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Boston Butt Danger Zone

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Thanks everyone for all of the replys. I believe I found out that it is still safe for me to probe my meat prior to putting it into my 40" BT Smoker as I have always done without any problems and without fear. I appreciate all of the input you guys have taken the time to reply to my tread. Again, thanks and cheers to ya!!!!  
beercheer.gif
 
I have a eight and a half pound pork butt and I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of wood chips to use And rub to use never have done one in here yet but just worried that it won't come out right what should the internal temperature be
 
ElectricLouie said:
I have a eight and a half pound pork butt and I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of wood chips to use And rub to use never have done one in here yet but just worried that it won't come out right what should the internal temperature be
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I like Fruit Wood on Pork. Apple is great choice and mild. Hickory is good too but stronger. Below is a mild basic rub that you can start with and add to if desired. For Pulled Pork smoke to an IT of 205°F. What is important is that a probe slides in all over with no resistance and the bone wiggles free with ease. You can rest the meat for 30 minutes on the counter tented with foil or if you need more time to prepare other items, can be wrapped in foil and towels then placed ina cooler for up to about 5 hours. If you smoke at 225-250, you can estimate that is will take 2 hours per pound. At 250-275 plan on 1.5 hours /Lb. It may take longer it may get done faster. I like to smoke all the way through others wrap in foil at an IT of 160 or so and finish inthe smoker or in an oven...JJ

Mild Bubba Q Rub  (All Purpose)

1/2C Sugar in the Raw (Turbinado)

2T Sweet Paprika (Hungarian)

1T Kosher Salt

1T Chili Powder* (contains some Cumin and Oregano) Ancho Chile is same without cumin, oregano etc.

1T Granulated Garlic

1T Granulated Onion

1tsp Black Pepper, more if you like

1/2tsp Grnd Allspice

For more heat add Cayenne or Chipotle Pwd to taste, start with 1/2tsp and go from there. Makes about 1 Cup

Apply your desired amount of Rub to the meat, wrap in plastic and rest in the refrigerator over night.or longer. The day of the smoke, pull the meat out, add more Rub and go into your pre-heated Smoker...

Note*...Some Chili Powders can be pretty Hot. McCormick and Spice Island are Mild...
 
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I really appreciate the info and I'll get back at you when I smoke this but I would like to learn how to attach pictures then I can show you what I've done cross my fingers hope everything goes good
 
Brickguy221 said:
 
Thanks everyone for all of the replys. I believe I found out that it is still safe for me to probe my meat prior to putting it into my 40" BT Smoker as I have always done without any problems and without fear. I appreciate all of the input you guys have taken the time to reply to my tread. Again, thanks and cheers to ya!!!!  
beercheer.gif
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Not Really:

I go by what I learned a long time ago from "bbally", a "Trusted Authority" of SMF, and an haccp and servsafe trainer, along with USA food code consulting. The little I know about Food Safety, I learned from him.

Here is what he had to say on this topic:

The "intact muscle" rule for commercial USDA products allows an intact muscle to be cooked to rare using low temp. Provided it has not been punctured.

Unpunctured, intact muscle need only have the outside 0.5 inch pass through 140 degrees within 4 hours. Something easily done at temps of 200 F or more.

Now if you inject it, you have changed the "intact nature" of the meat and should treat it as ground meat or forced meat. This means the inside temp of the meat must pass through 140 within four hours.  Usually requiring a temp of at least 275 F or better.

Going under 200 F without intact muscle generally requires that another method of cooking have been used.... Nitrate or Nitrite curing being most common. But lemon and lime juice under a method called ceviche also will do the job, though generally limited to fish.

Most common error that results in hospitalization of people consuming improperly handled intact muscle?

"inserting a temp probe into the intact muscle prior to the outside being above 140F or the probe not being wiped with sterilizer prior to insertion."

The rest of that Thread:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/72852/food-safety-and-low-and-slow-discussion

Bear
 
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Brickguy221 said:
 
Thanks for the link Earl. It appears that the majority believe you can put the probe in the meat anytime. I know I have never had a problem with probing Pork Loins, thus the reason I am questioning if no problem on Pork Loins and other Meats, why a problem on Boston Butts???  I haven't ever done a Boston Butt, but want to one day and want to be sure I am doing it the right way and if probing at the beginning is dangerous, I want to know why.... If it isn't dangerous, I will probe it when I put it in the Smoker.
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I don't think anybody ever said it's only a problem with Pork Butts.

