# Pork Shoulder Safety



## jordanb8810 (Sep 5, 2010)

I started a pork shoulder this morning. It has been going for about 8 hours and has YET to hit the 150 degrees mark. Is this still safe to eat?


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## eman (Sep 5, 2010)

What temp are you smoking at and are you SURE about your thermometer(s)?

 If you are smoking at the recomended temps , 210 - 235, There should be no way that a butt is not up to 140 degrees  in 8 hrs.

 Unless the butt was still frozen when you put it on to smoke..

 If you are smoking at the proper temp and your thermos are accurate then in my opinion toss it .


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## Bearcarver (Sep 5, 2010)

I you put temperature probes in the meat, or injected it, you must go from 40˚ to 140˚ in no more than 4 hours. If you didn't probe or inject it when you started it, you can get away with it, as long as you had some other criteria covered. Since you know what temp it is at 8 hours, I would tend to agree with eman. 

Bearcarver


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## jordanb8810 (Sep 5, 2010)

I started the meat this morning very early. Once I knew my temp was stable at 235 I fell asleep. When I woke up about 4 hours later (9:30 AM) my coals ewere out because the water pan fell off its grate and smothered them. I have no idea how long the coals were out and the temp at 9:30 was only 120. I got everything started again as fast as possible and hit 145 degrees at about 1 PM. It is now 160 degrees at 3 o clock. I did use an injection solution and my probe is very accurate. Is it truly an unsafe piece of meat?


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## rdknb (Sep 5, 2010)

Based on what you are saying I would not eat it.  Sorry but you are way past the food safety times


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## ddave (Sep 5, 2010)

eman said:


> If you are smoking at the recomended temps , 210 - 235,


I believe the recommended temps are 225° to 250°.  Even temps in the 260s aren't going to hurt a pork shoulder.
 


JordanB8810 said:


> I started the meat this morning very early. Once I knew my temp was stable at 235 I fell asleep. When I woke up about 4 hours later (9:30 AM) my coals ewere out because the water pan fell off its grate and smothered them. I have no idea how long the coals were out and the temp at 9:30 was only 120. I got everything started again as fast as possible and hit 145 degrees at about 1 PM. It is now 160 degrees at 3 o clock. I did use an injection solution and my probe is very accurate. Is it truly an unsafe piece of meat?


Since you injected, according to USDS guidelines, it should have hit 140° in 4 hours although I beleive it has been changed to 135° per the 2010 Food Code.

If you hadn't injected it and left it unpunctured, the whole muscle rule would have applied and the recemmedation is then the outer 1/2" needs to pass 140° in 4 hours.

Is it truly an unsafe piece of meat??  That's for you to decide based on what you know the safe recommendations are and what you feel comfortable assuming about what the temp was and when.  Me -- I'm with RdKnB -- I wouldn't eat it. 

But I'm sure there will be plenty of folks along soon to say that it would be fine.  There always are.

Dave


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## Bearcarver (Sep 5, 2010)

On something like this, bbally would be the man to check with. Maybe PM him ??

The stuff I know says it's unsafe too, but bbally knows  a lot more than I do.

Bear


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## eman (Sep 5, 2010)

Chunk it and start over. The butt was in the unsafe zone all most twice the recomended time allowed. Why risk you or your famoly getting sick. there is no way i'd feed that to anyone. to many varibles.


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## pineywoods (Sep 5, 2010)

You have been given some great advice but the final decision is yours. Personally I would throw it out


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## jordanb8810 (Sep 6, 2010)

Thanks for all the great advice. I ended up throwing it out. Not worth making my friends sick. Just curious though, normally when I inject the shoulder I let it marinade in the refrigerator for 12-18 hours. Is this unsafe as well? I never thought about the meat injector introducing bacteria into the inside of the meat. Thanks


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## pineywoods (Sep 6, 2010)

If you use proper technique like sanitizing the injector then its safe it will however put you into the punctured meat rule which simply means the meat needs to go from 41 degrees to an internal of 135 in under 4 hours. Placing a temperature probe into the meat at the being of the smoke puts you into the same rule.


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