initiated into this phenomenon, whether it be redneck or quantum physics based I was able to develop strong coping mechanisms. The most important of which is ........... patience.

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I calculate, and remember I worked at the Old Kreutz, that by the time I ever heard this term (stall) I had cooked enough brisket to be equivalent to the average weight of a 4000 square foot house. I had also won a few walks in a few Texas BBQ Pageants (they were more like competitions then) such as the Taylor International, Fort Worth Livestock ect.

The point is.... the stall really is irrelevant when you think in terms of hot and fast.... I mean if your 12 pounders are done in 6-8 hours or less, you got enough sleep because you didn't tend a stupid fire all night, and you planned well, allowing plenty of resting time before the guests arrived... welllll.... this "stall" thing is sort of in the "who cares" department. Kind of like the Maliard Reaction. Half the people who know what that is cannot make a decent bark to save their lives anyway.

Now if you took all the information on the internet, calculated everything the way it works out on paper, then have you ego INSIST you pull the brisket out of the pit in front of them (instead of out of a ice chest or cambro) then having the brisket, which had been hooked up to 13 probes with wires coming out of it and the pit and a computerized or printed tape track of the internal temps at every given moment... well then... the over analysis of the stall and why the meat stopped its internal arc would be very frustrating indeed. WHY IS MY BRISKET NOT DONE ACCORDING TO THIS GRID???? No, Brisket expertise, like History, is properly taught anecdotally not matrixally.

I remember how my bbq skills suffered when I began to listen to what people said on the internet. After years of success at house temps around 275 or higher I listened to the hype as one guy said, "if his bbq is good at 250, mine will be better at 230" Then the next guy says "if its good at 230, then I am doing it at 220," then people start modifying their NBS to be air tight (thereby ruining a pit designed to leak enough to cook naturally at the temp I had success with anyway) .... well.... before long I am hearing of guys that smoke a brisket 16 hours at 180 then pop it in the oven all night. WTF????? Heck I remember people blaming a ruined brisket on "flareups" as if it was this phantom which came upon you when you least expected it and ruined your brisket when we all know now, or at least I have proved I think, that high heat's worst contribution is that the faster you cook the less depth you have (up or rather down to a point).

When you're dancing around "as low as you can go" thinking that makes the better cue.... well, these types of things become important when you are trying to escape the basic fact... you are cooking like an idiot. BBQ Is redneck cooking.

If you're taking the temperature of your meat and "seeing" the stall in action, you're taking the temperature way too early to be worrying about it.

Leave the lid down, turn the thermo off if you have a remote, and let the meat cook. It doesn't need you to babysit it.

The Clock and the Temperature Probe

take a look at post seven as well

Pitmaster T's Official Brisket Please Help First Brisket What Went Wrong why does my Brisket Suck Thread

I've been searching out more of your posts, Pitmaster T, and what you are saying makes more and more sense with each post that I read.

Main points: KISS principle. Temp and time are only guidelines, and if I concentrate too much on a thermometer reading, I'm not paying attention to what's REALLY important. The meat, the smoker, and what they're both trying to tell me with the sound, smell, texture, and looks.

The thermometer is a good tool and can be helpful, but it sure isn't the end all, be all of anything. No, the end all, be all is the meat, and it's done when it's done.

It's like my eyes have been opened wide for the first time! Thanks, man! I've been reading so much about temp this and that, I've lost sight of what's important.

Personally, I worry more about the "charcoal stall" then any stall in the meat.

"Charcoal Stall"????????????????????????????

My ECB has been converted to use an electric hot plate under the charcoal bowl. I can fill the bowl with charcoal and wood-chips and will need to add some additional fuel as the time passes. Only problem is, as the charcoal is consumed, the ash builds up. This is not a problem for a cook that only lasts 6-8 hours. But, if the cook takes longer then that, I have to deal with the ashes or the charcoal will not all keep burning and the cooker will begin to cool.

With my setup, all I have to do is lift the smoker off the hotplate exposing the charcoal bowl (I do this to re-load the bowl anyway) and empty the bowl, Then re-load with fresh charcoal and add the red-hot colas from the emptying process.

This is a simple thing, but it is something I have to deal with when it happens.

Other then that, my method is along the lines of what Ron Popeil says with his counter-top oven - "set it and FORGET it"



My method is actually quite simple.

• I prep the meat according to what flavors I am trying for and what meat I am cooking.
• I load the bowl and plug in the hot plate.
• I place the cooker over the bowl and load the meat. (No pre-heating - just put it in, the smoke starts quite fast on my rig)
• I put the lid on and walk away. (That was the hardest thing to learn)
• I check on the heat with the built in thermometer in the lid and re-fill the bowl as needed.
• When I think the meat is close to being done, I check it with an instant read thermometer. If has reached temp, I pull it, wrap it and let it rest.