It's any piece of meat that's large enough to not get to 140° in the center within 4 hours.

If you don't puncture it too early, you don't have to worry about it.

See Post #28 above, and my note from a "Trusted Authority of this Forum".

Bear
 
Bearcarver said:
Not Really:


I go by what I learned a long time ago from "bbally", a "Trusted Authority" of SMF, and an haccp and servsafe trainer, along with USA food code consulting. The little I know about Food Safety, I learned from him.

Here is what he had to say on this topic:


The "intact muscle" rule for commercial USDA products allows an intact muscle to be cooked to rare using low temp. Provided it has not been punctured.


Unpunctured, intact muscle need only have the outside 0.5 inch pass through 140 degrees within 4 hours. Something easily done at temps of 200 F or more.

Now if you inject it, you have changed the "intact nature" of the meat and should treat it as ground meat or forced meat. This means the inside temp of the meat must pass through 140 within four hours. Usually requiring a temp of at least 275 F or better.


Going under 200 F without intact muscle generally requires that another method of cooking have been used.... Nitrate or Nitrite curing being most common. But lemon and lime juice under a method called ceviche also will do the job, though generally limited to fish.

Most common error that results in hospitalization of people consuming improperly handled intact muscle?


"inserting a temp probe into the intact muscle prior to the outside being above 140F or the probe not being wiped with sterilizer prior to insertion."


The rest of that Thread:
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/72852/food-safety-and-low-and-slow-discussion



Bear
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I used your link to read the fifteen posts in the thread and saw that it is locked. Not allowing anymore posts. Manually tenderized steaks now have to be considered ground beef. When they sit in the butcher's glass display case I wonder how long they can sit there and be able to be bought and cooked to 145*F or less as a steak instead of 160*F for ground beef? Or do they now have to be cooked to 160*F regardless?
-Kurt
 
 
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Dr K said:
I used your link to read the fifteen posts in the thread and saw that it is locked. Not allowing anymore posts. Manually tenderized steaks now have to be considered ground beef. When they sit in the butcher's glass display case I wonder how long they can sit there and be able to be bought and cooked to 145*F or less as a steak instead of 160*F for ground beef? Or do they now have to be cooked to 160*F regardless?
-Kurt
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I would think they should be below 40° while in the care of the butcher.

And I don't think it takes more than 4 hours to do a steak.

The 40 to 140 in 4 should only affect large pieces of meat, like Butts, Briskets, Roasts, etc.

As for cooking to 145° or 160°----That has nothing to do with this. This is only about getting large cuts of meat that is no longer "Intact Muscle" from 40° to 140° in 4 hours. Where you take it to after that is a different case.

Bear
 
Brickguy221 said:
 
Thanks for the link Earl. It appears that the majority believe you can put the probe in the meat anytime. I know I have never had a problem with probing Pork Loins, thus the reason I am questioning if no problem on Pork Loins and other Meats, why a problem on Boston Butts???  I haven't ever done a Boston Butt, but want to one day and want to be sure I am doing it the right way and if probing at the beginning is dangerous, I want to know why.... If it isn't dangerous, I will probe it when I put it in the Smoker.
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I agree with the 40°-140° in 4 hours rule. Because I assist in my wife's licensed home daycare I have to have a current state Food Worker card. It must be updated every 2 years and to do that I need to pass an online food safety exam. Knowing the food Danger Zone is Food Safety 101.

As for inserting a temp probe into raw meat, I've read posts from guys who think this is unsafe but I disagree. If you have a clean probe and stick it inside raw meat, sure it could insert any meat surface bacteria into the inside meat but so what? Cooking the meat to above 140° IT will kill the nasties anyway. But if you're cooking beef to 125-135° medium rare, I still wouldn't worry--but that's my opinion.

°

The Danger Zone is why I've read it's a bad idea to slow cook a large (16 lbs. or more I would think) turkey in a MES because the IT will never get above 140° in 4 hours. When my wife cooks her classic upside down turkey in our kitchen oven she's cooking it at a minimum of 325°. Bone-in or boneless turkey breast is another matter and cooks just fine in a MES at even 225-250°. OK, back on topic from here on out.
 
daRicksta said:
 
I agree with the 40°-140° in 4 hours rule. Because I assist in my wife's licensed home daycare I have to have a current state Food Worker card. It must be updated every 2 years and to do that I need to pass an online food safety exam. Knowing the food Danger Zone is Food Safety 101.

