bad pork question

[smokinjs62012]

I've been smoking meat in my restaurant for four years now with no problems.  I built my smoker from an old 500 gallon anhydrous tank, I make my own charcoal, and I always start my cooks off at 170 degrees for most of the cook.   once the temp reaches 160 or so I raise the temp to 275 and cook it until the internal temp is 200.  I've done it this way every time and it has never failed me.  Well this weekend we smoked 480 pounds of shoulder for a benefit, we picked the meat up at 5 p.m Thursday, we drove it directly to our restaurant 15 minutes away, rubbed it, packed it in ice, an left it.  The next morning the ice was not melted and the pork was still 38 degrees.  I put it on the smoker at 11 a.m., smoked it all day and night at 160-170 degrees for 18 hours then raised the temp to 275 for the last 2 hours.  At this point the internal shoulder temp was 210 and we started taking it off the smoker and pulling it, as we were pulling it we started to smell rotten meat.  Well low and behold as we got into it the meat was ROTTEN!!  I mean cleared the room, green, putrid!!  My question is, is there anything I could have possibly done to make the meat literally rotten?

 

[mike5051]

That sounds awful!  I'm not sure, but smoking at 160-170 sounds like a bad idea.  I don;t know if the meat would be rotten, but unsafe to eat for sure.  There is a safe window of time to get the meat above 140 degrees and I think you exceeded it.

Mike

 

[bauchjw]

That sounds frickn nasty. I used to cater and I know passing 140 quick is key, but I can't imagine anything you did causing that extensive amount of rot though. I think the meat vendor or before him screwed up and tried to pretend they didn't.

 

[chef jimmyj]

I can't see anything you did wrong. Even smoking at the low temp should not have caused Intact Meat to go rotten like you describe. For the meats interior to go putrid, green and pussy, takes time as in several days not hours. Yes Pork breaks down faster than meats like beef, but your Nose should have told you of a problem when you were rubbing the meat. A diseased animal may give that result but all 480 pound being diseased is not likely. Was this your Regular Supplier? Any possibility the meat was Enhanced as in Injected to bulk up the weight? This makes no sense...JJ

 

[wade]

I agree with what has been said above. It does sound as if the meat may have been injected to cause it to go like that from the inside without it being noticeable from the outside. Did you keep any of it as evidence? I would certainly contact your supplier and ask them as it would have had to be supplied by them in a very poor condition to get like that so quickly. Also you may want to involve your local FSIS.

You were obviously cooking for a crowd - what did you serve instead?

 

[smokinjs62012]

No it wasn't my usual supplier,  I was doing it for a baseball team fundraiser and they brought me all of the shoulders.  I called the county health inspector and he told me the meat had more than likely gotten warm somewhere along the way, and since it's such larger cuts of meat the center didn't cool fast enough the second time thus causing it to grow bacteria and then rot.  He also said between the rub and the rot being in the center he's not surprised I didn't smell it.  Thanks for all the info, I didn't think I could possibly mess it up that bad but this definitely made me feel better!

 

[smokinjs62012]

It was for a fund raiser, so they have to wait until next weekend for the do over!

 

[bauchjw]

It was for a fund raiser, so they have to wait until next weekend for the do over!

That's great you don't have to take a hit to your pocket book! I'll always be stressed about the smell when I do pork butts from now on though! That's a tough image to shake!