Smoke & Slow

Best Butcher Paper for Brisket

Unwaxed pink butcher paper is what lets a wrapped brisket keep its bark. There is almost nothing to choose between the rolls, so this page is mostly about width, length, and the one maker that will tell you how hot its paper can go.

By Stephen V.Last updated How we pick

Buy the small Reynolds box for your first briskets, and switch to a bare 18-inch roll when you get tired of re-buying it. That is the entire recommendation. Butcher paper is a commodity: an uncoated, unwaxed, unbleached kraft sheet that costs a few cents a foot, and no roll on this page will make your brisket better than another one will. What separates them is how much paper you get, how wide it is, whether the box cuts it for you, and whether the maker publishes anything about it at all.

That last one is why Reynolds leads. It is the only paper here whose maker states a temperature it is recommended for — up to 300°F — along with FDA compliance, no wax, no bleach, and added wet strength that plain kraft paper does not have. Everyone else sells you an unbleached roll and says nothing about heat. That does not make the other rolls unsafe; it means the only published number in the category belongs to one brand, and we are not going to invent figures for the rest.

We picked on published paper claims, on width, on cost per square foot, and on the small practical question of how you get a straight edge with greasy hands (how we pick) — never on a side-by-side wrap test we did not run. Prices are pulled live. And if you are still deciding whether to wrap in paper at all, read paper vs foil first: this page assumes you have already decided that bark matters to you.

How this is funded:we earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which smoker we recommend, and we’ll tell you when we’d skip one. Full disclosure.

Quick picks

Ranked on published specs, beginner-friendliness and value. Select a row to jump to the full write-up. We haven’t cooked on every one of these — here is exactly what we do instead.

#ProductBest forPrice
1
Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (75 sq ft)

Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (75 sq ft)

The right first box, for two reasons that have nothing to do with the paper itself being better. It is the only butcher paper here whose maker publishes anything technical — Reynolds states it is FDA compliant, unwaxed and unbleached, has added wet strength unlike plain kraft paper, and is recommended for temperatures up to 300°F — and it comes in a box with a slide cutter, so you get a straight edge one-handed with greasy hands instead of wrestling a bare roll. At 75 sq ft it is also the smallest quantity anyone sells, which for someone smoking a brisket a few times a year is the point rather than the drawback.

Best overall
$9.78 · View on Amazon

Price as of September 5, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

2
Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 175 ft)

Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 175 ft)

The bare roll to buy once you know you are going to keep doing this. Eighteen inches is the width the whole category settled on, because it wraps a full packer with a fold to spare, and 175 feet at this price is the point where paper stops being a purchase you think about. The listing states food-grade, unbleached, uncoated, unwaxed and made in the USA, which is the entire specification that matters. What you give up against the Reynolds box is the cutter and any published temperature guidance at all.

Best if you cook often
$15.98 · View on Amazon

$19.9920% off

Price as of September 5, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

3
PerkHomy Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 200 ft)

PerkHomy Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 200 ft)

The cheapest paper per square foot we found from a seller describing it correctly — 200 feet at 18 inches wide, unbleached, uncoated and unwaxed, which is the whole specification. There is nothing else to it, and that is the recommendation: if the only thing standing between you and wrapping a brisket properly is not wanting to spend money on paper, this is the row to click. It publishes less about itself than Reynolds does and makes no US-manufacture claim, and neither of those things changes what happens to your bark.

Best value
$14.98 · View on Amazon

Price as of September 5, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

4
Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (24 in x 175 ft)

Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (24 in x 175 ft)

The same Bryco paper six inches wider, and the answer if a 16-pound packer keeps ending up in a two-sheet wrap with a seam down the middle. Twenty-four inches lets you lay a whole brisket across the roll and fold both sides over in one pass, which is one fewer thing to get wrong while the meat cools on the counter. It is not the beginner default — you pay more, it stores worse, and you will be cutting it down for ribs — but for anyone who cooks whole packers it removes a real annoyance.

