Heat stopped during smoke, is brisket still safe?

[Rockysmoke]

Second smoke here on my new BDS.   Smoking a large brisket last night and the heat stopped about 4 hrs in (was set on 9 hrs).  Woke up at 4:30 this morning and box temp at 85, internal temp 112.  Graph on internal thermometer indicates internal temp was at about 140 when heat began to dissipate over about 2-2.5 hrs down to 115 internal.  Is brisket still safe to eat?  I currently am finishing in oven at 225.  Appreciate your insight, don't want anyone to get sick.

[Mr Walleye]

Hi RockySmoke and welcome to the forum.

There will be a few different opinions on this but my thought is that 4 hours is the magic number. In addition on whole muscle meat any bacteria is on the surface of the meat and if the internal temp was at 140 the surface would have been higher. Also the cabinet wouldn't have dropped the temperature immediately, it would have slowly lowered over time which would also shorten the time frame somewhat. I would do exactly what you have done if it was me.

Did you figure out what the problem was?

Mike

[Rockysmoke]

So far, now that I am awake, it appears to have been a plug seating issue.   I was able to turn on the heat element awhile ago after reseating the plugs.  Guess I will need to do some test runs before my next smoke, I don't want this to happen again.

[Mr Walleye]

RockySmoke

Not that this will help but when mine was new I also had the seating problem a few times with the plugs. It's almost as if the plastic that is injection molded around the plug has a few fragments that interfere and it takes a few uses to get ride of them. I plugged and unplugged mine probably 50 or 100 times to eliminate it and it did.

Mike

[Rockysmoke]

Brisket turned out well.  From Mr. Walleye's input and some other reading, determines risk was low.   

Am not happy that I have to baby sit this problem, I guess I will do some test heating over the next few days to make sure the problem is solved. 

Thanks for everyone's input!