Need emergency advice!

[Donald Johnson]

I’m on a business trip away from home.

I have a primal NY strip that just hit 16 days of aging and a sub primal Ribeye that is just at 4 days as of today. My son called himself helping me out by checking the temperature while I was away. On Sunday evening (not sure about the time) he checked but didn’t close the refrigerator securely. Monday afternoon he went to check again and discovered his error. He told me the temperature was at 60 degrees at that time. So the temperature could have been at 60 for 8 hours or so, I’m guessing.

My question is what to do now? The 16 day primal has a nice “crust” but the bag is loose. The sub is still sealed tightly the fluids are still a bit red. Should I have him throw them both in the freezer until I return in 3 days and then thaw to trim? Or can I continue to age as I was shooting for 28 days on the primal and as long on the sub? Do I have to worry about spoilage for them both? Some fast help would be greatly appreciated. :huh:

Don

[Ron Pratt]

sorry, but even if that meat avaraged say 45° for the last 24 hours and is now 60° my take is it is spoiled already. I sure know I wouldn’t be eating it!

[Donald Johnson]

Don’t know if I’m snatching at straws but to be clear the door was ajar for about 8 hrs.

[Ron Pratt]

No, you were clear – granted the refrig would have been running constantly trying to overcome the heat build up but if it was 60 in there that meat was history by the time your son found it!. Bacteria would have formed and having a heyday multiplying! The cooking rule of thumb is a maximum of 4 hours between 40° and 140° so your 8 hour guesstimate is double that. I know your reluctance to scrap it, but if you have ever had food poisoning you’d pitch that meat in a heartbeat! BTW if you have a dog – please don’t give that meat to him!

[Donald Johnson]

Thanks RRP. It’s pitched and more bags ordered.

[Jim Butler]

Just an interesting side note here on temps/times. A popular form of cooking in restaurants that is also seeing home use is Sous Vide (check Amazon).
Sous Vide amounts to placing the meat in a water bath at a regulated temp. Say you need to do 16 steaks on your 22.5″ Webber. You can sous vide them in a water bath of 120deg for as long as you’d like (vaccuum sealed, of course) and the internal temp can never go above 120deg. Then when it’s time to serve, you only need to put the steaks on the grill long enough to sear/crust them up.
My friend just bought a home machine and they explain that the “cooking time” is based much more on the type of connective tissues in the meat than on thickness. So a fair sized cheap cut roast might go 30hrs at 130deg.

Jim

[Ron Pratt]

lobstah wrote:

quote :

Just an interesting side note here on temps/times. A popular form of cooking in restaurants that is also seeing home use is Sous Vide (check Amazon).
Sous Vide amounts to placing the meat in a water bath at a regulated temp. Say you need to do 16 steaks on your 22.5″ Webber. You can sous vide them in a water bath of 120deg for as long as you’d like (vaccuum sealed, of course) and the internal temp can never go above 120deg. Then when it’s time to serve, you only need to put the steaks on the grill long enough to sear/crust them up.
My friend just bought a home machine and they explain that the “cooking time” is based much more on the type of connective tissues in the meat than on thickness. So a fair sized cheap cut roast might go 30hrs at 130deg.

Jim

Actually you can do the same on a smaller scale without any fancy equipment. We call it “hot tubbing” whereby you place your meat in a sealed bag into a small cooler and fill it with hot tap water. Most home water heaters maintain a temp of 115 to 125°. With the lid sealed after an hour your meat will have an internal temp of near 100 or more. Then season it as you wish and go for a quick sear on a hot grill. Your center will no longer be that blue-red cold you get from grilling to rare or medium rare. Ron

[Ron Pratt]

RRP wrote:

quote :

yadda yadda The cooking rule of thumb is a maximum of 4 hours between 40° and 140° so your 8 hour guesstimate is double that. yadda yadda yadda

Just in case you wanted to read more about the danger zone here is the link to the USDA opinion in that very regard.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Danger_Zone/index.asp

[Donald Johnson]

Hi,

Jim thanks for the encourageing words. Here’s the rest of the story:

When I told RRP that the meat was pitched, what I didn’t tell him is that it was pitched to the bottom of my freezer until I returned.

I thawed it out over Friday to Saturday. Trimmed the fat and casing and examined the meat closely through smell and sight. IT WAS FINE. I then proceeded to cut steaks from it and threw it on the grill. The flavor was subperb. No hint of spoilage. Just excellent beef flavor. We had it again yesterday and the same result.

Althogh the meat wasn’t spoiled, I’ve noticed a definite tint of elitism at this site,and it repluses me, not sure if I will continue to post. :blink:

Anyway just wanted you to know… fact of the matter was with the information I posted about my “emergency” situation and the unknowns, I took a chance. I wouldn’t suggest others do the same but common sense would apply and judgement.

[Ron Pratt]

DonnieJ,

I’m glad it worked out for you after all! I too am hesitant to throw out food, though I’m more apt to pitch questionable pork than beef. OTOH having had a serious run in with food poisoning 35 years ago that left a lasting impression on me.

As for the hint of elitism I’m not quite sure what you mean, but if it is in regard to my frequent posts I’m just trying to be helpful plus trying to keep the chatter going. I hope you stay with us and not let this one encounter turn you sour on this board.

Ron

[Donald Johnson]

[Steven]

The fact you didn’t get sick, doesn’t mean the meat was fine nor that it was necessarily a prudent decision to eat it.

Note that food poisoning toxins and organisms do not generate detectable odors. If it smells spoiled, it’s definitely had the chance to grow pathogens, but the reverse is not true.

There are no hard and fast rules about when food poisoning occurs because it’s dependent on so many factors. The USDA guidelines are meant to roughly indicate a safety zone within which food that is not unduly contaminated to start with won’t grow sufficient numbers of additional organisms/toxins in the time/temp envelope provided based on scientific study of how fast the bad bugs are able to multiply.

If you start to set aside that safety protection by eating meat that’s been at 60F for 8 hours, then you start to shift your fate more onto the winds of whatever particular array of bacteria happened to land on that particular piece of meat during its particular journey through the processing plant and supermarket and ride to your home, as well as the current strength of your immune system, etc.

You noticeably increase the odds of getting food poisoning. For illustrative example, taking into account 60F for 8 hours isn’t the worst conditions in the world, and the bag offers protection, and the fact that you immediately froze it and later trimmed away the exterior, I’d WAG the odds of getting poisoned might go from something like 1 in 10,000 to something like 1 in 1,000. Now 1 in 1,000 isn’t an extremely high probability, but given the downsides of food poisoning, I think it’s a safer decision to toss the meat and I would not be upset with someone who advised me to do so.

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