40-140 Danger Zone Question

According to my local health dept. the "danger zone" comes into play after the food is cooked. It can be held for hours above 140* , but once the food temp drops into the danger zone you have 4 hours to serve it and then it must be thrown out. I hope this helps.

Skip the "letting it come to room temp" step. Your butt is not going to come to room temp in an hour or so.

Just to clarify further, I think they are referring to the cooking environment not the internal temp.  Once you put the meat in a 250 degree egg it is no longer in the danger zone.  

A good discussion of food safety temperatures would take pages. Do read around, there's lots on the topic.

In short, "4 hours between 40F & 140F" was a very broad statement designed to insure food safety in restaurants. Over the past few years it has been criticized, and I have come across a few restatements.

The problem is that the growth and death rate of pathogens depends on temperature as well as time. Very roughly speaking, all pathogens will be found growing as their temperature approaches 40F. The growth rate doubles roughly every 10 warmer it gets, until around 100F. At that point the growth rate slacks off. Around 126 the pathogen population stop increasing. At 140, the organisms are being destroyed rather quickly. Around 185, they are destroyed almost instantaneously.

The rule supposes that the food has been properly handled until it reaches the kitchen, and has little or no contamination. Once food preparation starts, it is very likely to become contaminated. Humans carry staph, for instance. Botulinum may reside on the outside of garlic. Etc.

Given slow growth at lower temperature, working in a 50F kitchen would give a longer period of safety. But "if you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen" is the normal situation. Pathogens couldn't be happier. One rule revision I came across (if I recall correctly) was that 2 hours was the safety limit at 90F.

Note that even tho' the pathogens may be dead at140, the toxins they produced may still be present. Staph is particularly nasty, because some strains produce poisons that do not break down until over 250F.

And another "gotcha" is that once food is cooked, it is less resistant to pathogen growth. The broad safety rule is that cooked food can only be in the 40 - 140 danger zone for 2 hours.

If you look at the rules for how hot a food should get to be safe to eat, you'll notice than things like ground meats aren't safe till 185. The notion is that the process of grinding would spread pathogens thru the whole mass. Some larger pieces meats may be served after reaching 125, because only the surface was contaminated, and even an oven at 200 would quickly wipe out any pathogen on the surface.

Many of the foods cooked in the Egg are safer than average. The salt and sugar in BBQ rubs, as well as some of the herbs and spices, destroy pathogens. The smoke destroys pathogens. Vinegar based mops and sauces kill pathogens.

I do follow the adage "when in doubt, throw it out," but one of the most common Egging problems is when the fire goes out during an overnighter and the food is discovered sitting at 120 or lower, and one wonders if the food is still safe. 1st, check the food temp. If still above 140, no prob. I  did a couple test a few years ago, I shut down an Egg with a platesetter in it when the dome temp had already declined to 180 because the fuel was running out. The exterior temps were in the high 30s to low 40s. It took longer that 1 hour for the dome temp to drop to 120.

There area of debate remains on how safe the meat is sitting in the Egg. Even at low temperatures, the surface of the food exceeded 180 quite rapidly. The interior of the Egg is not hospitable to pathogen growth. Too dry, too much formaldehyde and creosote residue. The vents don't allow much air flow. While in cool temperatures, fecal dust can carry pathogens (got a neighbor that doesn't clean up after Fido?), hotter temperatures and sunlight clean the dust. My opinion, and that is all it is, is that meats that have made it thru long cooks are pretty safe sitting inside a cooled eggs, covered with their crust of rub and smoke.