Question about cooking temps...

Hey Folks, sorry if this is a repetitive question, but I tried to do a search and never found the answer to my question.

Anyway... here goes: I'm planning on smoking my first butt this weekend in the WSM. In reading several posts concerning this, I've noticed that the final cooking temps seems to be around the 195 - 205 range. However, when looking up temps for when meats are considered cooked, I found that the temps were much lower... 165 degs. for pork. Is there a reason for such a huge variance in temperature when smoking?

Just a quick reply as I am running out to work.

165 will make the meat cooked to a safe edible temp, actually 145 will, but it will take somewhere in the 195+ range to make the connective tissue break down so you can pull it. You will hear time and time again not to bbq to temp but to tenderness. This is so true. But the temp will start to get you into the ball park of when to be expecting things to be tender.

That explains it, Jeff! Thank you, sir! Have a good day at work (if that's possible).

Sam, Check this out. Chris has a ton of info on the main site and his temp list is for BBQ.