Confused about pellet grill recipe temp recommendations

[radio]

After reading the manual for the Daniel Boone, I turned to the recipe pages to see how much different they were from what I've done for years in the stick burners. I was very surprised to see on some recipes for Brisket and Ribs that they say start the cook at 165-175° for 2-4 hours, then increase to 225-230° to finish. They also recommend letting the meat set on the counter for an hour to "come to room temperature".
This goes against everything I thought I knew about food safety! Out of curiosity I went to Traegar's site and compared instructions in their recipes. No mention of starting at such low temps there.
I'm confused why GMG makes these suggestions that are borderline bacteria breeding grounds and possibly open them up to a lawsuit if someone gets sick following their instructions.
Input and opinions? @chefjimmyj ?

 

[troutman]

I believe what they are telling you is this, most pellet cookers (really all of them) do not produce a lot of smoke except below the 200* temperature range. They are probably suggesting that you hot smoke your meat then turn the thing up into the normal temperature range to finish. At 225-230* you are going to loose all of the smoke making ability of the cooker unless you supplement with an AMPNS tray or a tube.

I agree with your concerns over food safety, I believe its recommended that you cook at least 180* or above to achieve pasteurization. I'm sure chefjimmy can elaborate on that. As far as letting food get up to temperature on the counter, I gotta tell ya that I've done it for years with no ill effects. But I'm not in the restaurant business and not having to worry about the general welfare of the public.

Hope that helps a little bit. Good luck !!!

 

[Bearcarver]

After reading the manual for the Daniel Boone, I turned to the recipe pages to see how much different they were from what I've done for years in the stick burners. I was very surprised to see on some recipes for Brisket and Ribs that they say start the cook at 165-175° for 2-4 hours, then increase to 225-230° to finish. They also recommend letting the meat set on the counter for an hour to "come to room temperature".
This goes against everything I thought I knew about food safety! Out of curiosity I went to Traegar's site and compared instructions in their recipes. No mention of starting at such low temps there.
I'm confused why GMG makes these suggestions that are borderline bacteria breeding grounds and possibly open them up to a lawsuit if someone gets sick following their instructions.
Input and opinions? @chefjimmyj ?

Hi Radio!!
I often start low on smokes that I have cured first (to get more Smoke Time), but I never do that on anything not cured, and safe or not, I never saw a worthy reason to put anything on the counter to come to room temp first.

Bear

 

[radio]

Thanks guys!

I also have let things sit on the counter, but only for a short wile, and certainly do not let it get to room temperature! The sausage I'm smoking today has cure in it and smoking at 190, but no way in H#!! am I going to smoke brisket or ribs at 165!

 

[johnmeyer]

One other item that may lead to recommending lower temps is the "convection" nature of a pellet oven. It uses a huge amount of air to control the burning rate and temperature of the pellets. All that rapidly moving air turns it into something similar to an indoor convection oven. My convection oven's instructions say to adapt existing recipes by lowering both the temperature (at least 25 degrees F) and and the cooking time.

As for food safety, you most definitely do not need to get food to 180 degrees (although that may not be what Troutman was trying to say). Most food can be made quite safe if you get it to a little over 130 degrees, as long as you get it to that temp before you exceed the three hour time in the "danger zone" and, if you are really going to finish it at that temp, then it needs to stay there for a long enough period of time to finish the job of pasteurization. Those really high temps are for "instant pasteurization" and are not only unnecessary, but leave you with food that doesn't taste as good as it could. Making food safe is a function of not only temperature, but time.

There have been lots of posts about this in this forum over the years. Here is the one I did:

Sous Vide, Smokers, and Food Safety - We're Safer Than We Thought

 

[Bearcarver]

One other item that may lead to recommending lower temps is the "convection" nature of a pellet oven. It uses a huge amount of air to control the burning rate and temperature of the pellets. All that rapidly moving air turns it into something similar to an indoor convection oven. My convection oven's instructions say to adapt existing recipes by lowering both the temperature (at least 25 degrees F) and and the cooking time.

As for food safety, you most definitely do not need to get food to 180 degrees (although that may not be what Troutman was trying to say). Most food can be made quite safe if you get it to a little over 130 degrees, as long as you get it to that temp before you exceed the three hour time in the "danger zone" and, if you are really going to finish it at that temp, then it needs to stay there for a long enough period of time to finish the job of pasteurization. Those really high temps are for "instant pasteurization" and are not only unnecessary, but leave you with food that doesn't taste as good as it could. Making food safe is a function of not only temperature, but time.

There have been lots of posts about this in this forum over the years. Here is the one I did:

Sous Vide, Smokers, and Food Safety - We're Safer Than We Thought

I don't think anybody said you have to get the food to 180°.
I believe 180° is used in threads to mean that you have to use 180° smoker temps, or more to get the meat to a safe IT temp, which is over 130°, but 140° is generally used as the target in this forum.


Bear