meat temps prior to smoking

I like to smoke em cold.

Serve safe follower here. Refrigerated until shortly before time to go in the cooker. I will let beef sit out a bit, but not hours.

Don't eat anything he serves you.

ooooooooooohhhhhh!!

eagle697 said:

one of these guys let his meat out overnight when he left for the hotel. I've seen him do it before too.

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1) Hotel ?!??!?! What kind of comp is this?

2) This is bad, bad form at best, and irresponsible and dangerous at worst.

Dr_KY said:

I like to smoke em cold.

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Kevin said:

Serve safe follower here. Refrigerated until shortly before time to go in the cooker. I will let beef sit out a bit, but not hours.

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^^^ What they said!!!!!

eagle697 said:

i have seen this one guy at two competitions and at each he comes in late Friday afternoon and preps through the evening and leaves for the hotel for the night. They return around 5 and start to cook. I may be wrong about it, but swear i saw him out the meat in the pans, cover with foil and leave on the table.

I saw several other teams let their pork and brisket sit for 2-4 hours though. not much better IMO. Granted it was a cool evening, but i asked if they always did that and they said yes. I would never serve anyone food i let sit out like that, even if i thought it would help the flavor and texture.

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Please warn me what comps he is doing so I can avoid judging them!!!!

Man that is just wrong! I went to a comp one time and both of my butts were frozen solid. Had to do the water thaw on them and I hated having them sitting out in water, although that is a recommended way to thaw meat. I would stear clear from these teams.

Definately not something that I do for more than say half an hour. We prep meat at a contest and it goes right back in the cooler. It may come out no more than a half hour before going in.

Let's break this rule down though. Inside the danger zone bacteria doubles every 20 minutes. If you have a large cut of meat the bacteria will only be present on the outside unless of course you have poked it as probably does happen at a comp with injections.

Cooking the food will kill the cooties. Especially at the temperatures that we take food to. We aren't talking going to 165 internal or even 140 internal for beef or anything close to that. We are getting it close to 200 on the inside. Well above any regulations concerning food safety and that will kill pretty much everything.

The REAL danger lies in the cooling. Regulations say that cooling must go from 140 to 40 in 6 hours with the first two hours of that cooling dropping it below 70 and taking the remaining 4 hours for the 70 to 40 drop.

Here is the reason. In the range from 140 down to 70 any cooties that will be on there are alive and kicking. The biggest problem is that at that range they go into survival mode and create spore pods. It think that is what they are called. These spore pods are impenetrable by water and survive much greater extremes than the host cootie. In order to kill these things they must be taken to boiling temperatures for a minimum of 15 minutes or better. This is something that we do NOT do with our meat.

In short, a half hour or so on the table before cooking is not percieved as a problem, the over night thing is way off base and maybe should be brought to the attention of someone.

Chicken however spends as little time on the table as possible, and may be 10 minutes tops on the table before going into the cooker. Except for the one time that I did accidentally leave it out, but it was indeed a cold night. Purposelly leaving food out for any extended period of time is a no-no.

^^^ Words to live by ^^^

parrothead said:

The REAL danger lies in the cooling.

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Exactly.

The reason for letting a piece of meat get to room temp is so that it does not change the fibers of the meat rapidly, which can effect the meats tenderness and moisture. But when you are smoking it is such a slow process that you wouldn't notice. But on a steak I think its more effective because of the rapid change. So I let me steaks set out a while.

I am not an expert on food safety, but....

I am 99.99% sure of who you are talking about. If it was not him then it was someone that took his course. The going to the hotel thing pretty much guarantees it was the man wearing black(not Johnny Cash). This person injects the fark out of his meat. Would an injection, plus a rub that is full of salt help keep those bad critters from multiplying? (I really do not know). I took this person's course and ate the meat he cooked - did not get sick. I have cooked this way and did not get sick. I have served food to my significant other, parents, etc (all were aware the meat sat out) - they did not get sick.

I can fully understand why you would not want to see this, and if I had not taken his course, would be saying the same as the above posts.

They all thought I was crazy for doing this. Not for the fact that I left the meat out, but it was me that was doing it. I won't eat fish or shrimp the next day. I am overly cautious, the wife says paranoid, about eating old food - I just do not do it.

The FBA has a rule saying that once you prep your meat, it must be kept out of sight, not necessarily back in the cooler) - this was supposedly written for this person. Please correct me if I am wrong on this, but they did bring this up in Panama City a few weeks ago.

Anyway, that old boy has won a ton of GCs. His food tastes darn good and he cooks pretty much every weekend without poisoning anyone. In fact he won GC this past weekend.

As for me, I do not usually leave it out all night anymore, but I have no problem with what he does or taking the meat out a few hours before cooking. You can't argue with his success.

Just my humble opinion, not trying to start a brewhaha.

Oh yeah - he puts his chicken right back in the cooler - it does not stay out.

Not sure how many are hunters here but think about a deer or rabbit and squirrel that may be out most of the day before it gets cleaned.

We have gutted deer and hung them in temps much warmer than I would ever want. That is why you MUST gut them and let the meat breath. Spread the rib cage and get the air to it.

The old days....well it is surprising most people did not die! Aged steaks literally have the fungus/mold scraped off of them.

I still keep all my meats cold before the cook.

The main problem comes when temps are not high enough and do not kill the bacteria.

I still think it is crazy to let meat sit out all night or whatever he does...he should be banned from comps.

My dad cured lots of hams for years. Damn fine eating and even those had bacteria/mold on them before cleaned up.

Chris,
We prep our meat and then back into the ice box. I might let it sit for 20-30 minutes before it goes on the smoker. NEVER ALL NIGHT.

Sorry I didn't meet you this weekend. See you in Barnesville for sure!
BTW...tune into the BEAR 92.5 the night of April 4th. There will be a little BBQ talk going on with Scott & Charlie.