Best for full packers
$24.99 · View on Amazon

$29.9717% off

Price as of September 5, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

5
Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (225 sq ft)

Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (225 sq ft)

The same Reynolds paper and the same slide cutter in a 150-foot box, for people who worked out after two cooks that the cutter is worth keeping and the small roll is not worth re-buying. You still get the published claims the bare rolls do not make — FDA compliant, unwaxed, unbleached, added wet strength, recommended up to 300°F — and you still pay for the box, which is the honest trade. If you would rather have the paper than the cutter, the bare rolls give you more of it for less.

Best big box with a cutter
$27.79 · View on Amazon

Price as of September 5, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

The picks in full

#1Best overall

Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (75 sq ft)

The right first box, for two reasons that have nothing to do with the paper itself being better. It is the only butcher paper here whose maker publishes anything technical — Reynolds states it is FDA compliant, unwaxed and unbleached, has added wet strength unlike plain kraft paper, and is recommended for temperatures up to 300°F — and it comes in a box with a slide cutter, so you get a straight edge one-handed with greasy hands instead of wrestling a bare roll. At 75 sq ft it is also the smallest quantity anyone sells, which for someone smoking a brisket a few times a year is the point rather than the drawback.

What’s good

  • The only paper here with a published temperature recommendation — up to 300°F, per Reynolds
  • Maker states FDA compliant, unwaxed, unbleached, with added wet strength unlike plain kraft paper
  • Slide cutter box gives a clean straight edge with one greasy hand
  • 75 sq ft is 18 inches wide by about 50 feet — a season of occasional briskets, not a decade of them

Trade-offs

  • You pay a clear premium per square foot for the box and the cutter
  • Smallest quantity on this page, so a weekly smoker will be re-buying it
  • The cardboard box eventually goes soft in a damp garage in a way a bare roll does not
  • 300°F is a real stated ceiling — fine for low-and-slow, not for a hot-and-fast 325°F brisket
Roll size18 in wide, 75 sq ft — about 50 ft of paper
PaperUnbleached, unwaxed, FDA compliant, added wet strength (Reynolds)
TemperatureRecommended up to 300°F (Reynolds)
CutterSlide cutter built into the box

Specs read from the product listing, on September 1, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure there.

#2Best if you cook often

Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 175 ft)

The bare roll to buy once you know you are going to keep doing this. Eighteen inches is the width the whole category settled on, because it wraps a full packer with a fold to spare, and 175 feet at this price is the point where paper stops being a purchase you think about. The listing states food-grade, unbleached, uncoated, unwaxed and made in the USA, which is the entire specification that matters. What you give up against the Reynolds box is the cutter and any published temperature guidance at all.

What’s good

  • 18 inches by 175 feet — 262.5 sq ft, at a far lower cost per square foot than a cutter box
  • Listing states food-grade, unbleached, uncoated and unwaxed, made in the USA
  • Bare roll stands upright in a corner instead of taking up a drawer
  • The width everyone means when they say butcher paper, so every wrapping tutorial matches what you own

Trade-offs

  • No cutter — you tear it against the roll or keep scissors nearby, and the tear is never straight
  • Bryco publishes no temperature guidance, so you work to the 225–275°F band rather than a stated ceiling
  • 175 feet is more paper than an occasional smoker will get through in years
  • A bare roll unspools itself in a cupboard and picks up grit off a garage floor
Roll size18 in x 175 ft — 262.5 sq ft
PaperFood-grade, unbleached, uncoated, unwaxed; made in USA (listing)
TemperatureNot published
CutterNone — bare roll

Specs read from the product listing, on September 1, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure there.

#3Best value

PerkHomy Pink Butcher Paper Roll (18 in x 200 ft)

The cheapest paper per square foot we found from a seller describing it correctly — 200 feet at 18 inches wide, unbleached, uncoated and unwaxed, which is the whole specification. There is nothing else to it, and that is the recommendation: if the only thing standing between you and wrapping a brisket properly is not wanting to spend money on paper, this is the row to click. It publishes less about itself than Reynolds does and makes no US-manufacture claim, and neither of those things changes what happens to your bark.

