Did I ruin my smoke?

[styxbb]

I put 2 pork butts in a Bradley digital smoker at 9am. I left and the wife was keeping an I on it. when I returned at 5, the smoker is off. My guess is around 1, my daughter left and closed the garage door and jostled the plug. When I got home, the probe said 83 degrees. I turned it back on. Is the meat safe?

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

That's a long time to have no smoke / heat. I'd toss them out as it's not worth the risk...way too long in the extreme temperature zone (35-135F). Plus that's probably not far off the ambient outdoor temp, so with no smoke that's prime breeding ground for bacteria. Those bacteria drop their feces all over the surface of the meat, and that's what's going to end up getting everyone sick.

"When in doubt, throw it out." This one is just too risky and for 2 pork butts the potential food poisoning just isn't worth it.

Source : ServSafe Manager qualified, used to run a BBQ food truck.

 

[jrTheSmoker]

Agreed throw them out. 83*F after 8 hours is a defendant NO! 4 hours max from in the 40-140F as mentioned above is recommended safe zone.

 

[Big George's BBQ]

Agree with the above. Not worth the risk

 

[4ever3]

Ummm no, just no.

#pitchem

 

[thirdeye]

So your theory is that the smoker ran for 4 hours (9am until 1pm), then got unplugged when the garage door closed. And the smoker was off for the next 4 hours (1pm to 5pm). Did your wife happen to check it during the first 4-hours, or at least verify that it was producing smoke? Because at that point in time, your cook was no different than anyone else's. Keep in mind that the best instructions for anyone minding a pit in the first few hours include the option to grab the meat and put it in a pan and move into a 275° oven if they notice a problem with the pit. When the problem is fixed, the meat goes back on the pit.

The primary concern is the temperature at the surface of the meat, and once the surface temperature goes over 122°, the multiplication of bacteria (which had been doubling every 30 minutes) starts to slow down, and once the surface temperature goes over 141° the surface bacteria is actively dying.

If your theory was correct, I suspect the surface temperature was over 141°, when the pit got unplugged. Meaning any potential dangers happened in the next 4-hours.

 

[The_Kapn]

Meat is cheap.
Doctors are not!

TIM

 

[ModelMaker]

Go ahead and finish the cook and send a bag home with your mother-in-law, and wait.
Ed

 

[SmokinAussie]

I know you've thrown this out because of the above advice.

Here's the reality. The smoker was on and the inside is sterile because of the heat and smoke.

The Surface Temp (the only place there is bacteria as the inside is sterile) would have been over 125F at some point for long enough to sterilise the meat.

It got turned off at 1pm and would have taken a long time to loose heat as a Bradley is well insulated. In addition to that, the inside of the smoker is sterile for the entire time. Nobody opened it to introduce a new set of nasties that would immediately colonise your meat and make it a biological nightmare.

You turned it back on which would have immediately re-introduced a hot sterile environment which (even had there been a single bacteria there) would have continued the cook as normal, apart from 4 hours late.

And now you have thrown it out.

The danger zone refers to prepared foods in service areas on the whole, where it is important over the course of a day (or days) to have food sitting there well under or over that danger zone depending on whether it is served hot or cold.

It's not about what happens inside a sterile smoker when there is a blip in the cooking curve. You can't introduce bacteria from a non existent vector.

I'd eat that myself and if there was any doubt I'd still cook it and try it myself before serving perhaps on another day.

But it's all thrown out now, you'll never know. Sorry for your loss. Try and think about the real mechanics at hand here.