The Stall: Why Your Meat's Temperature Stops Rising (And Why You Shouldn't Panic)

You're twelve hours into a brisket. It sailed up to 65°C in no time, and you're feeling smug. Then it just... stops. An hour goes by. The needle barely moves. It might even drop a degree. You tap the thermometer. You check the batteries. You start wondering if this is the cook where you finally ruin it.

It isn't. This is the stall, and it happens to everyone who cooks low and slow, on every piece of kit, every single time. It's not a fault, it's not bad luck, and it's not a sign to crank up the heat. Understanding what's actually going on will save you from making the one mistake that does ruin a cook: panicking and turning up the temperature.

What is the stall?

The stall (also called the plateau, or "the zone") is the point during a long, low-temperature cook where the internal temperature of a big piece of meat slows right down, flattens out, or occasionally dips, usually somewhere between 65°C and 75°C (150–170°F). It can last anywhere from one to nine hours depending on the size of the joint, your cooker, and the weather.

It shows up on brisket, pork shoulder, and lamb shoulder or leg — anything large enough, and cooked slowly enough, for it to matter. Smaller, quicker cooks like steaks, chops or a rack of lamb don't hang around long enough to hit it and are mostly eaten at a temperature lower than the temperature where the stall occurs.

What's actually happening

For years the going theory was that the stall was caused by collagen converting to gelatine, or fat rendering out, both of which start to happen around the same temperature. Both are wrong. In 2016, Prof. Greg Blonder — a physicist and AmazingRibs.com's science advisor — settled it with a simple experiment. He put a block of pure beef fat and a wet sponge, each with a thermometer probe, into a smoker at the same time. The fat rose in a smooth, steady curve with no stall at all. The sponge climbed at the same rate for the first hour, then flattened hard, even dropped slightly, and didn't take off again until it had dried out four hours later.

That's the whole answer: the stall is evaporative cooling. The outer layers of your meat are wet, and as that moisture evaporates off the surface, it cools the meat down, exactly the way perspiration cools you down on a hot day. As the meat's internal temperature climbs, the rate of evaporation climbs with it, until the cooling effect exactly cancels out the heat coming from your BBQ. At that point, the temperature holds, right up until the surface finally starts running out of moisture to give up. Then it starts climbing again.

We're only talking about the very outside of your piece of meat, maybe a millimetre or so.

It has nothing meaningful to do with collagen or fat. Both of those are genuinely happening in the meat around this temperature too, which is why the myth stuck for so long, but Blonder's maths showed there simply isn't enough energy tied up in either process to hold a whole joint of meat level for hours. It's simpler than that: it's just water, doing what water does.

You can see it happen — our own brisket graph

Here's the internal temperature graph from one of our own brisket cooks, taken straight from our British brisket recipe:

The yellow line is the brisket. It went on the Egg at around 7:30pm, and you can see it climb steadily overnight before flattening off — this particular piece had been well hung, so it was drier than most and only stalled gently.

Between 6am and 9am I wrapped it in pink butcher paper, and look how fast it takes off afterwards. The big red spike is the Egg's own temperature, which drops as I open the lid to do the wrapping. That's a 19-hour cook on a brisket just under 5kg, and I didn't touch the Egg's temperature once.

That's the pattern to look for on your own cook: a steady climb, a flat or wobbly patch, and then, once you intervene or the surface finally dries out, a second climb that's often faster than the first.

What actually changes the stall

A few things move the stall around, and it's worth knowing them so nothing surprises you:

• Cooking temperature. The higher your cooker's temperature, the shorter the stall, because there's more heat available to overpower the evaporative cooling. Push a cooker towards 150°C and the stall can all but disappear. That's part of why some competition cooks now run brisket and pork shoulder hotter than the traditional 110–120°C.
• Airflow. More draft through the cooker means faster evaporation, which speeds up the stall. A piece of meat on a XL Big Green Egg will cook faster than on a Large Big Green Egg even though they are at the same temperature. It's because there is a higher airflow on the XL. Having said that, the stall will be much shorter on a metal BBQ where there is less insulation, as the airflow is even higher.
• How dry the meat's surface already is. Well-hung or well-trimmed meat, or meat that's been sat uncovered in the fridge overnight, has less surface moisture to get through, so the stall is shorter and gentler — exactly what you can see in the graph above.
• A second stall. If your cook's conditions change mid-cook — the fire gets hotter, the wind picks up, you spritz the meat, or there's a small gap in your wrap — you can see a second, shorter stall further up the temperature range. One stable smoker session should really only give you one.

Powering through it

You don't have to just sit and wait, although you're welcome to; it costs you nothing but time. Wrapping is the classic shortcut, often called the Texas crutch. Wrap the meat tightly in foil or butcher paper and you trap moisture right against the surface, which stops it evaporating and cools nothing. The meat effectively starts to braise instead, and the temperature climbs steadily again.

It's why we wrap brisket in pink butcher paper rather than foil once it comes out the other side of its stall — foil traps too much moisture and softens the bark you've spent hours building; paper lets just enough steam escape to speed things up without turning your bark to mush. Whichever you use, wrap it snugly. Even a small gap will let evaporation restart and give you a second stall.

If you'd rather not wrap at all, that's a perfectly good choice too — you'll get a firmer, more heavily bark on the outside, and the only cost is time.

What not to do

Don't turn your cooker up. It's tempting, especially with guests due in an hour, but a sudden jump in temperature won't move you through the stall any faster than a wrap would, and it's the single most common way people dry out or scorch a brisket or pork shoulder that would otherwise have been fine. The meat isn't broken. Your thermometer isn't broken. This is completely normal, and it happens on every long cook, every time.

The short version

The stall is your meat sweating, nothing more sinister than that. It happens to every brisket, pork shoulder and lamb shoulder cooked low and slow, usually somewhere between 65°C and 75°C, and it can last several hours. Leave your cooker's temperature alone, wrap the meat once it's taken on enough smoke and colour if you want to speed things along, and trust the process. It always comes good.

Common questions

What temperature does the stall happen at? Usually somewhere between 65°C and 75°C (150–170°F) internal temperature, though the exact point depends on the meat, the cooker, and the airflow. It can occasionally sit anywhere in that range or drift slightly outside it.

How long does the stall last? Anywhere from one to nine hours. Smaller or drier joints stall for less time; large, wet cuts can stall for longer.

Should I turn up my BBQ during the stall? No. It won't shorten the stall by much and it's the most common way to dry out or overcook the outside of the meat before the inside catches up. Leave the temperature where it is.

Does wrapping in foil or paper stop the stall? Yes. Wrapping traps moisture against the meat, stopping evaporation and the cooling effect that causes the stall, so the temperature starts climbing steadily again. We use butcher paper rather than foil so the bark doesn't go soft.

We had a Pitt Cue meat box once, and they advocated wrapping in cling film. This may seem wrong, but clink film is safe up to these sorts or temp. It's not a technique I use though.

Does every cut of meat stall? Only large joints cooked low and slow for long enough to reach that temperature range gradually — brisket, pork shoulder, lamb shoulder and leg. Steaks, chops and smaller cuts cook through too quickly to hit a meaningful stall.

Is the stall caused by fat or collagen melting? No. Both were popular theories for years, but Prof. Greg Blonder's research for AmazingRibs.com showed there isn't enough energy involved in either process to hold a joint's temperature level for hours. It's evaporative cooling from surface moisture — the same reason sweat cools you down.