What’s good

  • 200 feet at 18 inches — 300 sq ft, the most paper of anything on this page
  • Listing states unbleached, uncoated and unwaxed peach paper for smoking
  • Cheapest per square foot of the five at the listings we read
  • Same 18-inch width as the established rolls, so it behaves identically on the counter

Trade-offs

  • No cutter, and a 300 sq ft roll is a heavy, awkward thing to tear one-handed
  • No published temperature guidance and no stated country of manufacture
  • A newer listing than the established brands, with correspondingly less of a track record
  • Genuinely more paper than most households will ever use
Roll size18 in x 200 ft — 300 sq ft
PaperUnbleached, uncoated, unwaxed peach paper (listing)
TemperatureNot published
CutterNone — bare roll

Specs read from the product listing, on September 1, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure there.

#4Best for full packers

Bryco Goods Pink Butcher Paper Roll (24 in x 175 ft)

The same Bryco paper six inches wider, and the answer if a 16-pound packer keeps ending up in a two-sheet wrap with a seam down the middle. Twenty-four inches lets you lay a whole brisket across the roll and fold both sides over in one pass, which is one fewer thing to get wrong while the meat cools on the counter. It is not the beginner default — you pay more, it stores worse, and you will be cutting it down for ribs — but for anyone who cooks whole packers it removes a real annoyance.

What’s good

  • 24 inches wide — a full packer lies across it with enough overhang to fold both sides
  • 350 sq ft on the roll, the largest total area here
  • Listing states food-grade, unbleached, uncoated and unwaxed, made in the USA
  • One sheet instead of two overlapping ones means no seam for juice to find

Trade-offs

  • Wasteful for ribs, chicken and anything that is not a whole packer — you end up cutting it down
  • Costs more than the 18-inch roll and takes noticeably more storage room
  • No cutter, and a 24-inch tear is harder to keep straight than an 18-inch one
  • Bryco publishes no temperature guidance for it
Roll size24 in x 175 ft — 350 sq ft
PaperFood-grade, unbleached, uncoated, unwaxed; made in USA (listing)
TemperatureNot published
CutterNone — bare roll

Specs read from the product listing, on September 1, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure there.

#5Best big box with a cutter

Reynolds Kitchens Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (225 sq ft)

The same Reynolds paper and the same slide cutter in a 150-foot box, for people who worked out after two cooks that the cutter is worth keeping and the small roll is not worth re-buying. You still get the published claims the bare rolls do not make — FDA compliant, unwaxed, unbleached, added wet strength, recommended up to 300°F — and you still pay for the box, which is the honest trade. If you would rather have the paper than the cutter, the bare rolls give you more of it for less.

What’s good

  • 225 sq ft — 18 inches by 150 feet — three times the small box
  • Keeps the slide cutter, which is the reason to buy Reynolds paper at all
  • Same published claims: FDA compliant, unwaxed, unbleached, added wet strength, up to 300°F
  • Boxed paper stays clean and dry on a garage shelf

Trade-offs

  • Still costs more per square foot than any bare roll here
  • A 150-foot cardboard box is bulky and heavy to handle one-handed
  • 18 inches only — there is no wide version if you cook whole packers
  • The 300°F recommendation applies here too, so it is not a hot-and-fast paper
Roll size18 in x 150 ft — 225 sq ft
PaperUnbleached, unwaxed, FDA compliant, added wet strength (Reynolds)
TemperatureRecommended up to 300°F (Reynolds)
CutterSlide cutter built into the box

Specs read from the product listing, on September 1, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure there.

What butcher paper actually does

Wrapping a brisket solves one problem: the stall, the long plateau somewhere around 150 to 170°F where evaporation off the surface cools the meat as fast as the smoker heats it. Sealing the surface stops that evaporative cooling, the temperature climbs again, and the cook finishes hours earlier than it otherwise would.

