Meat Meter

It counts portions (an adult is 1, a kid under 12 is half), picks a cooked portion for each meat based on appetite and how many meats are on the menu, and divides by the yield of each cut to tell you how much raw meat to buy. It adds buns and a fuel ballpark, and in advanced mode a smoke timeline, sides, drinks and ice, a temperature guide and a margin for leftovers.

About ⅓ lb of cooked brisket per adult when it is the main meat: ¼ lb if there are plenty of sides or other meats, and up to ½ lb for big eaters. A whole brisket loses roughly half its weight, so plan about ⅔ lb of raw whole packer per person.

About ⅓ to ½ lb of cooked pulled pork per adult as a main, or around ¼ lb per sandwich. Pork shoulder loses roughly 35 to 50 percent of its weight, so buy about ½ to 1 lb of raw pork butt per person.

As a main dish, about 6 baby back ribs (half a rack), 4 to 5 spare ribs, or 2 to 3 beef back ribs per adult. Plan on fewer if you are serving other meats.

For 20 adults at ⅓ lb cooked each you need about 6.7 lb cooked, which is roughly 13.4 lb of raw whole packer brisket at a 50 percent yield. A flat or point yields more, so you can buy a bit less.

Plan roughly 1 to 1.5 hours per pound at 225°F, or about 45 to 75 minutes per pound at 250°F, and then rest it wrapped in a cooler for 2 to 4 hours. Times vary a lot with the cooker and the cut, so go by probe tenderness, not the clock.

Brisket and pork butt are usually pulled at about 195 to 205°F, once a probe slides in with almost no resistance. That is a tenderness target. The USDA safe minimums are 145°F for whole cuts, 160°F for ground meat and sausage, and 165°F for poultry.

For direct grilling, Kingsford suggests about 30 briquettes per pound of meat, which is roughly 1½ lb of charcoal per pound of meat. For smoking low and slow, many backyard cookers burn about 1 to 1½ lb of charcoal per hour. It varies a lot with your cooker and the weather.

Surveys by the HPBA find that gas grills are the most common among US grill owners, at about 60 percent or more, with charcoal close behind and pellet grills growing fast. Meat Meter gives a rough fuel estimate for charcoal, gas and pellets.

About ½ cup of each side per guest when you serve three or four sides, and roughly 1 lb of ice per guest, double that on a hot day. For drinks, plan 2 soft drinks per person in the first hour and 1 per hour after that, and 1 to 2 beers per adult per hour.

Yes to both. Switch between pounds and kilograms at the top of the tool, and between English and Spanish with the EN | ES buttons.

Yes. It is free, needs no sign-up, and what you enter is saved only on your device.