A big butt and 2 racks - More qview- Update

[rdknb]

I do agree with bear also on the temps. The book is USDA Food Safety. I remember smoking in the winter after digging though 2 feet of snow, so no ending season here.

 

[rbranstner]

Yes Bear is correct with his statement that USDA specs say meat should go from 40 degrees to 140 degrees within 4 hours. Give or take a while shouldn't be an issue but if you are talking hours then I would be a little worried. 

 

[beer-b-q]

I dont know what ' book ' your talkin' about, but after doin' this stuff for 25 years, I've never had any issues. Like I said, when it's cool and windy, like it's been around here all day, maintaining the temperature in an uninsulated smoker aint the easiest thing in the world. And I mean a REAL smoker. Electricity and smokin' dont mix. We call that cheatin'.

Anyway, the temperature log for THIS smoke looks like this -

5am  39

6am  70

8am  107

9am  112

Hell, I would love to get the temp up to 140 that quick. But this aint science, and every chunk of meat is different. As are the conditions of every smoke.

Either way, by the book says, when that chunk hits 190, it's gonna' collapse with the index-finger push. 

Twenty five years of doing something does not necessarily mean it has been done right... It just means you have been lucky...

You might want to read these threads and see what Bear is talking about... It seems that every so often we have this topic come up again and again...

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

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/86620/feel-free-to-download-the-food-code-2009

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/...eets/index.asp

 

[hemi]

  I ain't but a few years from retiring.  I think I been around since Moby Dick was a minnow.

When I was a boy THIS time of year was when you started to smoke and barbecue.  The reason we waited so late in the year to start was because refrigeration was not yet available to most of the mountain folk here in the mountains of NC.

   We started killing hogs right after the first frost of the year.  It being cooler during the day gave you more time to safely ''work up'' the meat with a degree of safety. The woman folk were just as busy or more so than the men folk.  I remember Mama cookin up the liver mush and stiring that

big old pot over the open fire.  all the neighbors helped and got a small portion  to take home.

And WE helped them..

  Smokers, as such, were not introduced there yet as I remember.  We had smoke houses

to ''hang'' meat in . The reason that it was smoked was for preserving it.  Not for taste so much as now.

   Ma used to boil the country ham to get rid of as much of the salt and smoke taste as possible because she wanted it to taste as fresh as she could.

Now it is more desirable to taste the salt, cure and smoke in the ham.  When we cooked a hog

or quarter of beef was when it was chilly.. November ?  December.. thereabouts..

[no refrigeration again..]  Had no way to measure the temperature of the cooker.OR the meat.

 Pop would lay his hand on the tin used to cover the meat and gauge the heat by feel.

I guess it was a wonder that more people did not get sick. When we got a Buck or killed a hog or a beef it was dressed and hung in the wood shed with a clean sheet wrapped around it for at LEAST a week to ''hang'' [tenderize]  as long as it was below 40 deg..  No body ever got sick at one of his cookins'  just drunk..  or from overeatin.    A black bear came in for a visit one time..

In short order he was being ''processed''.   We never used charcoal because no one could realy afford it.  We used most any kind of seasoned hardwood.  We burned it in a burn barrel or

on a piece of sheet metal and fed the hot coals under the rack with a long handled , square shovel.  Ever so often pop would wander over and lay that big hard hand on it and check it.

  The reason that it was so safe to eat was because everything that came close to the cookin was kept as clean as a hound's tooth.  Everything was cooked for 12 hours.  12 hours PERIOD.

It was considered a ''special request'' to get invited to help cook .  The folks would get together

and the men would sip a bit now and then and mind the cookin.  The wimmen would get together

and gosip [mostly about the men]

  No one got drunk.  no one got mad or hurt feelins.

  So yeah..  Cold weather is for cookin. 

 When we killed an animal to ''put up'' it was cold weather.   

   BUTT.. Even now I do most of our smokin and outdoor cookin after it turns cooler.  NOW

is the time we enjoy it.    Hemi..

 

[scarbelly]

I too have to agree with Bear on the safety issue. The meat was out of the safe zone for too long for me to be comfortable eating it.

The ribs look great though.