did I ruin my pork butt?

jetguy

slow cooked butt to 195 internal temp. took it off the egg, wrapped tightly in foil, wrapped in towel, placed in cooler. at this point it was about midnight. I didn't want to stay up any longer. I put the cooler in the fridge overnight. the meat was still luke warm at 9am. was the meat in the "danger zone" for any point while it was in the fridge overnight? should I dump it , or am I safe to reheat in the oven and then pull it?

tjosborne

You should be fine.

DMW

Just curious, were you trying to keep it hot (Foil, Towels, Cooler) or cold (fridge)?

jetguy

I wanted the juices to redistribute evenly through the meat. I was thinking if I just put it straight into the fridge it would cool too quickly and the juices wouldn't redistribute evenly. im still kind of scared about the time it was in the "danger zone". can anyone explain why the butt is safe?

mshump

The meat is fully cooked. What do you mean by "the danger zone" ?

jetguy

I thought it also applied to cooked meat. is the danger zone only for raw meat left out?

Cowdogs

mshump said:

The meat is fully cooked. What do you mean by "the danger zone" ?

The danger zone applies to holding cooked food.  

To the OP I would say your meat spent too long in the danger zone.  If you follow the rules it should go into the trash.  Having said this, I would not toss it myself.  The food is heavily salted, and in a sealed environment, so I would take what I think is a very very small chance and eat it.

GATraveller

I would eat it.

cazzy

Your meat is fine....I'd eat it.

Having said that, you should have just put it in the fridge. 1. You're likely going to pull it so the "juices" would be worked back into the meat anyway. 2. By technique, when you cook a butt, you're overcooking your meat. You're breaking down all the inter-muscular fat and turning it into gelatin, so there are technically no "juices" to redistribute as it's not a fine cut. Outside of letting a butt cool to pull, there isn't much need to let it rest.

jetguy

I dumped it :-( I was going to eat it, but then while I was pulling it a tv show came on about food preservation, then a commercial about diarrhea, and I thought this has got to be a sign! lol. good lesson in accepting your mistakes and moving on. off to Shanes bbq now for some pulled pork to go. we will still have a great lunch . wife made homemade coleslaw, we have nice fresh baked buns and yummy pickles.

cazzy

:-?? [-(

DMW

I didn't read the whole article, but from the quick skim over, looks to be fairly good reading WRT the cooling process. 

http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Basic-cool.html

I really like this quote "virtually no scientifically correct studies that have been performed on food cooling in the kitchen to identify the hazards and critical limits"

tksmoke

@DMW - Thanks for that post.  As a bacteriologist in a former life, I'm very interested in this discussion.  After reading the article, it is very difficult to understand what is safe, and what isn't.  The article spoke mainly to Clostridium Perfringens, because of the 3 spore producing bacteria discussed, it would be the worst case scenario.  Spores are resistant to heat, and do not multiply at over 130 degrees.  However, they are heat activated, so when they cool, look out!!  Fine, when we heat to @200 for Pork butts, what is the effect on these spores?  Not addressed - they could be deactivated. I did a quick literature check, and found ambiguous results.  Apparently it depends on the strain.  More importantly for us, it depends on the spore count.  Again this is only for those spore forming bacteria.  I would also want to know if heat resistance studies have been done on other pathogens, including omnipresent e. coli.  The paper's author stated that the FDAs guidelines are based more on empirical data than scientific evidence.  I would need to concur that most of the "science" I've observed in food science is ambiguous (to be polite).  Essentially the argument goes that using the guidelines, no one gets sick.  So how does this affect us?  I don't know - sorry.  I have been on the wrong end of food poisoning, and can say uncategorically, you don't want that.  Be careful out there. 

DMW

@tksmoke - Glad you liked it, I found it with a quick google search.

I think there are way too many uncontrolled variables involved for anyone to know for sure exactly how many hours something can sit in the danger zone, either on the front end of the cook, or after. 

As you said, FDA recommendations and no one will get sick. But what if that cut of meat had hardly any bacteria present and was kept in a super clean lab grade kitchen? 

Or it was covered in flies at some point that had just visited the local stockyard? 

More than likely all of our kitchen conditions are somewhere in between those extremes.

NPHuskerFL

@jetguy‌ #-o food safe hot holding temp regs is 135℉. That said I work in the commercial repair industry and I can 100% assure you would've been fine. Rule is if a cooler is out of temp more than 4 hrs the product has to be $hi+ canned. Same goes for hot holding. $10K or more product trashed for 1 or 2 hrs out of guidelines? Not gonna happen. If a cooler reaches 70℉-90℉ is whole different story. What's done is done but, in my humble and professional opinion you could've served that butt and been just fine by "food safe standards". Live and learn. :-)

Redskull

food safe rule is 40 - 140.  40 deg or less to keep cool, or 140 plus to keep warm for serving.