When I do beef sticks, I run my smoker at 160ish and wait for the meat to get to temp... usually takes 18-24 hours... AND I follow this pasteurization table to insure the sticks are safe to consume.....
FSIS Guidance on Safe Cooking of Non-Intact Meat Chops, Roasts, and Steaks April 2009
Temp °F / Time for 5.0 log Reduction
Unit Time
130..........86 min.
131 ..........69 min.
132......... 55 min.
133.......... 44 min.
134.......... 35 min.
135.......... 28 min.
136 ..........22 min.
137 ..........18 min.
138 ..........14 min.
139.......... 11 min.
140 ...........9 min.
141........... 7 min.
142 ...........6 min.
143 ...........5 min.
144 ...........4 min.
145 ...........3 min.
146 .........130 sec.
147......... 103 sec.
148 ...........82 sec.
149 ...........65 sec.
150........... 52 sec.
151........... 41 sec.
152........... 33 sec.
153 ...........26 sec.
154 ...........21 sec.
155 ...........17 sec.
156 ...........14 sec.
157 ...........11 sec.
158 .............0 sec.
159 .............0 sec.
160 .............0 sec.
The required lethalities are achieved instantly when the internal temperature of a cooked meat product reaches 158 °F or above. Humidity must be considered when using this Time/Temperature table.
This Time/Temperature table is based on Thermal Death Curve for Salmonella in Beef Emulsions in tubes (Derived from Goodfellow & Brown1, 1978) Regulatory Curve obtained from Jerry Carosella, Deputy Director, Microbiology Division, Science and Technology. All times that were a fraction of a minute or second was rounded up to the next whole number (e.g., 16.2 seconds for 155 °F was round up to 17 seconds).
________________________ 1. Goodfellow, S. J. and W. L. Brown. 1978. Fate of Salmonella Inoculated into Beef for Cooking. Journal of Food Protection. 41:598-605.
