Fell asleep and fire went out question help Please

Hangfire77 · January 2009

Hello guys got a real quick question. It’s around 30 degrees here and my fire went a little quicker than I thought. I put on two picnics on the large BGE last night to smoke. I usually try and check on them every couple of hours (I do not have a BBQ Guru) to make sure everything is fine. But I fell asleep and did not get up until 8 this morning. The grill was at 100 degrees and the meat temp was 125 degrees. I pulled the whole grate off filled the fire box and restarted the fire stabilized my temp at 250 and put it all back on. I would guess the meat was off the grill about an hour. The temp of the meat went to about 90 degrees. Do you guys think I am ok on the meat? I don’t want to make anyone sick. The fire could not have been out for more than two hours or so. I usually use Royal Oak lump from Wally world but they ran out last time I bought and this lump is cowboy lump. It seems to burn faster the RO.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

James

Crimsongator · January 2009

Since you don't know exactly how long the food was in an unsafe range, I'd toss it.

Michael B · January 2009

Also consider that the 4 hours is cumulative. It includes the prep, cook start, cook end, AND cook restart. FDA says NEVER start a cook, stop it, and finish later.

The bacteria is not the bad stuff, it is what they leave behind when they die. 40 – 140 is a predictable growth and die-off. 40 – 120 – 70 – 140 places the meat in an optimal growth temp range a disproportional time, leaving all kinds of those little buggers to die off and leave their toxins.

When in doubt…. toss it.

stike · January 2009

ithis one isn't so definitive, if you are looking for a definitive answer.

any bacteria on the outside were killed off during the start of your cook. when temps drop, they don't come back alive. nor is it likely that the meat got magically reinfected with bacteria somehow. and to beat a dead horse, the bacteria we are worried about live on the outside of the meat, getting there during processing. they don't live IN the meat. if the meat is de-boned and re-tied, the bacteria can get inside.

you didn't quite give us an idea of how long the fire itself was out beyond "a couple hours", but the dome temp was 100 degrees, and the outside temps was 30 degrees. the egg couldn't have been out too long if the dome was still 100.

so... if it were ME, i wouldn't panic. i might not feed it to a two-year-old, or to a 98-year old, but i wouldn't be worried about eating it, either. nut i'm lax. i'm an idiot.

if you fell withing the guidelines of the much-ballyhooed "four hours between 40 and 140", we could say "yes" or "no" and stand on protocol. unfortunately, we can't do that for you in this case.

the thing that is odd is the meat temp.

how could the meat cool off so quickly? or did it never get very high initially?

Marc from IL · January 2009

Ah heck! Cook it untill its 300 burnt and have some Wild Turkey while you eat and you will be fine.
LOL

Hangfire77 · January 2009

Thanks for all the answers guys. I guess I will have to make a better effort and watch what’s going on with the lump. I have done this before and have made a 20 hour run before so I am baffled at the fast burning lump maybe outside temp I don’t know. But after reading what people have been saying who have been doing this much longer than me I am tossing the meat. It’s better to lose $25 worth of meat than to make someone sick. I know the temp was stabilized at 250ish for over an hour with the meat in it before I went to bed I had planned on setting my alarm for around 4 to check just to make sure but forgot to. When I got up at 8 the fire was out dome temp was 100 meat temp was 125. By the time I could get the new lump in and going get to stable temp and meat back on was a little over an hour. I brought the meat in covered and put in oven at 200 and added back when fire was ready but have had a funny feeling if I should keep it. Thanks to everyone who answered it just confirmed my gut feeling but wanted to make sure.

Thanks

James

Fell asleep and fire went out question help Please

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