So I ended up going with a pineapple/mango juice blend with apple cider vinegar (4:1) and added some salt, cumin and cayenne. I think I might be on to something with this one.
Pros - it can add some nice flavor to your meat, just like seasoning any food can, and can also keep things juicer, especially for longer cooks; also if you use MSG or similar in the injection, it can do some additional tenderizing. Cons - it can be a mess and you need to plan ahead to let it marinate in the injection for at least a few hours.
I don't want to convince anyone to do anything different that they feel is important for food safety, but the 140 degree temp within 4 hours seems to be more important AFTER a cook than before it. If you're cooking to an internal temp around 200 degrees, you're killing everything that may have started to grow.
So how much do you scale by for a typical 7# pork butt? In other words, how much do you end up injecting?
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Because you push potential surface bacteria inside the meat the 4 hour rule applies for sure in my opinion. Interested to hear what others have to say on that though. For something different I've used a blend of chicken broth, chipotle adobo sauce and dry taco seasoning as an injection. Rubbed with the taco style seasoning and used for tacos.
The 40-140 rule is important for injected meat because you don’t want the bacteria to dwell long enough below 140 to create toxins. Once they produce toxin no amount of cooking temp will remove the toxin if present.
Sounds good. You really can only get 10% in there. I would say a tad more than a cup.
I don't think you're understanding the 40 to 140 in 4 hour rule. In your case of injecting the meat, the internal temp of the meat needs to get from 40°(fridge temp) to 140° within four hours to kill the stuff that could put you in a hospital bed. The simple act of injecting might introduce toxins that will only be killed if you follow that rule. The injection fluid itself could have toxins, and/or the device used to inject could also be tainted. If I'm smoking a large chunk of meat, I don't want to be limited by the rule. This is why I don't inject large hunks of meat (brisket, pork butt, etc.). What if that costly brisket that you injected took 6+ hours to get to 140 because you started smoking at a lower temp? (The pellet poopers might understand that one). Would you risk letting other people eat that? If I'm only smoking something I've injected for just my consumption, I follow this rule. If what I'm smoking is going to be consumed by people I care about, I err on the side of caution and get it to 140 with a little time to spare. Do a search on this forum, and you'll find reams of info on this by people that have forgotten more about this than I will ever know.
