BBQ emergency??? Help!

[minisoda]

Smoked 100 lb of pork shoulder Thursday for my parents 50th anniversary party Saturday at 5pm. We pulled the pork and vacuum sealed each pork butt in gallon size bags. Put in the fridge around 9pm last night and stacked several of them. I was horrified when I went out to the fridge at 6:30 this morning and several of the bags still hadn’t cooled down. I think there was just too much meat, too tightly packed in there.

Even though the meat was vacuum sealed, I’m super concerned about the safety serving it. My dad thought it would be fine since it was sealed. I quickly threw a few in the freezer and separated the others.

Appreciate your thoughts… may need to call caterers asap!!!!

 

[912smoker]

No help from me but a bump !

Keith

 

[Hockeydudde]

Did you put them in the bags and seal when they were still piping hot?
Our did you get rest and cool before sealing?

 

[minisoda]

It was so hot, I could barely touch it with gloves on.

 

[SmokinVOLfan]

I would probably just throw it all and make hot dog burnt ends and peach dump cake.

JK i think you are probably fine especially since the meat was still hot. Pound a couple sandwiches today and if you dont get sick then you are good to serve tomorrow.

 

[Hockeydudde]

I agree with SmokinVOLfan . If you are confident it went in above 165, I think there is very minimal risk.

 

[dr k]

You should be fine all foodbourne pathogen bacteria and a few viruses are long dead forever as well as spoilage bacteria, yeast , mold and fungus being package so hot and will recontaminate exposed to air Saturday, but the three spore formers that survive boiling and acid could be waitng in an anareibic environment to turn vegetative and grow. Eating spores gets digested it's when they start growing in the food it's the toxin from clostridium botulinum. Clostridium perfringens and bacillus cereus. It's either frozen now or cooled to be eaten Saturday and there isn't enough time for them to cool to grow and stop when below 40 degree fridge, plus salt and sugar from rub acid from vinegar if used help over that longer cooling time, keeping them in spore form. Next time load the sink with ice water to quickly cool or smaller portions. Cooling large cooks/soups is a 6 hour process whereby you need to get from 135 to 70 in 2 hours and 70 to below 40 in 4 hours since everything is dead except the dormant three spore formers. I'd eat it. Cooling from 203 to fridge temp over a longer period of time is much safer that uncured non intact meat/cased raw sausage getting up to temp over the same amount of hours.

 

[minisoda]

Thanks all - appreciate the quick response setting my mind at ease!

 

[JckDanls 07]

This is where Chef JJ shined... Man I miss him... RIP Brother...

 

[minisoda]

The event was a HUGE hit. Pulled pork and sliced Turkey turned out amazing and the guests were raving. Thanks again for your quick help.

 

[Hockeydudde]

Congrats! Happy anniversary to your parents.

 

[Winterrider]

Glad to hear things went well. Congrats to your parents.

 

[tbern]

that's great that it was a success!! happy anniversary to your folks!

 

[JasonT734]

Smoked 100 lb of pork shoulder Thursday for my parents 50th anniversary party Saturday at 5pm. We pulled the pork and vacuum sealed each pork butt in gallon size bags. Put in the fridge around 9pm last night and stacked several of them. I was horrified when I went out to the fridge at 6:30 this morning and several of the bags still hadn’t cooled down. I think there was just too much meat, too tightly packed in there.

Even though the meat was vacuum sealed, I’m super concerned about the safety serving it. My dad thought it would be fine since it was sealed. I quickly threw a few in the freezer and separated the others.

Appreciate your thoughts… may need to call caterers asap!!!!

The food safety rule of thumb is that hot food must be kept at 140F or above, and cold food must be kept at 41F or below. If you follow that rule, your food should be fine. However, the temperature of the food matters less than the temperature of its packaging. If you have a number of bags stacked inside each other like in your case, the only safe way to keep the food out of the danger zone is to make sure that the outside of the bags are below 41F. If the bags are not properly chilled yet, you can drop some ice packs in the bags. You should also think about getting new bags. The thicker the bags, the slower they cool down, so they are a good investment if you will be storing food for hours. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to "hack" the bags to speed up the cooling process.