Foil does that job best, because foil seals completely. The problem is that a complete seal also steams the crust you spent six hours building. Butcher paper is the compromise: it holds enough heat and moisture to break the stall while still letting some steam through, so the surface stays firmer and drier. Reynolds puts it plainly on its own product page — butcher paper allows the meat to breathe, which helps maintain the crisp bark while sealing in moisture. That single property is the whole reason this product exists, and it is why the brisket you eat in Texas is handed to you in paper rather than foil.

The paper is doing nothing clever beyond that. It adds no flavor, it does not tenderize, and it will not rescue a cook that went wrong earlier. If your bark is pale when you wrap it, it will be pale when you unwrap it — our guide to getting good bark covers what actually builds the crust in the hours before the wrap.

The five things that separate one roll from another

In order of how much they matter. Everything else on the box is decoration.

  • Uncoated, unwaxed, unbleached. This is the only non-negotiable, and every roll on this page states it. Waxed and plastic-coated papers are a different product for a different job, and they have no business in a 275°F cooker. If a listing does not say plainly that the paper is unwaxed and uncoated, do not buy it for this.
  • Width. Eighteen inches is the standard and handles a full packer brisket with a fold to spare. Twenty-four inches lets you wrap the biggest packers in a single sheet instead of two overlapping ones. Ribs and pork butts are comfortable at 18 inches. Nobody needs less than that.
  • Length, which is really a question about you. Rolls run from about 50 feet to 200. A 200-foot roll is the cheapest paper per foot by a mile and total overkill for someone who smokes four times a summer. Be honest about which of those you are.
  • Whether the box cuts it. Sounds trivial until you are standing at the counter with a 12-pound brisket in one hand. A slide-cutter box gives you a straight edge one-handed; a bare roll gets torn against itself, and the tear wanders. Neither is wrong. One costs more.
  • Whether the maker publishes a temperature. Reynolds recommends its paper up to 300°F. No other maker here states a figure at all, so with a bare roll you are relying on the fact that paper in a 225–275°F smoker is long-established practice rather than on anything the seller has committed to in writing.

Notice what is not on that list: brand, thickness, and anything about smoke flavor or moisture retention. Sellers make claims in all three areas. We have not wrapped identical briskets in five papers to test them, so we are not going to repeat those claims as if we had.

Pink, peach, white: does the color mean anything?

No — and the naming is genuinely confusing, so it is worth being precise. “Pink butcher paper” and “peach paper” are the same thing, and the makers use both names in the same breath: the Bryco listing calls one roll pink butcher paper and food-grade peach paper in the same title. The color comes from the unbleached pulp and a dye, not from any property that touches your food.

The distinction that doesmatter is between butcher paper and plain kraft paper, and Reynolds is explicit about it: unlike kraft paper, its butcher paper has added wet strength so it stays strong even when wet. That is the property you actually want — a wrap that survives four hours against a rendering brisket without turning to pulp. Plain white kraft paper sold for wrapping parcels, banners or classroom projects makes no such claim, and a cheap banner roll is not the same purchase even when the color looks similar.

So: buy paper sold for smoking meat, in any color it comes in, and ignore anyone telling you that the pink is doing something. White butcher paper sold as food-grade is fine for lining trays and wrapping sandwiches. For the wrap itself, take the roll that says unwaxed, uncoated and food-grade on the label.

How much paper do you actually need?

More than people expect, and less than a 200-foot roll. Wrapping a brisket properly means two overlapping sheets, each long enough to go around the cut and back over itself — call it around five feet of paper per brisket. That is our estimate from the size of a packer, not a figure any maker publishes, so treat it as a planning number rather than a spec.

