help! smoked a cure too cold and still going

[grnhs]

Hi folks,
I've been in the shadows garnering info for a couple of weeks and now I think I painted myself into a corner.

I brined a pork shoulder roast for 2.5 days with 6tblsp of #1 and a few spices, put cym on yesterday am with a rub and into a preheated tower at 930 am.
Ran at 135 for 1.8 hrs to dry some then
150 for 3 hours, set smoke for 5 hours
then 170 with a set on the pid for it of 165 it end point. then it was supposed to go to 130 till morning.
at 9 pm last night it was still only 141 F It.
6 am this morning 148 IT. bumped up to 200 F and now in the last hour it has gone to 153 IT
Have I overstepped the safety threshhold with this dude?
I'm fairly sure I wasn't running hot enoughtoo bring It up now, Live and learn
thank you in advance
Dave
PS it's only a 4.5lb shoulder

[grnhs]

well the IT is rising, 160 now.
I got my BDS the day before Thanksgiving and have done 3 batches of Deer Jerky, one summer sausage with 1.5" casing(all that I could find here in a pinch) and a pulled pork shoulder of 3.5 lbs that I rubbed with Icemans rub. all of that turned out great.
I was having big temp swings and some forum members suggested an auber pid so I got one and it is really a time saver.When it is set high enough!!!
I am still wondering if I have gone past the safety threshhold with this 4.5 lb shoulder roast.
Dave

[Tenpoint5]

Normally I would say yes BUT you brined it with cure #1 so it should be ok. What are you trying to make out of it? Pulled pork?

[grnhs]

Thanks for the reply 10-5.
I bought 2 pork shoulder roasts and when I was trying to decide what to do with them I couldn't make up my mind and I really didn't know what the different processes would yeild so I thought I'd try something different with each one.
I injected the bigger one and put it in brine, 34 deg fridge in the garage. Coated the other one with icemans rub and put in the fridge for 24 hours and then it went into the smoker at 210 with 3 hoursof smoke to and IT of 191. then ftc. wow it turned out very good.
Then I started this one not really knowing what it would turn out like but knew that I could cook it slower and longer to a lower It with the brining.
Flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak.
As soon as I can spend some time figuring out the picture posting process I will be sharing my adventures.
Thanks
Dave   

[BuyLowSellHigh]

A question or three ...

About how big was the shoulder roast;  how much brine did you use;  did you add any salt to your brine ?

[grnhs]

4.5 lb roast
injected 14 oz
1gal of brine, 6tbsp pink cure
no additional salt
handful of brown sugar, and bit of garlic,
rubbed with icemans rub and cym

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Okay so if you injected a 4.5 lb piece of pork with 14 oz of that brine that was made up with 6 Tbls of Cure #1 in 1 gal of water ...

that's about a 19% pump (if it all stayed in, which is a very high level to get in and keep in)
If I did the math right (somebody else should check this) ...your brine should have had ~ 1665 ppm sodium nitrite
at a 19% pump your pork would be about  316 ppm sodium nitrite
the approximate equilibrium cure level would be ~ 1080 ppm sodium nitrite in the pork

At that level of sodium nitrite in the pork, I don't think your temperatures are an issue.

But, your sodium nitrite level is way up there!  Based upon time I would guess that you were somewhere near halfway to equilibrium from your starting point, so a guess would be ~ 600-700 ppm sodium nitrite in the pork.

But, if about half of what you injected leaked out you would be ~ 160 ppm sodium nitrite in the pork initially.  the equilibrium amount would still be expected  to be the 1080 ppm.

[Tenpoint5]

I would suggest taking it up to 225º shooting for an internal IT of 190-200º and pull it. It will probably have a slight Ham taste to it. With the brining and injecting it is similar to what I do for ham although I brine and inject for different amounts.

[Tenpoint5]

I am still wondering if I have gone past the safety threshhold with this 4.5 lb shoulder roast.
Dave

I would say that answer would be something like this:

With the amount of nitrites in the pork shoulder you are completely safe with the temps. Now as for the safety threshold for nitrites you are definitely beyond the upper envelope of safety as recommended by the FDA. According to the calculations BLSH posted

[grnhs]

So you are saying nicely that I should take a little more time on my calculations and figure out what I'm doing before I start!

