Question about the 40 to 140 temp range

Rumrunner · March 2006

randomegger, guilty as charged

Borders · March 2006

Juggy D Beerman, I agree with all that you say. I'm trying to assimilate what everyone has said on this because not only do I do long cooks as I described, but I have indoctinated quite a few eggers that follow my lead on long cooks and don't want a single person to get sick:[p]Is the real issue bone in vs bone out butts? If so, I have only cooked bone in.[p]Do you agree or disagree with Porkchop when he says "At 200-250 degrees, a smoker is a safe environment for long cooks. while the internal temp may take hours to get over 140, the surface of the meat, where the microbes live and love, has become a hot, salty death trap. as long as you get surface temp of the meat over 140 quickly, you are good to go."??[p]

ronbeaux · March 2006

Sandbagger,
I heard today that if you take a deep breath you will actually pull in one molecule of Julias Ceasars last gasp exhale. They even had a formula for it! Just think of all the other stuff you suck in with every breath. So rather than stop breathing all together I decided to not worry about it and drink another beer.

Unknown · March 2006

Sandbagger,
More than you want to know, probably:[p]Botulism and toxin no problem once above 200 for 10 minutes
(and maybe lower temp) also not much of a pork problem as it needs an anaerobic environment
Shigella and toxin are heat sensitive
Salmonella and toxin are heat sensitive
Other Clostridium makes heat stable spores but with the few hours involved, not much of a problem. The toxin is heat sensitive so if they hatched they would die and the toxin be degraded.
STAPH, which lives everywhere on your skin, multiplies every 20 minutes (1 bacteria, 2 bacteria, 4, 8, 16, 32 64 128 etc, etc, scary math numbers) and the toxin is NOT heat sensitive and, I am not certain about the big bad one, toxigenic E coli, as to whether the toxin is heat stable or not.

Unknown · March 2006

Morning Mr. Borders,[p]The lowest recommended GRID temp (not dome) is 250 degrees. While that may not agree with everyone, this info is from the USDA/FSIS to insure safe cooking for BBQ meat. [p]If you run the 250 degree grid temp, your butts will usually get into the safe zone in 4 hours. Even 300 degrees grid temp will not hurt the quality of your meat especially in the early hours of the cook. Get em safe first and then do whatever you want with the temps but do keep the meat above 140 degrees.[p]Operating the cooker with the dome temp is foolish unless you know what relation your cooker, with your setup, and your load of meat that is being cooked, and the time into your cook, has on your grid temp on the lower temp cooks. Please don't take Joe Bobs advice on this and find out for yourself. It's very easy to chart a cooker and should always be done with a load.[p]With my heavy loads and my setup, I know I have to run near 340 dome to keep my lower grid at a safe temp for the first 6 hours into the cook. After that, I can start cutting back to about 300 dome for most of the cook and I try to never let it drop below 275 at any time in the cook. And please don't use my data as I am Joe Bob![p]Dave[p]

Borders · March 2006

Good Morning Old Dave, It's always good to be enlightened. I find this whole thread interesting and I'm going to start changing the way I do things. In the end, I expect I'll do things radically different. I do see some benefit of course to shorter cooks, and the question is there any difference in the end product. To be continued...........
Scott

Question about the 40 to 140 temp range

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