RollPaper on itRoughly how many brisket wraps
Reynolds 75 sq ft box18 in wide, about 50 ftAbout ten — a season of occasional cooks
Reynolds 225 sq ft box18 in x 150 ftAbout thirty
Bryco 18-inch roll18 in x 175 ft — 262.5 sq ftAbout thirty-five
PerkHomy 18-inch roll18 in x 200 ft — 300 sq ftAbout forty
Bryco 24-inch roll24 in x 175 ft — 350 sq ftAbout fifty, and each one in a single sheet rather than two

The point of the table is not to sell you the biggest roll. It is that even the smallest box on this page carries you through a first season, and the large rolls are a decade of barbecue for most households. Paper does not go off if you keep it dry and off the floor, so buying long is a fair call — just do it because the price per foot is better, not because you imagine you will run out.

What not to wrap in

  • Freezer paper. It looks like butcher paper and has a plastic or wax coating on one side, which is exactly what you do not want melting against your food in a hot cooker.
  • Waxed or coated butcher paper. Sold for deli counters and display cases. Same problem, and the reason every roll here advertises “unwaxed, uncoated” on the front.
  • Craft, banner and easel paper. Often the same color and a third of the price, but it is not sold as food-grade and makes no wet strength claim. It is the one substitution that looks smart and is not.
  • Parchment paper. It is food-safe and heat-rated, so it will not hurt anything, but it is siliconized and far less breathable than butcher paper — you get a result closer to foil, without foil’s advantages. Fine in an emergency, not what you buy on purpose.
  • Anything touching flame. Reynolds states the obvious on its own page and it is worth repeating: no paper product should be in direct contact with open flames. In practice that means paper goes near the meat, not against the firebox wall of an offset or on the grate directly above a lit burner.

Foil is the one legitimate alternative rather than a mistake, and there are cooks where it is the better tool — a tight schedule, or ribs you want falling apart. Our paper vs foil comparison works through when each one wins.

How to wrap a brisket in butcher paper

  1. Wait for the bark to set. Deep mahogany, dry to the touch, not smearing when you press it — usually somewhere in the 150–170°F stall. Wrap before that and you seal in a pale crust you cannot get back.
  2. Tear two long sheets. Each around the length of your forearm plus the brisket, laid overlapping by about a third down the middle on a clean counter.
  3. Set the brisket down fat side up, near one edge. Point end toward you so you are rolling along the long axis.
  4. Fold the near edge over the top and pull it tight. Tight is the whole technique. A loose wrap is a bag of steam; a tight wrap is a second skin.
  5. Fold in both sides like a parcel and keep rolling the brisket away from you until the paper runs out.
  6. Put it back in seam side down. The weight of the meat holds the seam shut — no tape, no foil, nothing else needed.
  7. Leave the probe in, or put it back in through the paper. You are still cooking to feel and temperature, not to the clock. Our brisket guide covers the rest of the cook, and how to rest smoked meat covers what happens after — briskets usually rest in the same paper they cooked in.

Where the 300°F number actually matters

The USDA puts smoking in the 225–300°F band, and almost every low-and-slow cook you will do sits at 225 to 275°F. Reynolds recommends its paper up to 300°F, so for normal barbecue the two line up with room to spare and the number is a non-issue.

It stops being a non-issue if you cook hot and fast. Running a brisket at 325°F to finish it in eight hours is a legitimate technique, and it is above the only ceiling anyone in this category publishes. That is not a prediction that the paper will fail — it is a statement about what is documented and what is not. If hot-and-fast is your plan, you are working outside the published guidance for every roll here, Reynolds included.

Do you need this at all?

Not for most of your first cooks, and it is worth saying so plainly on a page that earns a commission when you buy. Ribs, chicken, wings, sausage and pork tenderloin do not want a paper wrap. Pulled pork is fine either way and many people prefer foil for it. Butcher paper is a brisket tool that also suits beef ribs and chuck roast — and if a brisket is not on your near-term list, this is a purchase you can postpone indefinitely.

When you do buy, buy small first. The cheapest box here is the sensible entry for the same reason we tell people to buy the cheap thermometer before the expensive one: you find out whether you like the result before you commit to a decade of paper. The rest of the short list of things genuinely worth owning is in our smoker starter kit, and if you are still shopping for the cooker itself, start at best smokers for beginners.

