food poisoning , part duh ! birds bye bye

[gorillagrilla]

Thanks all for the great advice on the smoked chickens with stuffing. I have taken it and the birds are in the garbage , all five of them !When I mess up I like to do it big ! I have had food poisoning before and have no desire of turning into a human sprinkler for the next 24 hrs.If it were not for this forum I would have just forged ahead.Maybe it would be fine , but maybe is not nearly good enough.
Again ,thanks all and ai will chalk today up as a learning experience and try again later.

 

[desertlites]

glad to hear grilla,just chaulk it up to learning,poultry is nothing to take chances with-and think of the danger zone,when birds are at low temp for to long of time-thats when nasties love to party! thats why were all here to help our fellow smokers.

 

[peculiarmike]

This is after the fact and hindsight is absolutely the best sight.
What temperature were you smoking your birds at?
There is no reason to, and you should never, smoke poultry "low & slow".
If you are doing chicken you need your temperature up in the 350° range.
Get it on, get it done, get it off.
$.02

 

[setitandforgetitsmoker]

good call gorilla my theroy is when in doubt throw it out. i have smoked turkeys and chickens before at 250 deg temp. what i do is put birds in brine solution with 1 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, plus any herbs that i feel like adding.per gallon of water i then boil brine untill sugar and salt desolve brine will be pretty clear. once this brine cools to room temp place bird or birds in bucket 5 gal is what i use. place in the refridgerator for 48 hours. make sure the birds are totaly submerged in brine i usually put a dinner plate on the top to weigh down the top bird. when done rise birds with water before cooking this recipe has worked really well for me and the brine will help alot for lower and longer cooking without running into spoiling issues.one thing to be carefull with is if your birds have been injected with solution from processing cut some of your salt back and they will still be very good. i have made birds this way and they are incredible, rave reviews.i did a 25lb fresh turkey in november at 250 deg took almost 9 hours to complete unreal results used hickory and apple.

 

[capt dan]

In case you guys missed gorilla's first post about the chickens, the problem was that the chickens were stuffed with stuffing, not so much that he was doing them low and slow. That is where the original concerns arrose.

 

[peculiarmike]

Yep, saw that. Also saw the stuffing was precooked. You CAN cook a bird stuffed IF you get the temp. up where it needs to be to assure killing any bugs. Chefs do it all the time in restaurants, a lot of folks do it every Thanksgiving or Christmas and live to tell about it. Long as you do it right there is no problem. Gotta know what you're doing, both with the bird and the smoker.