While doing some research on smoking pork shoulder I ran across a post from another forum. Someone mentioned and others agreed that you shouldn't insert a temp probe or injection needle in the shoulder if it was going to take longer then 4 hours for the shoulder to reach 160F internally. The thought was the probe could carry bacteria from the surface of the shoulder into the center of the meat.
While I understand that it can and probably does carry bacteria into the center of the cut, what difference does that make? We are cooking well past the safe temp for pork for several hours. Won't this kill any bacteria that has been introduced? Looking at my temp logs, I typically reach 160F after 6 hours, that means the temp is above 160 for another 6-8 hours. Why would we need to reach 160 within 4 hours?
While I understand that it can and probably does carry bacteria into the center of the cut, what difference does that make? We are cooking well past the safe temp for pork for several hours. Won't this kill any bacteria that has been introduced? Looking at my temp logs, I typically reach 160F after 6 hours, that means the temp is above 160 for another 6-8 hours. Why would we need to reach 160 within 4 hours?
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