Internal temp that makes it safe to it as is???


 
A

A Kokkinos

New member
Thanks to all your advise, I finished smoking my first bacon and "lountza". I marinated a piece of each in red dry wine (Cypriot tradional recipe), and also dry cured a piece of each with Cure #1 and some spices as suggested in various recipes here. Both came out really good - my personal preference is the wine marinated pieces as they are more traditional tasting to me.
My question: Here in Cyprus, when we finish smoking bacon, lountza, and sausages then we can either cook them (fry or grill or even prerserve them in melted pork fat) or serve them as appetizers without any further cooking. Since this has been the norm for many many years and we still do not have any bad food poisoning cases (at least registered), what would be a safe internal meat temp that would allow one to consume bacon or lountza without further cooking it? Is there such a temp or is it a case of simply being lucky all these years? BTW, I asked an old man who has been in this business for years about eating the finished product as is, and he said it is very safe since the dry wine and salt and the smoking fully cook the meat, so there is no need for further cooking. The smoking process is long and slow, lasting for more than 2-3 days depending on what is being smoked.

Thanks

Andreas
 
That sounds like a very different process from the bacon I make, although it is cooked to a safe temperature on my WSM.
 
Andreas- here in Norway we have a long tradition of making raw, cold smoked meats, at least a thousand years. I bet the same applies to your whereabouts.

Now, I live in a very regulated country, where laws are made to make food safe and healty. We still enjoy raw meat, such as cured ham and cured meat from sheep and other mammals. These products are all raw, and safe.
If you have used proper hygiene, and used your recipe, which I'll guess i quite old and tested by generations in your country, I would suggest that it is safe.
To be sure, you'll have to let a laboratory test a sample.
 
I always eat a little right out of the smoker without frying it up first. It's good, and different. But I hot smoke up into the 140s. That's pretty much where I cook pork in general, and the curing can only help, so I don't see any safety issues there. It sounds like you're cold smoking if it's taking days. In that case I would forget temperatures entirely and treat it like any cured but uncooked meat - it's really all about the hygiene and process. I'd say if it smells good and hasn't killed anybody yet that's a pretty big hint that it's "ok".
 
Hot smoking at 145F kills all (99.99999%) bacteria almost immediately and that's the method I've used here in the deep south where hogs run wild all over the place. However, HOWEVER, should you decide to cold smoke around 100F the bacteriocidal effect, killing all bacteria, can take several days at that temperature and I personally know several swampers who cold smoke all of their meat over several days. And truthfully I wished I had my own real smokehouse to cold smoke meats especially bacon as it tastes different from the hot smoked stuff.

Cold smoking and curing with high humidity is where you get your finer cuts as well: prosciutto, cappicola and such as certain sausages.
 
Last edited:
Here are some smoke times I got elsewhere at the old tvwb website:

At the VWB this is a thread listing good and reliable bacon curing and smoking information:

EDIT (new updated link): http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?4958-Another-bacon-smoking-question


How much time at 140F is required to kill microbes?

A bit over 11 min. At 135, 36 min; at 130, 113 min; at 145 4 min; at 150, a bit over 1 min.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Time at Temp:

140F A bit over 11 min.

At 135 36 min;
at 130, 113 min;
at 145 4 min;
at 150, a bit over 1 min.



Temp Time
130F 113(sic) minutes
135F 36 minutes
140F 11+ minutes
145F 4 minutes
150F 1+ minutes
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top