As for inserting a temp probe into raw meat, I've read posts from guys who think this is unsafe but I disagree. If you have a clean probe and stick it inside raw meat, sure it could insert any meat surface bacteria into the inside meat but so what? Cooking the meat to above 140° IT will kill the nasties anyway. But if you're cooking beef to 125-135° medium rare, I still wouldn't worry--but that's my opinion.

°

The Danger Zone is why I've read it's a bad idea to slow cook a large (16 lbs. or more I would think) turkey in a MES because the IT will never get above 140° in 4 hours. When my wife cooks her classic upside down turkey in our kitchen oven she's cooking it at a minimum of 325°. Bone-in or boneless turkey breast is another matter and cooks just fine in a MES at even 225-250°. OK, back on topic from here on out.
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One would think that, but it's my understanding from guys like "bbally" and I believe "ChefJimmyJ" that the high heat later in the smoke could kill the Bacteria, but not the Toxins formed by the Bacteria. High heat will not kill those Toxins.

Bear
 
Bearcarver said:
 
I would think they should be below 40° while in the care of the butcher.

And I don't think it takes more than 4 hours to do a steak.

The 40 to 140 in 4 should only affect large pieces of meat, like Butts, Briskets, Roasts, etc.

As for cooking to 145° or 160°----That has nothing to do with this. This is only about getting large cuts of meat that is no longer "Intact Muscle" from 40° to 140° in 4 hours. Where you take it to after that is a different case.

Bear
Click to expand...
Now if you inject it, you have changed the "intact nature" of the meat and should treat it as ground meat or forced meat. This means the inside temp of the meat must pass through 140 within four hours. Usually requiring a temp of at least 275 F or better
This is the quote that confused me because ground meat is supposed to be cooked to 160*F.  Of course it doesn't take four hours to even cook a reverse seared steak but if it was tenderized manually then it's been well pierced (contaminated) and I'll cook it to 130*F well below 140*F.  If someone wants a rare/med rare prime rib roast it won't get past 135*F in the center.  So this low temp roast should never be pierced until the outside is 140*F with a IR temp gun?

-Kurt
 
Dr K said:
 
Now if you inject it, you have changed the "intact nature" of the meat and should treat it as ground meat or forced meat. This means the inside temp of the meat must pass through 140 within four hours. Usually requiring a temp of at least 275 F or better
This is the quote that confused me because ground meat is supposed to be cooked to 160*F.  Of course it doesn't take four hours to even cook a reverse seared steak but if it was tenderized manually then it's been well pierced (contaminated) and I'll cook it to 130*F well below 140*F.  If someone wants a rare/med rare prime rib roast it won't get past 135*F in the center.  So this low temp roast should never be pierced until the outside is 140*F with a IR temp gun?

-Kurt
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There's a lot of other things that go along with this, but they're above my pay-grade.

All I know is what I put above in my earlier posts, which is if a large hunk of meat might take longer than 4 hours to go from 40° to 140°, then you should not puncture the meat in any way before you start & no Temp Probe inserted before the outer 1/2" gets to 140° for a certain time. (I just wait 3 hours before sterilizing & inserting my meat probe----That's well beyond the time needed).

If you're planning on using a high enough heat to get the meat from 40° to 140° in 4 hours, then it doesn't matter if you puncture it.

Here's the Thread with some of the other Info from the SMF "Trusted Authority" "bbally":

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/72852/food-safety-and-low-and-slow-discussion

Also, like I said before, this Intact Muscle rule has nothing to do with what temp the whole meat ends up going to after it gets to 140°. Don't confuse them.

Bear
 
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Bearcarver said:
 
One would think that, but it's my understanding from guys like "bbally" and I believe "ChefJimmyJ" that the high heat later in the smoke could kill the Bacteria, but not the Toxins formed by the Bacteria. High heat will not kill those Toxins.

Bear
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I would never claim I know more than those guys. What I do know is that no one has gotten sick from anything I've grilled and smoked. How would I know? Because last year I got food poisoning from a bad mussel I ate in a Thai restaurant. I know what food poisoning is all about.

