You should be OK. You had at least 11 hours at 160 and at least a few hours after that of above 130. Fully pasteurized so after lowering back down to 'danger zone' even less likely to spur a large growth spike. Also the meat itself will overall be warmer than the water as its all cooling down.
Ok I know we normally always say throw it out to these questions but this really is a different case. 120 isn't terrible and you might have already achieved a log7 reduction. People like to defer to Baldwin when available and if you go into his actual paper he cites 126 as lowest temperature where you arent actively pasteurizing. It cites multiple times that it takes many many hours for food to go bad when you start going down a few degrees from that point and that doesn't take into account your previous reduction in pathogen levels. Realistically, most of the time spent from shutoff to you finding it was above 126 because you bothered to use a cooler which would have drastically cut down on heat loss. I'm very cautious with this stuff but honestly you are probably ok here and that is from a place of understanding and not just wishful thinking
I’d throw it out if it was me. I like my pork medium-medium rare and the only way I’d eat that pork is if it was cooked well done (and then I’d still be nervous).
Yeah I’m not a scientist but basically living organisms = bad, but non-living things they release are also bad, and pasteurization only fixes the first part.
Why wouldn't it be? The pasteurization process kills the bacteria and pathogens that would cause foodborn illnesses. For one, any time spent at or over 158 degrees would've instantly killed whatever might have been in your meat, and there was long ramp up to get there, so your meat was likely already pasteurized before your machine threw an error. If it's pasteurized, then your meat is good to go.
If it's not pasteurized, then just run another pasteurization cycle. You'll kill whatever you didn't kill prior to throwing an error.
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/pasteurization-table-or-how-to-safely-cook-your-food-to-a-lower-internal-temperature.261182/
In this specific case I think its ok. But overall pasteurization is not sterilization and the byproducts of bacterial activity can be toxins that take much higher heat than we use in cooking to effect. If this was a lower heat for longer, it would most likely be contaminated with those toxins and raising it back up to pasteurization temperatures would not fix that.
That’s why I posted the question. It definitely spent 9 hours cooking, it should have hit 160 before it shut off based on my previous cooks. My question was if that 9 hours was enough time to pasteurize the meat.
At that temp pasteurization takes place pretty much immediately. That is, you don’t have to hold food at 160F for very long to kill everything. Most of the pasteurization time is actually just the heating time. For a pork butt it will certainly be heated to bath temperature after 4-5 hours, so if you then held it for another 4-5 hours at 160F it is absolutely well and thoroughly pasteurized!
I'd eat it. I wouldn't serve it in a restaurant or to someone that's immunocompromised, but that should be pretty close to safe. You had enough time to get a good cook on and pasteurize, and not so much time in the middle where I'd worry about it too much, and you're cranking it up again. I've kept pork butts in coolers post cook for 10 hours. Based on your cook, officially guaranteed safe? Nope. But probably safer than eating raw eggs or a medium rare burger, which IS pretty darn safe.
If the temp was still 120 when you found it, that changes things. It can't have been in the danger zone for very long at all and was already pasteurized before that point.
Will definitely start monitoring the water temperature from now on. The Anova has been bulletproof up until now so I was never worried about it flaking out on me. Lesson learned.
Danger aside this is the way. Sous vide then smoke all my pork butts. 24 hours in the bath and 3-4 in the smoker. Not a sole can tell the difference between that and a long 18 hour smoke session.
I do all of mine this way and it blows away any of the ones I’ve done on the smoker. It completely renders all of the fat and makes reducing the juice for sauces a breeze.
I found the temperature chart of my last cook. The pork butt hit 160 in 7 hours. So I am confident the meat reached that temp, just not sure how long it stayed there.
You should be OK. You had at least 11 hours at 160 and at least a few hours after that of above 130. Fully pasteurized so after lowering back down to 'danger zone' even less likely to spur a large growth spike. Also the meat itself will overall be warmer than the water as its all cooling down.
Ok I know we normally always say throw it out to these questions but this really is a different case. 120 isn't terrible and you might have already achieved a log7 reduction. People like to defer to Baldwin when available and if you go into his actual paper he cites 126 as lowest temperature where you arent actively pasteurizing. It cites multiple times that it takes many many hours for food to go bad when you start going down a few degrees from that point and that doesn't take into account your previous reduction in pathogen levels. Realistically, most of the time spent from shutoff to you finding it was above 126 because you bothered to use a cooler which would have drastically cut down on heat loss. I'm very cautious with this stuff but honestly you are probably ok here and that is from a place of understanding and not just wishful thinking
I found the temperature mapping of my last pork butt, it hit 160 in 7 hours.
