What Causes Green Pork Butts?


 
Meat near the bone-in bone can frequently be dark, but I have never seen green. And it certainly wouldn't affect the taste of more "remote" meat. I'd like to see some pictures if you are unlucky enough to have this occur again.
 
OliverLeveritt said:
OK. I entered the place's names and "green pork". Nothing. Finding out about it after the fact does nothing for me, but there's nothing there.
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Question, was all your green pork from your freezer?

If so, you might have a defrost issue in your freezer that it out-temping your pork.

Just a suggestion. I didn’t take time to the-read the entire three.
 
BFletcher said:
You have a peculiar situation, which can lend itself to possibly seeming odd recommendations. I appreciated reading others thoughts who replied in an effort to help.

You mentioned bitter tasting meat, and a previous sinus issue that impacted you. If I were in your shoes I'd be curious about the outcome from an indoor oven cook. As for your smokers, I don't know, I was grasping at straws wondering if there's something in the environment or a critter or something contaminating them. And green to a given set of eyes isn't always green to another.
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At this stage of the game, the odds are monumentally in favor of having good meat the next time, regardless of where I cook it. Even it I cook it in the oven and it's fine, that still tells me nothing except that the particular butt is OK. I'd have to cook three butts from the same source -- one in each cooker and one in the oven to have a true comparative result.
I have cooked other food in both cookers since then -- meatloaf once and chicken three times with no negative effects. No green chicken. The green was inside the butts. If it was contaminated by the cooker, there would be evidence outside and through the meat. It wouldn't just mysteriously pass thru half of a 10 lb butt to get to the inside without leaving a trace.
Yes, my wife saw the green meat.
 
Brett-EDH said:
Question, was all your green pork from your freezer?

If so, you might have a defrost issue in your freezer that it out-temping your pork.

Just a suggestion. I didn’t take time to the-read the entire three.
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Two of the butts were in my freezer for a while. I know that there was no issue with the freezer. I keep a couple of 4 oz Rubbermaid containers in there. I fill them halfway with water, put the lid on and let it freeze. I also leave two quarters in the freezer to get cold. Then next day, I drop a quarter in each of the containers and put the lid back on.
If the quarter slides around on the ice when you pick it up and wiggle / shake it, everything is good. If the quarter is stuck to the ice, there was a very slight bit of warming, but probably nothing drastic. If the quarter is noticeably sunken into the ice, everything gets tossed, because the ice melted enough for the quarter to sink some and then it refroze.
 
How many days fridge thaw are you applying to each butt?

My thoughts are something is happening in the freeze to thaw process and then the cook. Is the meat possibly frozen at the bone when smoking it? Is the thaw a few days thus allowing for oxidation? Is the smoker hot enough to move the bone meat temp quick enough to avoid bacterial growth from start of cook to when the meat exits the unsafe zone?

I’m thinking out loud here. Trying to deduce the process and find possible room for contamination/oxidation.
 
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Chad-Burnt to a T said:
If I had to take a stab it's either extremely bad luck or its on your end of doing something wrong in either how it's handled for temps between freezer and fridge in your process before cooking.
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I am very focused on how all my food is handled. If the meat was in the freezer, it went straight into the refrigerator to thaw.
Meat came out of the refrigerator to be prepped and went straight back into the refrigerator when prepped a few minutes later.
Meat came out of the refrigerator and went straight onto the grates and registered 34° IT.
 
OliverLeveritt said:
So, after eliminating source, handling & safe temp management, refrigeration, cooking equipment and cooking process, I'm at a loss. The only actual commonality between the two was the oven finish. I have cooked lots of stuff in that oven and nothing else ever came out green ON THE INSIDE.
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That's why I said to skip the overnite brine. Only other time I noticed weird colored streaks in pork butts was when I injected.
Could be like a curing thing when you see a weird color in ham around the bone.
Try just S&P and throw it on the smoker.
 
timothy said:
That's why I said to skip the overnite brine. Only other time I noticed weird colored streaks in pork butts was when I injected.
Could be like a curing thing when you see a weird color in ham around the bone.
Try just S&P and throw it on the smoker.
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I concur. It’s a preparation method and possible cook temp method being too low at the cook onset with the meat being too cold and too low a cook temp (<250°).
 
