White spots on left over brisket?

Hey All,

So I smoked some brisket on Thursday (last week) and ended up having about half a brisket left over. It was already sliced, and I left it sitting in its own au jus. It was about 145° internal temp when I loosely foiled over it and put it in my refrigerator.

I opened it up this morning to make into a chili and on the exterior parts of the sliced, and where it was sitting in the au jus, it's covered in very tiny white spots. It has no foul smell at all, and I'm not sure what it is. I'm tossing it, of course, but I'm curious if it's just salt deposits from sitting in the juices?

My refrigerator is small and powerful so it gets things down to temp pretty quickly...never had an issue with Time / Temp control using this method. Anyways, here's a pic (not the best) of what I'm seeing and just looking to get some feedback. Again, I'm tossing the brisket just to be safe, but curious to see what others think.

@Pig_Farmer, it could be fat droplets, but I've never seen them settle in this way before. Again, no foul smell at all, so I'm almost certain it's not mold or anything like that.

mchar69 said:

Wipe that crap off and make a chili out of it. Sheesh, Louise.
You are gonna heat it up again and kill any bacteria.
You think people in the 1800's would throw that away? No chance, looks good.
And it's likely fat as mentioned. Bon Apetit! So what if its mold? Wipe it off? A little

penacyllin (sp) never hurt anyone.

Click to expand...

This is an odd response in the Food Handling portion of this forum. You do understand that while heating up food does generally kill the bacteria, it DOES NOT remove the fecal matter left behind when the bacteria was alive and thriving on the surface of your food. That's how people get sick.

Mind you I wasn't eating the food myself, but instead was serving it to the public. No way was I going to serve food when I thought was questionable.

jasonjax said:

99% likelihood that's fat. Heat one of the slices up slightly and see if it starts liquifying - if it does, that's just a layer of congealed fat.

Click to expand...

I think you're right and that's exactly what I should have done, but I tossed it. I showed the pics to a chef buddy of mine and he was 50/50 on it being fat or mold. Not worth the risk just to make a little bit of money. Oh well, lesson learned. Thanks for the response Jason.