Beyond well done (curiosity on meat temps)...

[binarypaladin]

All meats go through various changes at various temperatures. We've got blue, rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well, and well done. These exhibit very acute changes at these various temperatures. In typical cooks, like on a good steak, time really isn't a huge deal. It's all about temperature.

Well done, however, is the end of the rope in terms of this rating system and when we barbecue in a traditional manner (e.g. no sous-vide) we're regularly taking meat well past well done. The magic number is 203ºF around these parts but... it's not actually magic at all because tenderness in this case is a matter of time and temperature. If you can hold at 165ºF or 185ºF for extended period in some way—whether sous-vide or some sort of cambro—you can achieve similar results.

On a chemical/structural basis, does most of the meat we cook with change dramatically between say 165ºF and 200ºF or do higher temperatures simply speed up connective tissue breakdown, fat rendering, and evaporative moisture loss? Does barbecue need some kind of rating system beyond 165ºF or has the meat reached a certain composition/structure that won't change again until it gets much hotter.

Anyway, if you've got answers, I'd love a source too.

[gshayd]

I use time as a guide but also check the meats for tenderness. I start checking my brisket around 200 degrees internal temp. I then do a poke and if the finger slides in its ready. Sometimes at 200 it isn't at that point. When I cook a pork butt same thing to check for tenderness and it should shake like jello. The temp tells me I am close. The poke and jiggle tells me I am there.

[kmhfive]

Ther may need to be a scale of some sort. There's slicing done, pulling done, and mush while the meat is still moist. Then there's dry, crumbles, and burnt.

Dont nut know how to distinguish!? With anything non-destructive.

[dtassinari]

Going from memory so I might be a little off, but above 160 F / 70 C or so the meat is fully done and the "muscle" part of it stays pretty much the same. It does get drier but the difference is less between 160 and 200 F / 70 and 95 C than between 140 and 160 F / 60 and 70 C. So your brisket/pulled pork isn't significantly drier at 200 F than it is at 160 (apart from the bark, obviously, which is completely dehydrated).

The difference in texture between tough -> sliceable -> pullable -> crumbly -> mushy -> sawdust is the progressive structural collapse of collagen, between fibres first and then within the small fibrils themselves. In addition to that, rendering of intramuscular fat is also a factor.

Hope this is more or less correct.

[binarypaladin]

Going from memory so I might be a little off, but above 160 F / 70 C or so the meat is fully done and the "muscle" part of it stays pretty much the same. It does get drier but the difference is less between 160 and 200 F / 70 and 95 C than between 140 and 160 F / 60 and 70 C. So your brisket/pulled pork isn't significantly drier at 200 F than it is at 160 (apart from the bark, obviously, which is completely dehydrated).

The difference in texture between tough -> sliceable -> pullable -> crumbly -> mushy -> sawdust is the progressive structural collapse of collagen, between fibres first and then within the small fibrils themselves. In addition to that, rendering of intramuscular fat is also a factor.

Hope this is more or less correct.

This is what I am thinking but I'd like to have someone confirm. I'm wondering if we can pull in one of the big guns like Blonder to weigh in.

I wonder what affects the dryness at the higher temps. Does fiber contraction continue? If it does is it slower? Is it entirely evaporative? Also, at what temperature does the next significant change happen? 205ºF? 225ºF? Seems like there is going to be a point where the heat is sufficient to begin a new chemical reaction. Is there any other significant change between well done and the maillard reaction?

If it doesn't matter, then sous-vide at 165ºF is kinda pointless when you can do 185ºF and probably decrease your time significantly. Some of sous-vide + smoke allows you to do some really neat things you simply can't do otherwise, like have a medium-rare rump roast that's practically fork tender but with a decent smoked crust/bark on the outside or medium rare smoked burgers that are also completely safe to eat. However, some of it is pure convenience. Pulled pork in sous-vide for X number of hours overnight so you're working with a predictable 4 - 6 hour cook when it comes time to smoke.

Knowing this would actually be extremely helpful for understanding target temperatures, how long to hold in something like sous-vide or a cambro, etc. As this post indicates, you can definitely overdo something in sous-vide.