When it comes to shellfish, there is a huge difference between bacteria and toxins because, like you said Bear, toxins aren't killed by high cooking heat. The chef/owner put that mussel (which was served to me closed so I shouldn't have eaten it) in a microwave and heated it on high until it opened. It was then brought back to my table and I ate it and got very sick over the next few days. I rarely go back to that place anymore because although the guy's a great cook, he's a dangerously cheap bastard--in my opinion.

Anyway, I don't sweat the toxins when it comes to cooking beef, pork, and poultry. Just like I don't sweat the carcinogens being created when flame hits the burgers and steaks I'm grilling over charcoal. But when it comes to sticking a clean probe inside raw meat, what kind of toxins are we talking about anyway? I've read some of bbally's comments, not that much with ChefJimmyJ.

Now, I just downloaded "The Big Bug Book" from the FDA. My limited reading (as of now) has informed me that seafood--primarily shellfish--and mushrooms are the most common repositories of hazardous and downright lethal toxins.

Then there's aflatoxins which can occur in animals feeding on contaminated grains and vegies and diets containing contaminated animal meat. Those are also carcinogenic. Bottom line, sticking a clean probe into raw meat won't introduce toxins into it. Either the meat's already contaminated with toxics or it isn't. Sticking a probe into meat won't result in e-coli contamination. It's already residing in the meat and cooking it to the right IT will kill the little buggers.

I'm not asking anyone to accept my opinions as fact. But it's how I think and it's how I'm going to continue to handle my own cooking until I experience a reason not to.
 
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The big problem here is so many folks focus on a single detail...Probing and when...How many hours to go from 40 to 140...The list goes on and on. Cross contamination, prepping the meat and then making Beans and Coleslaw, with contaminated hands, tools, clothes, work surfaces, improperly washed raw ingredients, re-infected properly washed ingredients, you do everything right but every passersby in the family sticks their dirty hands in the food, you do everything right but you forget the open cut on your finger in all the excitement, etc., etc. Any of these is more likely to cause Food Poisoning than sticking the Probe in a raw Butt and smoking at 225°F. You are probably never going to catch every possible point that YOU could have contaminated your food and no single contamination will make you sick. Multiple things have to go wrong...JJ 

The most frequent violations which could result in cross contamination including failure to wash, rinse and sanitize cutting boards between uses, improper handwashing, failure to use thermometers and misuse of cloths, sponges or towels (Food Protection Report, March, 1998). 
 
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Chef JimmyJ said:
 
The big problem here is so many folks focus on a single detail...Probing and when...How many hours to go from 40 to 140...The list goes on and on. Cross contamination, prepping the meat and then making Beans and Coleslaw, with contaminated hands, tools, clothes, work surfaces, improperly washed raw ingredients, re-infected properly washed ingredients, you do everything right but every passersby in the family sticks their dirty hands in the food, you do everything right but you forget the open cut on your finger in all the excitement, etc., etc. Any of these is more likely to cause Food Poisoning than sticking the Probe in a raw Butt and smoking at 225°F. You are probably never going to catch every possible point that YOU could have contaminated your food and no single contamination will make you sick. Multiple things have to go wrong...JJ 

The most frequent violations which could result in cross contamination including failure to wash, rinse and sanitize cutting boards between uses, improper handwashing, failure to use thermometers and misuse of cloths, sponges or towels (Food Protection Report, March, 1998). 
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I heartily agree with your comments. When I'm applying a dry rub on meat, I always wash my hands with soap and hot water after touching the raw meat and before I move on to the next step. If I've finished hand spreading a yellow mustard base on ribs, brisket, and such, I wash up before going for the dry rub container. I place all meat on a rectangular baking sheet so I keep the cutting board clean. After the meat's in the smoker I thoroughly wash the baking sheet. I sanitize any surface meat or contaminated rub might have fallen onto.

I know the FDA/USDA food safety guidelines fairly well. There are places where they admit their guidelines are conservative. Also, we watch cooking competition shows. Maybe it's edited out but I've yet to see where any chef checks an IT with an instant read therm and I always wonder why. Maybe they're not allowed to because it makes for better TV if one batch after another of lamb chops comes out raw.
 
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