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Hi Folks, I'm new to this site and of course i need some answers. I just put(6PM) two 6 lb pork roasts(bone in) in the cook shack and i wonder if i can let them cook thru the night or if i need to unplug it overnight and restart it in the early afternoon so it's done tomorrow night. It's for a party thursday at work. It's in the 20's and 30's here and i assume i can leave it in the cooker till i plug it in hours later if i need to interrupt the cooking. Thanks. misterfxt
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misterfxt
I'm a little biased as i just finished my foodhandlers/managers class last week, but the "danger zone" is 41 degrees to 135 degrees. Even with cold temps outside, inside the cookshack you are going to be slowly cooling down with extended time in the danger zone. I am too new to cookshack smokers to know about the bone-in part but a general guide given elsewhere in the forums is 1.5 hours per pound which would be 9 hours. Of course you would want to check internal temps before that. I would presume the bone would shorten that time, maybe someone more experienced will chime in. I would feel much safer cooking it at 225 until you get the internal temp you want and hold at 140 till morning, get up early! Safer to lose a little sleep then get someone sick. In the class we learned that our objective is to reduce dangerous organisms to a minimum by, among other things, staying out of the danger zone. One fact that blew me away was that some organisms produce toxins which will survive high temperatures. So even if you cook well later if populations were sufficient to produce sufficient amounts of toxins you still have problems. Sorry to be so long winded. Just my 2 cents. Good luck with it.

Jack
Jack, I took your advice. I took the meat in and iced it down then refrigerated it till tomorrow pm when i can finish cooking it. It's 1135 pm here and i need to leave the house at 0430 and the three and a half hours sleep I'll get is about the least i can work on. Better safe than sorry.Thanks for your advice. Misterfxt
You say bonein pork roast,so I'm guessing maybe butt and not loin,or picnic.

You were right to take the safe approach.

That said,you could have turned a butt/shoulder down to 180º for overnight,and then kicked it up to 200º in the morning,kicked it up to 250º when you returned from work.

A butt has enough internal moisture to play with.

This is where Smokin' advocates taking very good notes,until you know the cooker and different meats.

You can make it time to suit your needs ,in many instances.

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