So far, the family feels that I do it the right way as it is well received and disappears.

Pretty cool. I'm not sure I really agree, but it is certainly worth consideration and maybe a real food scientist will actually do some real testing to see if that's true.

I agree with landarc that a sponge is a poor test, and just because it acted as he expected (duh) doesn't really mean much.

The first hole I see in this comes in the form of foil. In a tightly foiled environment, evaporative cooling should not occur as much as when the steam is allowed to float away from the meat. Instead it is trapped inside and should, in theory, and in just as much theory as the sponge,:becky: it should not see a stall then if the stall is primarily evaporative cooling. Instead what you should see is a rise in the meat temp to a point more towards the boiling point of water at which point it would then stall.

So, I'm not so sure I understand why this is being paraded around as some sort of proven tested fact in light of all of this. Honestly, this sort of thing, and the parading around of info is a lot of the reason I stopped with the experiments. I'm not a professional food scientist with a multi-million dollar lab and deep enough pockets to grab whatever pricey equipment would definitively prove this particular minutiae or that. It was getting a bit ridiculous really.

In my opinion, it is a factor to consider along with the others, and you can take it or leave it. I have a feeling the meat is going to still cook the same way no matter what you "believe". Your thoughts have little control over that. Only changing methods will impact that...and if this causes you to change your method, then expect a change in cooking.

Still though, I did find it interesting, and I do see some merit in it. I just don't think it is as significant as the author thinks, otherwise you could bypass the stall by tightly wrapping in foil to avoid any possible evaporative cooling. However, I think we all KNOW that the stall STILL happens even when wrapped in foil. So there goes that.

bigabyte said:

Pretty cool. I'm not sure I really agree, but it is certainly worth consideration and maybe a real food scientist will actually do some real testing to see if that's true.

I agree with landarc that a sponge is a poor test, and just because it acted as he expected (duh) doesn't really mean much.

The first hole I see in this comes in the form of foil. In a tightly foiled environment, evaporative cooling should not occur as much as when the steam is allowed to float away from the meat. Instead it is trapped inside and should, in theory, and in just as much theory as the sponge,:becky: it should not see a stall then if the stall is primarily evaporative cooling. Instead what you should see is a rise in the meat temp to a point more towards the boiling point of water at which point it would then stall.

So, I'm not so sure I understand why this is being paraded around as some sort of proven tested fact in light of all of this. Honestly, this sort of thing, and the parading around of info is a lot of the reason I stopped with the experiments. I'm not a professional food scientist with a multi-million dollar lab and deep enough pockets to grab whatever pricey equipment would definitively prove this particular minutiae or that. It was getting a bit ridiculous really.

In my opinion, it is a factor to consider along with the others, and you can take it or leave it. I have a feeling the meat is going to still cook the same way no matter what you "believe". Your thoughts have little control over that. Only changing methods will impact that...and if this causes you to change your method, then expect a change in cooking.

Still though, I did find it interesting, and I do see some merit in it. I just don't think it is as significant as the author thinks, otherwise you could bypass the stall by tightly wrapping in foil to avoid any possible evaporative cooling. However, I think we all KNOW that the stall STILL happens even when wrapped in foil. So there goes that.

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You must have missed the previous 6 or so pages. Wrapping in foil does prevent the stall, or the "Dreaded Stall", as it has become known. :-D

smokindave74 said:

You must have missed the previous 6 or so pages. Wrapping in foil does prevent the stall, or the "Dreaded Stall", as it has become known. :-D

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Shortens the stall, yes. Prevents it entirely, no. Ergo, it is not evaporative cooling.

bigabyte said:

Shortens the stall, yes. Prevents it entirely, no. Ergo, it is not evaporative cooling.

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You must have read a different article that myself. According to the Blonder Report there was virtually no stall in the foil wrapped pork butts he cooked. There was steady internal temp increase, whereas the un-foiled actually flattened and even lost a couple degrees around 170F.

When he took the foil off the wrapped butt and placed it back in the cooker, the temp dropped.....alas, evaporative cooling.

Pretty hard, if not impossible, to dispute.

On a personal note,

I am cooking a 9# boston butt this weekend for a halloween party. I am going to try and foil early (about 150F-155F), just to see what happens.

And, at a KCBS competition we did......

Had two pork shoulders that stalled about 170-175.....stayed there for 5+ hours. At the end of our time, we had no choice but to pull them off and rest them before turn-in. We sliced a little off of one to check it, and it was comepletely tender and juicy. We rested both for a half hour in a faux cambro......perfect. We ended up getting a pretty high mark at a KCBS event.....top 50%. Scratched my head on that one.

I have never cooked one at home that I didn't get up to 195F before resting and pulling it.