Loss of power when smoking brisket.

[gtdiesel]

Started a brisket yesterday on my Yoder, when internal temperature hit 131 degrees we lost power. Smoker temp was 180 degrees at the time.

With nothing I could do, I left the brisket on the smoker… Outside temperature was below freezing all night so I figured that would be just as good as sticking it in the fridge.

When the power came back on, brisket internal temp was 38 degrees (10 hours in the cold)…

i don’t know exact time in the “danger zone” but am curious if it can be finished…It was never at room temperature other than the transition through when cooling back off.

if this was in the middle of summer or something, I would toss it 100%, but with the current weather conditions, I am not sure.

i do have a friend who is a professional chef, and he said he would not be worried about bacteria since it will be cooked to 200 degrees, but the quality of the cook may suffer.

any other opinions?

the brisket was probed when putting on the smoker but were sterilized.

photo after cooling.

 

[gmc2003]

Well to be honest I think you'll be fine. The greenie meanies should have been killed off by the time your internals hit 131*. I would personally eat it, but wouldn't feed it to friends. Enemies maybe, but that's another story.

However I have to ask a couple of questions:
1. Did you wrap it up or just let it sit in your smoker?
2. Why didn't you just finish it in the oven?

Chris

 

[gtdiesel]

the whole neighborhood had a power outage, so no oven… Out of all the briskets I have done, I have never had a power outage while doing one. Talk about unfortunate!

it was unwrapped at the time… never even opened the smoker until the power came back.

 

[sandyut]

I’m with gmc2003 sounds like it should be fine to me. If it happens again, I woulda wrapped it up while you waited for the power to come back on. But that’s just my opinion.

 

[DougE]

Long as it was an intact muscle (no injection or the like), I'd expect the surface temp got high enough to kill off any surface bacteria.

 

[gmc2003]

Cool, thanks for the answers. I forget not everyone has gas. Good call on your part.

Chris