Help! Can I eat my pork butt?

[KeeganD]

I smoked a pork butt for my wife's birthday today and the fire went out overnight. I've read a lot of the threads and the answers seem to vary based on the temperature details and the average person's judgment/risk tolerance, but can anyone help analyze my situation? I'd hate to lose all this work towards her birthday meal.

I took 17 lbs of pork butt (Costco vacuum packed, two 8.5 pieces) straight out of the fridge, covered them in mustard and dry rub (salt, sugar, spices, etc.), and put them in my Weber Smokey Mountain at 250 F at about 10:30am on Sunday. My ThermPro ambient probe registered 225-290 throughout the day but generally held at 250 F. The coal started to run out by 10pm or so so I refilled, tamped down, and by midnight the internal probe registered about 180. I thought shoot, I'm going to have to get up in the middle of the night to deal with this. I refilled with some more coal, stabilized the smoker temp at 250 F, and went to bed at 2am with an internal meat temperature at 188 F a temperature alarm set for 200 F. Unfortunately the alarm never went off, or perhaps the unit shut off, but I woke up at 4am to see an internal temp of 185 F and a smoker temp of 220 or so. Being still terribly tired, I fell back asleep and woke up at 8:30am to an internal temp of 119 F and a smoker temp of 72 F. Clearly everything had burned out. I pulled the butts off the smoker and put them in the oven (picture attached) and am now waiting for them to come back up and hopefully hit 190-200. My questions are:

1. Can I expect it reached the 190-200 F zone sometime between 2am-8:30am?

2. Should I try to get it back to that temperature zone now in the oven?

3. And finally (and most importantly), how am I from a food safety perspective? The meat dropped down below 140 F clearly and held there for some period of time between 4am-9am when I put the butts back in the oven.

Photos attached. Thanks for the advice!

 

[tropics]

Try pulling the bone out,your temp was high enough to be safe.
You could try to pull it if you are making Pulled Pork.
Richie

 

[KeeganD]

It's boneless actually. And yes, it's for pulled pork.

 

[schlotz]

Here is your best source. Chef JimmyJ is our resident expert. https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/40-to-140-in-4-a-guideline-and-what-to-consider.270191/

 

[Bearcarver]

Try pulling the bone out,your temp was high enough to be safe.
You could try to pull it if you are making Pulled Pork.
Richie

I agree with Richie.
And if you don't get it to the point where it will Pull Easily, you can just slice it.
That's Great Too!!!

Bear

 

[DanMcG]

If it was 185 and 220 at 4 am then it was only in the danger zone for a couple hours. (it had to take some time to get down to 140) and you're safe in my opinion.
Either reheat it or chill it if you haven't already.

 

[thirdeye]

At 4 am, everything was perfect. The quick fix would have been putting the butts in the oven at that time.

It's likely by 6 am, the butts could still be in the "safe zone", > 140°. By 8 am the clock has started ticking because you were likely back in the danger zone for 2 hours. USDA: "If hot foods temperature falls below 135°F for no longer than 2 hours, reheat the food to 165°F for 15 sec".

So, you are getting your "hot" food back above 135° which is good. Are butts tender? If not I would wrap and cook them further.

 

[zwiller]

+1 Was cooked safely but questionable loss of temp and just slightly back in to the zone. Reheat.

 

[thirdeye]

And one more note, the USDA tends to lean toward the conservative and there is a safety factor in most of the cooking rules that reference time, temperature, or pressure (for canning) so I believe this also applies to holding hot or cold food.

 

[DanMcG]

Here's some info on cooling hot food that might help here.

Cooling hot food, do it right to prevent bacterial growth

The way you cool and store these large amounts of food can make all the difference between keeping food safe or the growth of pathogens that can make food unsafe for eating which could lead to foodborne illnesses.

www.canr.msu.edu

read #4.
The way I see it you have 6 hours to heat or cool it before tossing it in the bin.

 

[gmc2003]

3. And finally (and most importantly), how am I from a food safety perspective? The meat dropped down below 140 F clearly and held there for some period of time between 4am-9am when I put the butts back in the oven.

Meat doesn't loose temps that quickly, and you were probably in the danger zone for an hour maybe two. I think your fine, especially since your going to be heating it back up to eat.

Chris

 

[thirdeye]

Here's some info on cooling hot food that might help here.

Cooling hot food, do it right to prevent bacterial growth

The way you cool and store these large amounts of food can make all the difference between keeping food safe or the growth of pathogens that can make food unsafe for eating which could lead to foodborne illnesses.

www.canr.msu.edu

read #4.
The way I see it you have 6 hours to heat or cool it before tossing it in the bin.

The university extensions are a great resource, as are the county extension offices, ours does everything from provide master gardener advice, a farmers market and will check your pressure canner gauge. I have this cool (parden the pun) bottle called a Rapi-Kool which is a bottle with wings you keep in the freezer and use it to chill down a pot of soup or stew.