I am smoking three pork shoulders for my one year old's birthday party Sunday afternoon using Meathead's Perfect Pulled Pork recipe.
I salted all three Friday night, rubbed with Memphis Dust Saturday night before all three went into my Masterbuilt electric smoker at 225 F around 6pm.
Added wood chips every 30 minutes for first two hours, things were progressing as expected. Went to bed around 10:30pm at which point the shoulders were in the 130-135 F range.
The Problem: Woke up this morning at 4am to check temperatures, expecting to be in "the stall" but the smoker was at 61 F and my meat in the 90-110F range. All control lights were still on the smoker, including the heat indicator light, but apparently the element gave out at some point between 10:30pm-4am, I don't know when.
Upon finding this debacle, I immediately put them in the oven at 250 F as I cursed the smoker profusely. Now the question, did these spend too long in the danger zone, and is there any saving these at this point?
I'm still planning to take them up to 203 F internal, it'll just be in the oven. Worried about serving these to guests but wanted to get expert opinions from anyone with a food science background.
In the future, I'll never trust a smoker again and will be picking up a remote temp sensor with lower alarm limit, as well as a new smoker. For now, just interested in seeing if this meat can be salvaged.
I salted all three Friday night, rubbed with Memphis Dust Saturday night before all three went into my Masterbuilt electric smoker at 225 F around 6pm.
Added wood chips every 30 minutes for first two hours, things were progressing as expected. Went to bed around 10:30pm at which point the shoulders were in the 130-135 F range.
The Problem: Woke up this morning at 4am to check temperatures, expecting to be in "the stall" but the smoker was at 61 F and my meat in the 90-110F range. All control lights were still on the smoker, including the heat indicator light, but apparently the element gave out at some point between 10:30pm-4am, I don't know when.
Upon finding this debacle, I immediately put them in the oven at 250 F as I cursed the smoker profusely. Now the question, did these spend too long in the danger zone, and is there any saving these at this point?
I'm still planning to take them up to 203 F internal, it'll just be in the oven. Worried about serving these to guests but wanted to get expert opinions from anyone with a food science background.
In the future, I'll never trust a smoker again and will be picking up a remote temp sensor with lower alarm limit, as well as a new smoker. For now, just interested in seeing if this meat can be salvaged.
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