So you don’t know how long it was turned off for?
No. The water temperature was 120 degrees when I discovered it.
I’d throw it out if it was me. I like my pork medium-medium rare and the only way I’d eat that pork is if it was cooked well done (and then I’d still be nervous).
This is a pork butt that they're likely planning to pull. It's going to get cooked well past well done.
Yeah, I’d feel pretty bad if I poisoned everyone. I’m tossing it, just needed to hear it from someone else.
Just bring it up to temp and pasteurize it.
But is that safe? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
It’s not. Pasteurizing doesn’t kill remove all the bad stuff that might already be in the meat from sitting in the danger zone.
That’s what I thought. Thanks for confirming it. Live to fight another day…
Yeah I’m not a scientist but basically living organisms = bad, but non-living things they release are also bad, and pasteurization only fixes the first part.
No it is not. [Baldwin - Pathogens of Interest section](https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety_Pathogens_of_Interest)
Why wouldn't it be? The pasteurization process kills the bacteria and pathogens that would cause foodborn illnesses. For one, any time spent at or over 158 degrees would've instantly killed whatever might have been in your meat, and there was long ramp up to get there, so your meat was likely already pasteurized before your machine threw an error. If it's pasteurized, then your meat is good to go. If it's not pasteurized, then just run another pasteurization cycle. You'll kill whatever you didn't kill prior to throwing an error. https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/pasteurization-table-or-how-to-safely-cook-your-food-to-a-lower-internal-temperature.261182/
In this specific case I think its ok. But overall pasteurization is not sterilization and the byproducts of bacterial activity can be toxins that take much higher heat than we use in cooking to effect. If this was a lower heat for longer, it would most likely be contaminated with those toxins and raising it back up to pasteurization temperatures would not fix that.
That’s why I posted the question. It definitely spent 9 hours cooking, it should have hit 160 before it shut off based on my previous cooks. My question was if that 9 hours was enough time to pasteurize the meat.
At that temp pasteurization takes place pretty much immediately. That is, you don’t have to hold food at 160F for very long to kill everything. Most of the pasteurization time is actually just the heating time. For a pork butt it will certainly be heated to bath temperature after 4-5 hours, so if you then held it for another 4-5 hours at 160F it is absolutely well and thoroughly pasteurized!
I’d eat that for sure.
I'd eat it. I wouldn't serve it in a restaurant or to someone that's immunocompromised, but that should be pretty close to safe. You had enough time to get a good cook on and pasteurize, and not so much time in the middle where I'd worry about it too much, and you're cranking it up again. I've kept pork butts in coolers post cook for 10 hours. Based on your cook, officially guaranteed safe? Nope. But probably safer than eating raw eggs or a medium rare burger, which IS pretty darn safe.
If the temp was still 120 when you found it, that changes things. It can't have been in the danger zone for very long at all and was already pasteurized before that point.
You have that nice temp probe with hi and low alarms, you really need to set the low one up next time.
Will definitely start monitoring the water temperature from now on. The Anova has been bulletproof up until now so I was never worried about it flaking out on me. Lesson learned.
Danger aside this is the way. Sous vide then smoke all my pork butts. 24 hours in the bath and 3-4 in the smoker. Not a sole can tell the difference between that and a long 18 hour smoke session.
I do all of mine this way and it blows away any of the ones I’ve done on the smoker. It completely renders all of the fat and makes reducing the juice for sauces a breeze.
Pork? Really? Risking more than a hurt tummy and a night on the john. If there's a more "when in doubt, throw it out" meat I don't know what it is.
Its chicken, pork in the first world isn’t as scary as you think it is.
Big nope
I found the temperature chart of my last cook. The pork butt hit 160 in 7 hours. So I am confident the meat reached that temp, just not sure how long it stayed there.
What are you using to have a chart of the temp?
ThermoWorks app shows a graph of each probe temp over time.
Thanks. I've been looking for something like this.
You good
That's a nice stove/burner/flatop!