Safe pork temperatures


 
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Rick S

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I've read that you do not want pork that has been left under 140 and over 47 f for over 4 hours. I have a very interesting situation.

Please forgive me if this sounds stupid to anyone, but this is the first time this has happened to me, and I've cooked several pork butts. I cooked (2) 6 lb pork butts last night, 12 hrs on the WSM to 176f. Took them off at 4 am ( actually 3 am due to the time change).
Since I was sleepy I foiled them, got my oven up to 250 f and cooked them in foil till they hit 195 f, approx 2 hrs while I got a little extra sleep. I took them out, and they were too hot to handle. I have glass shelves in my fridge, and I didn't want the glass to crack so I wrapped 2 old bath towels around the 2 pork butts, placed them on top of each other under the towels. This was at 6:30 am. We had to be at both the 8:30 service and the 10:30 service at Church and had to eat lunch at Church today too. We got home, I took a short nap and decided to take a sample off one of the pork butts at approx 3 pm. The outside of the towels were cold, but the butts were both room temp warm. This is 8 1/2 hours after taking them out fo the oven with an internal temp of 195 F.

I know nothing is wrong with my fridge, and everything else in there is ice cold. I have no way to gauge how long the butts have stayed at that temp. Can the meat go bad, even in a cold refrigerator, if they were insulated so well that the internal temp didn't drop quickly from 195 to under 47 F?

Looking back, I guess I should have put the towels on the glass shelf and just put the butts on toip of the towels. I've done this before with butts and turkeys. This is the first time I wrapped foiled meat ( close to triple foil wrapped) in towels and put them in the fridge.

Does it look like these butts are ok?
 
Food safety guidelines recommend dividing hot, cooked food into small shallow dishes for rapid, safe cooling. This can be accomplished with butts that are still hot by using a couple of carving forks to pull the meat before refrigeration, and then spreading the meat out in a shallow pan.

One might be tempted to suggest something like "cooking to 195* should have killed any harmful bacteria, and, in the sub-40* environment of your refrigerator, their activity should have been sufficiently suppressed", but I can't in good conscience because I know that, no matter how sanitary you are when you handle your food, bacteria are everywhere and they multiply with astonishing speed.
 
I am very clean with my food, and I rinsed the butts thoroughly before I applied the rub, and they went to the cooker, cooked 12 hrs and when stright from the WSM to the oven for 2 hrs and straight from the oven to the refrigerator.

I wish I would have thought to go ahead and do a quick pull this morning. I did eat a chuck of one of the roasts at 3 today, not very big but not tiny. It's 8 pm now and I'm not sick. Has anyone else done something like I did?
 
The average incubation period before food borne illness causing bacteria produces "food poisoning" is 24-48 hours after ingestion. Many people who get gastroenteritis ("food poisoning") blame the last meal they ate which is usually incorrect. The tainted meal was most likely consumed the day before.

So, a lack of symptoms 5 hours later does not answer the question. Today or tomorrow might be another story.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I ate a chunk yesterday and so far, so good. I came home for luch today, pulled some more and heated it till it was sizzling big time in a bowl in the microwave 2+ minutes. Tasted great.

I decided, since I'm working at home this afternoon, to thoroughly re-heat the butts in the oven. Nothing smells bad about the meat.
I heated it for 21/2 hrs uncovered so far at 300 F till the internal temp got up to 176 in each butt. I covered the pan with aluminum foil ( both butts are in the same glass pan)and reduced the temp to 250f. I'm going to take them over 200 f internal if possible.

IF there was any chance of bacteria contamination this high heat re-heat would solve it, right?

Another thing I goofed up on because I was in a hurry, I didn't trim off the fat caps. I thought they would completely render off. A lot rendered, but not completely. It's still rendering as we speak.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rick S:
[qb]IF there was any chance of bacteria contamination this high heat re-heat would solve it, right? [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It is important to note that it is not the bacteria themselves that cause food-borne illness, it's the toxins they produce as waste. Reheating to any temperature will not destroy them.
 
Rick....

Pay close attention to what Doug just said!!

This is one of those meat myths....heating to high heat will kill anything left. WRONG!!

Also, keep in mind, that a healthy adult will be able to fend off most food borne illnesses. It is the seniors and the kids who will have a hard time fending them off.
 
I have 2 kids. It's not worth it.

I'm dumping them ( the pork butts, not the kids). The meat smells great, tastes great and yep I'm fine so far. If they got sick I wouldn't forgive myself.

I fought to try to keep the butts due to the effort put into cooking them. On the positive side, I get to do it again this week with new ones!
 
Rick...

Good decision! Fortunately pork butt is cheap...money wise.

You have already found the silver lining..you get to do it again!
 
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