# Chilling hot Boston butts easily but safely



## JeffinNewport (Sep 19, 2021)

There are many great threads here on food safety. 

I did not find one on this (Though I bet there is one). 

Context: I make BBQ for our annual block party, 200 lbs. Sometimes I will have five or six butts left over. We drink all night (cooking, then at the party) and I am tired at the end of the night and don't want to fool with the leftover butts. But I want them to be safely put away. 

They are cooked to and sustain 190 degrees. (Say, 9 pm to noon.) They are then stored in an insulated Cambro until served from say 6 pm to 10 pm (only one butt brought out at a time). 

So, at midnight, I have seven whole butts at roughly 160 degrees (where they've sat at or above for 12 hours). I want to just chill them and go to bed. 

My choices - it seems - are:
A) set butts outside of Cambro before midnight to bring them down toward 135 (or below that temp for an hour say), or
B) let them remain in the Cambro where they are happy and safe

Then, I can put them in either :
1) refrigerator or
2) freezer

Last night, I took them straight from the Cambro to a 35 degree commercial refrigerator. The fridge went up to 41 and then came back down. 

At about 1 pm this afternoon, I checked the temp and they were 54 degrees (not sub-41, and 12 hours later). So I moved them to a commercial freezer. After two hours, they had only dropped two degrees per quality probe. I just checked after five more hours and they are at 35 degrees. 

(I should have noted that the butts were and are still wrapped in saran and aluminum foil. That may be why they are so resistant to shedding heat.) 

I had not measured the chilling speed before this weekend. 

Based on this, it seems like the lazy method would be:
a) let temp drop toward 140 outside of Cambro for a couple hours
b) put them straight into commercial  freezer. 

Those would be two steps that would have been better than not allowing them to cool and going into a refrigerator. 

I am not too concerned about eating these butts that spent hours between 135 degrees and 41. But I am slightly considerate of serving it to others. 

Recommendations? (I am probably not going to toss them even somebody thinks I should, though I am willing for that to be suggested!)


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## Nodak21 (Sep 19, 2021)

I am no help on the food safety but man you must live on a big block!!! Nice job cooking and serving that much bbq


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## WaterRat (Sep 19, 2021)

Just rip 'em apart, or at least in half, they'll cool way faster and doesn't take much time.


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## chef jimmyj (Sep 20, 2021)

Fastest method to cool...Pull the meat, vac seal and place in a container of Circulating Cold running water. A thin continuous stream of water is all that is needed. Same can be done with whole Butts, just takes A LOT longer to get below 70°F to go in  refrigeration. 
If the Refer or Freezer is " empty, " the well wrapped Butts can go in directly from the Cambro. There is no bacteria to worry about, in Sealed Wrapping, so it dont matter how long it takes to chill...JJ


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## forktender (Sep 20, 2021)

Just cover them in plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator or better yet and ice chest with plenty of ice.
Aluminum pans and plastic wrap work great for this.


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