Butt looks great, but danger zone question

Porco Rosso

So far the cook I started last night on my medium looks like the most solid I've ever done. I put the butts on at 11:15 last night and the temp stayed put all night at from 220-225.

Eight and a half hours later the 7 1/2lb is plateauing at 163 and the eight pound higher at 180.

However, last night when I got up to check at three on the morning I was a little worried.... One of the butts was in the high 150s the other n the middle 150s. Both had sat outside the fridge for about 10 minutes or so before I put them on - when first probed on the grill their temps at first were in the low 40s.

This means that though they weren't between 40-140 for the full four hours, they theoretically could have been in that range for over 3 hours. Is this normal? Does anyone start the butts out extra hot so that they can get them over 140 more quickly?

It just seems to me that even when I'm doing everything right, keeping butts out of the danger zone isn't such a lay-up.

Any help, especially the reassuring kind, will be most appreciated.

thanks.

Celtic Wolf

Here we go again.

Unless you spend a lot of time poking the meat with a fork the anger zone refers to the meat surface. Since the egg is well above 140 when you put the meat into it you are never in the danger zone.

Relax and enjoy.

Porco Rosso

Ah-hah! That makes sense (I probably had already read that somewhere, but was having a pre-coffee lapse of reason.)

No, I neither poked nor prodded nor even looked at it very hard.

Thanks, Celtic Wolf

Doug in Eggmonton

Looking at anything too hard is dangerous all by itself :laugh:. Your cook sounds like it is doing fine.

Enjoy the 4th

Doug

Fidel

You had to poke it to get internal temp readings. In effect, that could have introduced bacteria to the interior of the meat.

But I'm just picking nits.

stike

glad you came around to my way of thinking. we logical folks need more people like you on our side. the heeby-jeeby nervous nellies outnumber us twenty to one.

stike

the needle doesn't push, it separates. you might have nudge one bacterium in a bit, but i can't see bacteria making it all the way to the interior. but that's just me.

hahaha

Fidel

by separating have you not given them a little miniature bacteria highway on which they can now travel? the needle isn't the train giving them a ride to the center - but it lays the track for them to travel upon.

stike

they ain't traveling faster than the heat that's chasin them.

i'm just dorkin with you anyway.

i honestly have no idea why anyone needs to take the temp of the thing until morning anyway.

goes on the egg sans thermometer, and in the morning i open it and jam the thing in.

onlt temp that matters to me at night is the dome.

i jab the thing with my thermapen once or twice near the end to check it, since my mav died.