What we left off

Cooker-brand paper. The big pellet-grill makers sell branded rolls, and at the listings we read they were the most expensive paper per foot of anything we looked at — short rolls at premium prices for an unbleached sheet that is not meaningfully different from a generic one. Buy their pellets if you like; the paper is a logo tax.

Pre-cut sheet packs and “brisket kits.” Convenient, but a fixed sheet size is exactly the wrong shape for a cut that varies from 10 to 18 pounds, and you pay more per square foot for the cutting. A roll and a pair of scissors solves it better.

Anything sold as a bulk case. Restaurant-supply cases of eight rolls are the cheapest paper on the internet and completely wrong for a backyard cook who will use one roll a decade.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best butcher paper for brisket?

For most people, the small Reynolds Kitchens box with the slide cutter — not because the paper is better, but because it is the only one whose maker publishes anything technical (FDA compliant, unwaxed, unbleached, added wet strength, recommended up to 300°F) and because the cutter earns its keep when your hands are greasy. If you smoke most weekends, a bare 18-inch roll costs far less per foot and does the identical job.

Is pink butcher paper the same as peach paper?

Yes. Makers use the names interchangeably — the same Bryco roll is described as both pink butcher paper and food-grade peach paper on its own listing. The color comes from unbleached pulp and dye and has no effect on your cook. What matters is that the paper is uncoated, unwaxed and sold for food use.

Can I use white butcher paper or plain kraft paper instead?

White paper sold as food-grade butcher paper is fine. Plain kraft paper — the kind sold for parcels, banners or craft projects — is not the same product: Reynolds specifically contrasts its butcher paper with kraft paper, saying its version has added wet strength to stay strong even when wet. A brisket sweats for hours, so wet strength is the property you are buying.

How much butcher paper do I need for one brisket?

Plan on roughly five feet for a full packer — two overlapping sheets, each long enough to go around the meat and back over itself. That is our estimate based on the size of the cut rather than a figure any maker publishes. On that basis a 75 sq ft box is about ten briskets and a 175-foot roll is about thirty-five.

Is butcher paper safe to use in a smoker?

Used as intended, yes — it is long-established barbecue practice, and the USDA puts smoking in the 225 to 300°F range, which is where these cooks live. Reynolds is the only maker here that publishes a limit, recommending its paper up to 300°F, and it also states that no paper product should be in direct contact with open flames. Keep the wrap away from the firebox and off a lit burner.

Can I use parchment paper or freezer paper to wrap a brisket?

Parchment will not hurt anything but it is siliconized and much less breathable, so you get a result closer to foil without foil's speed — fine as an emergency substitute, not a deliberate choice. Freezer paper is the one to avoid outright: it has a wax or plastic coating on one side that does not belong in a hot cooker.

Do you wrap ribs in butcher paper?

You can, but most people do not. Ribs are usually wrapped in foil when they are wrapped at all, because the softer, more braised texture foil produces is what people want from ribs. Butcher paper is a brisket tool first, and useful on beef ribs and chuck roast for the same reason — the bark is the point.

Do you rest a brisket in the butcher paper?

Usually, yes. Most cooks leave the brisket wrapped in the paper it cooked in, vent it briefly so it stops cooking, then rest it wrapped in a dry cooler or a low oven. The paper is breathable enough that the bark does not go soggy the way it can in foil during a long rest.

Sources

  • Reynolds Kitchens — Pink Butcher Paper with Slide Cutter (maker's product page) — Maker states the paper is FDA compliant, unwaxed and unbleached, that unlike kraft paper it has added wet strength to stay strong even when wet, that it is recommended for temperatures up to 300°F, that butcher paper allows meat to breathe and so helps maintain the crisp bark while sealing in moisture, and that no paper product should be in direct contact with open flames (accessed September 1, 2026)
  • USDA FSIS — Smoking Meat and Poultry — USDA guidance to keep the smoker between 225°F and 300°F, use two thermometers (food + smoker), and refrigerate within 2 hours (accessed July 22, 2026)

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