Is my meat OK?

Paradactal

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Mar 4, 2015
Messages
187
Location
Central Cailifornia
So, a very sad day. My house is in escrow and I had the inspectors coming to the house to do the final inspections. They were scheduled to come on Friday(last) and showed up at noon. I took the kids camping and hiking for the weekend at one of our favorite spots. We left Friday morning to avoid inspectors running around the house. Now, we got home the following Sunday night at 11pm. I was in the driveway unloading my truck and noticed my garage door was not opening. I went into the garage and noticed the power was off to it. I looked on one of the wall outlets and noticed it was flashing and had obviously been tripped. When I reset it, I heard my freezer kick on. NOOOOO!! I looked on the digital display and it read 61*. It usually stays at 26* It had been off all weekend. I inspected the meat and all of it was soft. In the freezer was a total of 82lbs of venison, wild pig, a little elk, pheasant, various fish and duck. All vacuum sealed. Should I be concerned? My main concern is my kids eat this. All the meat was definitely thawed and was barely cool to the touch. I contacted the inspector and let him know that I wasn't happy and he ruined a lot of meat that cannot be purchased. Luckily, he is being super cool about it and asked me for a price to make things right. How do you realistically put a price on that?
 

Eye

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Feb 8, 2017
Messages
187
Location
Kenai Peninsula
Break open a couple packs and give it a good smell. If it smells ok, its gonna be ok. I work as a chef so take that how you will.

But it was froze, in an insulated box, and didn't thaw out right away. It took hours to start going up in temp. Personally, I would not be too concerned. But the nose doesn't lie.
 

mtmuley

WKR
Joined
Mar 5, 2017
Messages
585
Location
Montana
That sucks. Never plug a freezer in to a circuit that isn't dedicated to just the freezer. I have two, each on a separate circuit. Especially don't use a GFCI protected circuit. mtmuley
 

NoWiser

WKR
Joined
Aug 15, 2013
Messages
708
My experience in similar situations is that you may as well toss the meat because you aren't going to enjoy eating it, especially when you are concerned about your family. It's a bummer, but safety comes first.

I'm not sure if you can adjust the temp but I do keep my freezer at -20 to buy me time if something goes wrong as it's also on a GFI circuit.
 

hwy1strat

WKR
Joined
Aug 9, 2016
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394
Location
Spokane, WA
If it smells ok then it is fine. If it smells fine and you are still worried about it, then just make sure you cook it all the way through.
 

jherald

WKR
Joined
Sep 16, 2012
Messages
833
Location
Alaska
Man I don't know about that myself personally, 61* F is pretty darn warm. I guess you'd have to break open a few and give it a smell.

Going from an animal's core body temp going down to cooling temps is one thing but meat going from frozen or cold to a warmer temp is another thing.
 
OP
Paradactal

Paradactal

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Mar 4, 2015
Messages
187
Location
Central Cailifornia
That's barely below freezing. Freezers should be kept at or near 0.

I was wrong about the set point temp. Checking today, my freezer is set to -10*. All the meat that was not air sealed look like they are okay. The store bought meat however was tossed. I will have to break open a few packages in the morning to give a good whiff.
 

sodak

FNG
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
98
Google Therm2.0. It's a University of Wisconsin Meat Science site. Use the last date when you know your meat was frozen and the temp from when you got back. Just select the types of meat and you'll have a good idea of bacterial growth.


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MtnMuley

WKR
Joined
Jun 11, 2016
Messages
548
It's best to have a few big feasts with all your friends and give the contents of your freezer away to friends to be eaten like any other thawed meat taken out of the freezer. Do not refreeze any meats even if you think they'll be okay. I've been there before and know the consequences.
 

pwsINC

WKR
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
354
It wouldn't help this exact circumstance but I put sensors in my freezers with alarms in the living room to try and prevent this.

I would be hesitant because there are illnesses such at botulism that don't have a scent.

Tough to decide on this one.

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OP
Paradactal

Paradactal

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Mar 4, 2015
Messages
187
Location
Central Cailifornia
I dont know, I think I am gonna have real hard time just tossing meat that is questionable. Like everyone else, I worked pretty damn hard for that meat and dont have as much opportunity to replace it as I would like. When the contractor asked me how can we make this right, as in money, what should I say? I dont think I would be happy with even tripple the cost of store prices. I actually told him to go and find all organic and double the price and go from there. Any ideas in terms of $$. If he said how much per pound do you want as compensation, what would be a roundabout fair number if this happened to you?
 

EastMT

WKR
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
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Eastern Montana
The problem is how low did it take to get from 45 deg to 61? Once you hit 45 bacterial counts start multiplying pretty fast. That's why you are supposed to thaw slowly in the refrigerator. So if it was gaining say, on degree per hour after 45, your are looking at 16 hours of solid bacterial growth that is exponential at some point.

The problem is bacteria is only destroyed in pressure canning. When you make jerky, sausage, etc ready to eat, you have a "log" reduction. 1 log is 90 %, 2 logs is 99%, keep moving decimal. So by USDA standard of 7 log reduction for cooked products, that's 99.99999% of bacteria destroyed. So cooking something will not kill all the CFU of bacteria, and could leave you with intestinal problems or worse. Could it be pressure canned? I'm not sure, that has a lot of science involved that's not in my experience. I would say it is not worth the chance, especially with other family members, or friends unless they are jerks! I honestly don't think you could get the same log reduction as a meat processing facility by cooking burger well done, or steaks into cardboard.

Money wise, I would guesstimate a weight, and ask a fair price per pound. It's wild game, usually 10 a pound for elk etc, but I would be more reasonable as he has offered and seems to have been reasonable in his offer. Honest mistake.
 
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