Boston Butt Danger Zone

[phrett]

If the interior of the raw meat is "sterile" and probing it could introduce surface bacteria why does the inside even have to get cooked?

If the meat is not probed how do you know it reaches 140 to safely insert a probe?

I always probe when the meat goes on, to not do so seems unsafe!

 

[Bearcarver]

If the interior of the raw meat is "sterile" and probing it could introduce surface bacteria why does the inside even have to get cooked?

If the meat is not probed how do you know it reaches 140 to safely insert a probe?

I always probe when the meat goes on, to not do so seems unsafe!

You do what you want to do.

I give people the best Info I have, or the best I can find from Trusted Sources. That's all I can do.

I'll continue to go by what guys like this (Below) say:

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

 

[chef jimmyj]

Moving on...JJ