I would ask how long the pork has been in your freezer? While properly packaged beef can go a year, pork's shelf life even in the freezer is less. They tend to go bad after just a few months even in the freezer. At least that has been my experience. To be fair, I have never seen it green.

I am not a freezer expert, but given that it is deep inside along the bone, wouldn't that eliminate it as a freezer issue? I would expect to see "freezer burn" issues on the surface. I feel for you with wasted food.
 
Todd K Wisc said:
I would ask how long the pork has been in your freezer? While properly packaged beef can go a year, pork's shelf life even in the freezer is less. They tend to go bad after just a few months even in the freezer. At least that has been my experience. To be fair, I have never seen it green.
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Seriously? Proper freezer temps are crucial.
I just pulled out a 3 year cryovaced butt.
 
timothy said:
Seriously? Proper freezer temps are crucial.
I just pulled out a 3 year cryovaced butt.
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That's been my experience with pork and the freezer. That is pork in a regular no frost freezer and not a frost free refrigerator freezer. Mine is a door style freezer versus a chest, so it does frost up faster than the chest types. Your experience is obviously different than mine.

Edit two sites with lengths of time: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/cooking/a31899638/how-long-does-frozen-meat-last/
www.tastingtable.com

Is It Safe To Eat 2-Year-Old Frozen Meat? - Tasting Table

Do you have years-old frozen meats in your freezer? If you're wondering how long they will remain safe to eat, the answer depends on what type of meat it is.
www.tastingtable.com www.tastingtable.com
 
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I cooked the last butt in my freezer. 4 for 4. I have said and said and said all that I can say on this subject. I am done with it. I'll get around this or get out of this one way or another. For now, I'm over it.. Finis.
 

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Looks like your rub is interacting with the bone marrow. There’s green stuff, but the pork meat isn’t green. And the stuff looks wet, like pork jus and rub.

I’ll stop here since there’s no replies on cook temps, grate temps and duration temps over time.

Don’t want to frustrate you but the fact that you’ve replicated this 4x tells me it’s not a pork product issue. And that all your results were identical lends me to believe this is a result of the cook.

Sorry you’re going through this.
 
Brett-EDH said:
Looks like your rub is interacting with the bone marrow. There’s green stuff, but the pork meat isn’t green. And the stuff looks wet, like pork jus and rub.

I’ll stop here since there’s no replies on cook temps, grate temps and duration temps over time.

Don’t want to frustrate you but the fact that you’ve replicated this 4x tells me it’s not a pork product issue. And that all your results were identical lends me to believe this is a result of the cook.

Sorry you’re going through this.
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i stand by my post:

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Brett-EDH said:
Looks like your rub is interacting with the bone marrow. There’s green stuff, but the pork meat isn’t green. And the stuff looks wet, like pork jus and rub.
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All were cooked with DIFFERENT rubs. One was cooked with nothing but salt & pepper. So, if three different widely used rubs AND just plain salt / pepper is "interacting" and causing the "green stuff", why isn't everyone seeing the same thing?
Green stuff, but the meat isn't green? The meat was green. Wet stuff? Yes, pork is usually wet when you pull it. This is green pork -- not iridescent beef.
And, you want me to believe that I screwed up four pork butts by doing absolutely nothing different than all the other pork butts I have cooked which were perfectly fine. Gotcha.
 
This does not mean it's not an issue but I commonly see a hint of that hue near the bone when I smoke pork shoulders.

I am not a scientific cooker and it's easier for some folks to dismiss a matter; I just assumed it was something in the bone interacting with the meat in that immediate area.
 
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