Yikes! Overnight cook....am...fire out!

mookie

Was doing an overnight cook....calibrated thermometer...everything seemed fine before I went to bed. Woke up at 6 am to check...it was raining and the fire was OUT! Brought my poor little butt (the meat, that is)back inside and put it in the oven...was still warm....but if we eat it, could we get sick? lol....I hate to waste my 8 pounder, but I know with pork, you have to be very careful...

rooster

Bummer :(

Ripnem

Did you take the butts temp this morning?

You had a hot fire going last night with the uncalibrated thermometer and that's probably why you went through the lump. Or it just had too much ash clogging up the air holes.

If the pork stayed above 140* your good if it dropped bellow, then throw.

Don't sweat it. Mistakes happen to most everyone.

Dust yourself off and get back on that horse

Mainegg

Hi any idea what the temp of the egg was and the temp of the meat? is it below 140?? was the egg cold to the touch?? I have an iron pit for a stomach and am more likly to eat than not. but not everyone is that way and you have to be careful Julie

mookie

It was 130....
I think I am going to cry....

SkySaw

I lost a fire once. It was upsetting. I have a large egg, so burning through all the lump was clearly my problem, not the Egg's. Now, when I build a fire for a 12hr cook, I do it the way Elder Ward suggests; big pieces at the bottom, jigsaw puzzle style, using smaller piece to fill in gaps. I fill the lump to the top of the firebox, and make sure that there is no wasted space among the lump.

I put some wood chips in as I am building the lump up, and a chunk of wood at the centre right near the top. Now, my fire stays lit no problem.

Next time, try building your fire (dense & high) very carefully the night before. Start your fire the next am, and get the butt on at 8:00 or 9:00am. That way, you can watch it through the day to make sure is behaves. Your pork will be ready somewhere between 7:00pm and 11:00pm, but better late than never!

Mark

mookie

great input...I put soooo much work into this...and it's in the oven right now...I am in denial...really? I have to throw the butt out?

mookie

I am starting to reconsider...after reading other posts. If the temp was at 165...then last time I checked it, it was 1 am and the fire was still going...then at 6 it was 130...so the meat couldn't have been in that zone for very long...what do you guys think?

Gator Bait

Hi mookie, Welcome to the forum. If it was my butt I think I would keep it. I'd probably get the egg back up to temp and let it finish in the egg. Just because the meat temp was below the magic number does not mean it is defiantly bad. Your going to be cooking it to a high enough temp that your probably going to kill off anything that may not even be there. The egg is probably a drier environment then the oven and might develop better bark. Smoke has preservative qualities, after all isn't that how man got started cooking this way? If you haven't already add a some smoke wood, a little hickory, pecan or maple would be nice and taste wonderful. It's a difficult call, I know. Good luck.

Gator

stike

well...

what time did you go to bed? what was the temp of the egg before you went to bed, and of the butt?

the rule of thumb that people are reffering to is "four hours between 40 and 140", or, in your case, four hours below 140.

there are a whole host of reasons why that is not exactly the logical rule to apply in this case, but it's a good start.

if you went to bed at midnight with a dome temp of 250, it's very unlikely that the egg cooled instantly, and the butt dropped into the 140 or below zone right away. the four hours includes prep time, too.

the rain cooled the egg faster than it might. so we can't really go by what temp you found the egg.

heck. me? at 130, i'd have no problem finishing in the oven.

but i wouldn't sell the meat at a church picnic to an 90 year old woman.

thing is, though, your meat isn't going to be magically reinfected after the fire went out. and there's no bacteria of concern IN the meat. the bacteria in question are on the outside (unless your butt has been deboned and retied). people cleave to the thing they can remember, which is "4 hours betwen 40-140" but it isn't that simple. salt, smoke, low oxygen, 250 air temps... all of those killed off your bacteria long before the fire went out. so what is reinfecting the meat? frankly, nothing. this isn't a casserole that was cooked and left out for four hours while folks served it and potentially cross contaminated it with other foods

but we are talking about peace of mind.

it's your decision.

but i'd be eating it.

stike

despite what i replied to mookie, one thing everyone needs to really learn is that simply taking a pieces of suspect meat and cooking it to 200 doesn't do a thing for food safety.

you cannot purify a piece of meat if it has gone bad.
not saying mookie's butt is bad, but let's assume it is.

putting it back in and taking it to 200-205 does NOTHING to make it safe.

how can that be? doesn't the very act of cooking a raw piece of meat make it safe? well...

assume you take a safe piece of meat and put it on raw. the dome temp of 250 will alone quickly kill off bacteria. they are no longer there to multiply. their toxin is no longer being produced, and sincethe meat is "safe" there's no (or not enough) toxin to cause a problem.

but.

if the meat had bacteria which were allowed to multiply at 40-140 for four hours, they will have produced much toxin. toss it into the egg, take it to 200, and the bacteria are long dead. problem is, toxin remains, and that's what makes you sick.


you can't "kill off the baddies" and make it safe if it has been compromised. sorry for the blather, but this is a recurring common incorrect assumption. you can't fix bad meat by cooking it

mookie

Stike,
I was hoping for your wise input!
I went to bed about one am. Before that, I calibrated the thermometer, just like I was advised. Right before that, it was reading at about 240...and the meat was at 165 for hours, just like you said! When I calibrated it, it was fine...if anything, it ran a few degrees high, nothing worth tampering with. Then, I went to bed. I would have checked it every two hours, but sleep is a pretty tough commodity these days!

I don't want to hurt my family, that's for sure...but the meat was pretty warm when I retrieved it.

The family is gone right now...I may have a little of it while they are gone, and see how I do...I'll be the guinea pig! lol...

mookie

By the way, the general consensus is that my butt is definitely not bad! lol...J/K

stike

well. i don't think there's any way that the fire went out exactly at one o'clock and plunged to room temp.

no need to check every two hours. every four is more than enough.

i am not "wise" in regard to the whole bacteria issue, i just know that "four hours between 40-140" does not apply to this kind of a cook unless you need some hook to hang a hat on. it is an oversimplification.

i believe in "driving to conditions". sunny day, no one around dry pavement, straight highway with visibility, why is it unsafe for me to go 100? but if the posted speed limit is 55, and it's raining, foggy, icy, a person going along at "55" is being decidedly unsafe. yet one of us is breaking the "rule".

people memorize rules but rarely spend the time to understand what the rules mean, and that's as bad as not knowing the rule in the first place, IMNSHO

jonnieAZ

must have been the night the fire went out in GA!!...but im in AZ...after reading the good information...mine is in the dump...and will try again next week...glad FRYS had them for .99 cents per lbs and I did stock a few up...

Gator Bait

Thanks stike. I'll keep that in mind, no blather, good sense.

Gator

stike

well. others might disagree about the "blather" issue too. hahaha

i guess i tend to err on the "teach a man to fish" side of things, and so rather than "yes" or "no", it's a big dissertation

no offense.

to complicate things, i don't think you even need to consider any bacteria that multiplied after a fire went out, because there aren't any, unless the thing somehow gets cross contaminated ...
how's that for both sides of the fence? hahaha

Ex-Gasman

Mine too. A couple of weeks ago , I ruined 16 pounds. It was 91 degrees when I woke up. Decided better to lose my money than lose my stomach. :(