First Overnight - Fire Issues


 
C

ChristopherCG

TVWBB Fan
I've cooked several pork butts over the past year but have never done an overnight. THought I'd give it a go last night. Got everything ready around 10pm lit about 15 coals and added to a fully packed ring of all natural lump briquets. By midnight temps were holding steady at 240.

I woke up at 5am and saw my cooker temp was about 140 and the meat was 132. The fire had pretty much gone out. I stirred things up and got temps back to 250 pretty quick. Not sure how long it was below 200. Could have been a while.

Am I screwed here or can I just keep cooking from this point as if nothing happened? I'm such an idiot because I'm using a maverick but didn't bother setting the alarms. I've had such steady cooks lately I didn't feel I needed to. I've gone 5, 6 hours easy with very little temp adjustments during the day.
 
Keep going!

It's unlikely that the smoker was that low for long.

132º is medium-rare so there shouldn't be any issues.


More thoughts:

Meat surface temp is most likely the same as the smoker - 140º.

Most sources list 140º as being the upper limit of the 'Danger Zone' while some say 135º.

Some sources say food should not be in the 'Danger Zone' for more than 1 hour while others say less than 4 hours to still be considered 'safe'.

Even if the smoker started losing temp immediately at midnight, with a linear fall-off of 20º per hour, it's highly unlikely the smoker was under 160º for more than an hour.

Again, I doubt there any safety issues here.
 
I agree. You should be fine on the temps when it comes to food safety. FDA says 135. The hot holding temp in SC is 130 and we don't have many problems (I inspect restaurants).

Its not a bad idea to get it heated past 165 before you end your cook (which you certainly would).

I hope everything turns out nice.
 
Thanks for the replies. I was inclined to ride it out. Things are moving along again. I'm over 160 already and it's looking and smelling great.

I don't quite understand what happend with the fire. It just looked like the coals had really ashed over and just needed to be stirred. I didn't have to add any more lit coals to get things going. I'm using a no name brand of charcoal which may have contributed to my problems. I had used it before with no issue so I thought it would be ok.

Should be done around 10am or so. Will hold for a few hours and enjoy for lunch.
 
I agree, keep going. The deepest part of the meat is the coldest and hadn't been exposed to outside air/contamination .. The outside part of the meat was the 1st part to go over the 140º mark.
 
Most sources list 140º as being the upper limit of the 'Danger Zone' while some say 135º. Some sources say food should not be in the 'Danger Zone' for more than 1 hour while others say less than 4 hours to still be considered 'safe'.
Click to expand...
It is not a matter of opinion, it's science. And, given an accurate therm, it's 130? for the top end of the DZ. (Temps > 130 are given as 'an extra measure of safety' - or some other silliness - and are not science-based.) Stephen Kinnette, et al., are correct. The safety of holding lower than that is determined by the food item(s) in question, possible pathogens present, and whether the food was likely to have achieved higher temps (that then fell into the DZ) or not.

Since you are using a Mav, set the alarm. But determining the cause of the problem, if possible, will keep it from happening again.
 
It definitely cooled off overnight but not drastically. I think the coals just needed to be stirred. Once I did that it shot right back up. This has never really happened before but maybe because I deal with falling temps fairly easily when I'm awake.

I also don't think I'd use this type of charcoal again. I had a bag of Royal Oak lump briquets. I should have just used that. It produces way less ash than this kind.

In the future I will always set the alarm. Just plain stupidy/over-confidence I suppose. I'll never make that mistake again.

Thanks again for the help.
 
Chris, what suprises me is that you slept so well! My first,and only, all nighter, I was awake every hr. I used the Maveric, with the alarm set, but I was so concerned I woke every hr.
Sounds like you got her under control. I used Lazzari lump mesquite and didn't have to add coals for 9 hrs. Ya I bet your choice of coals and the way your vents were set contributed to the temp fall.

Mark
 
MK,

That is so funny. Over the last few months I've rarely slept so soundly as I did last night! I guess I was just over-confident. I've done quite a few long cooks (10+ hours) over the last few months and had incredibly stable temps with the lump briquets (though not this brand). I would go 5, 6 hours or longer where the temp gauge wouldn't budge.

I'm just about done. Meat temp is 184.
 
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