I know I was in a hurry to get it started before I left for work.

I didnt have a spray injector so a some of the brine did run back out,

I tried to do the calc in my head from info I was trying to remember from the forum I read the night before.

I'm old enough to know better too, thats what the Mrs. says anyway.

Thanks again

Dave

[KevinG]

IMHO I would tend to disagree on this one with BLSH. According to Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design page 48, your 1 gallon of water to 6 tablespoons is a correct amount to mix. The pick up is based on how much the meat will absorb, the salt content will try to reach an equilibrium.  

[grnhs]

I reset the pid and will see what the end product is.
225 to 200 IT.
maybe it will be done when I get home at 8 from work.
Dave

[Tenpoint5]

Dave, I would never say your wrong unless your thinking your going to out drink some of the boys around here. We all learn something new every day from this great place at least I do. I just don't want anyone to get sick or worse. I am not curing wizard or anything close to resembling it. I just wanted to raise a red flag and ask questions with your safety in mind. I will let those that are more knowledgeable than I fill in the gaps and take down the red flags.

[grnhs]

Thanks 10-5, that's why I asked.
I knew I was out of my comfort zone on this and needed a little guidance.
I'm old enough not to take things personally, I've kind of got a feel for the type of fellowship you all share on here after listening for a couple of weeks.
I will try and post some pics, but a  lot of my forum attendance is at work here and don't really want to set up this computer to do my photo stuff.
I'll get my better half to help me on my day off.
Thanks again,
Dave

[BuyLowSellHigh]

IMHO I would tend to disagree on this one with BLSH. According to Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design page 48, your 1 gallon of water to 6 tablespoons is a correct amount to mix. The pick up is based on how much the meat will absorb, the salt content will try to reach an equilibrium. 

Kevin,  disagreement is good.  It's a great way to learn together.  All I can do is share and explain the rationale (I don't have the text you referenced).

From and FDA/USDA recommendation and regulatory viewpoint, the basic mix was not a problem, so long as the meat does not take up more than the equivalent of 12 % of it's green weight.  At the mix stated the brine concentration was 1665 ppm sodium nitrite.   At 12% pump you would have ~ 200 ppm.  No problem if you want to adhere to the regulatory guideline, which we at home don't have to do.  But at 19 % pump the amount added leads to 316 ppm.  So we start with a piece of pork that contains 316 ppm of sodium nitrite by weight and then immerse it in a solution that is 1665 ppm in sodium nitrite to soak for 2.5 days.

Over time the free water phase in the pork and the surrounding liquid will equilibrate both for sodium chloride and sodium nitrite. Sodium nitrite behaves essentially the same as sodium chloride so far as diffusion in meat goes.

There are many published recipes that use a "strong brine" and simple immersion curing for a fixed period of time based upon either weight of a specific cut of meat or dimension of the meat being treated.  Within that practice there are common practices like 7 days per inch of thickness, etc, as well as time honored versions.  The principle here is that equilibrium between the solution and the free water in the meat is never really attained as the meat is removed prematurely when the desired amount has been absorbed.  The strong brine provides a strong gradient that drives the diffusion faster than a weaker brine would.

There are also many published recipes that call for pumping to achieve a known level, and that is what is largely practiced by the commercial meat processing industry, e.g., 2000 ppm solution pumped at 10% to give 200 ppm in the product.  It's fast, consistent and gives an exact result.

A third version is to make up the brine/cure solution based upon equilibrium considerations, then immerse and wait for a much longer time than with a strong brine.  In this camp it is common to first pump as much as you can and then immerse to speed up the process -immersion alone would be very slow in this case.  This also gives a very consistent and known result so long as the equilibrium calculation is done correctly, and that's not trivial.

The problem can arise when you mix a strong brine with pumping AND immersion.  In that case you get what I described for the pork shoulder in this thread.  There are many recipes also published using this method.  I recently raised the practice as a question with the editor of one of the common and highly regarded text on sausage making and curing meats.  What I was told was that the recipes and formulations were provided to the authors from "old European" producers decades ago, and frankly they had never questioned or considered the result.  From what I now understand, many of those recipes and practices likely predated our current knowledge and regulatory standards.

So now a question - do you agree with the initial calculations of sodium nitrite concentration and the initial level in the meat?