The issue here is how fast you can get the temperature to safe range. In sous vide cooking, water is used to conduct heat and water carries significantly more heat than in an oven, which uses air to conduct heat. Therefore in a sous vide cooker you can go with very low temperature.

A convection oven is better, but still no where near as good as in a sous vide cooker which uses circulating water.

dcarch

I don't know that it's particularly unsafe. We smoke pork regularly in our electric smoker. The maximum temperature is 225F, and I usually do pork and chicken at 200F. The smoker isn't as well insulated as an indoor oven, so I expect there are hot and cold spots. We've been doing this for over 10 years, and have never had any ill-effects.

I think we cook the pork to a higher temperature than 145F because we're usually smoking tough pieces like spare ribs or whole shoulders. These become tender at 160F and higher. But trichinosis is supposed to be killed at 140F, so perhaps your mother's method works.

Cheryl

I can't really answer your question about cooking it at 200 degrees. I have taken a food safety course for work and was told that pork is one of the safest meats because of all of the antibiotics they currently give to the animals. The state of Illinois minus Chicago only requires that pork be cooked to a temperature of 135 degrees. They lowered that from 145 (Chicago still requires 145). I will say this the class covers a whole range of topics and if cooking at such a low temperature was a concern for them I imagine they would have mentioned something about it in the class. I have attached a link to the governments food safety website. If you click where it says check your steps it has a bunch of useful information about food prep/cooking safety. I did not see anything there that would answer your question though. It does, however, emphasize the fact that bringing meat up to a minimum temperature is important to kill the harmful bacteria. Hope this helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: Food safety

Maybe show your mom a print-out of this thread in an attempt to increase the oven temp? I think the concern here is more about putting the roast in a cold oven and then setting the oven temp to a low 200 degrees. I often roast a whole chicken at 250 for 5 hours, but the oven temp is at 250 when I put the chicken in and a whole chicken is not as solid and dense as a pork roast.

I looked up more than one online source about safe cooking of pork roasts to see that while the 145* internal temp by a digital meat thermometer is now the "new" pork, nothing was said about putting the raw meat into a cold oven.

Perhaps some print-outs of various pork roast recipes would show her that a cold oven is not the way to go.

Teresa

This is similar to the way some people would put a turkey in the 200ð oven and leave it overnight to cook. Safe? No to many but many will also say "we've always done it that way and we're still alive". Healthy people probably would have no problem but people with issues probably have an increased sensitivity to the concerns of the USDA and others.

Many people warm meat to room temp before cooking it. This flies in the face of many warnings but is done often. I have more concerns with doing this with hamburger or poultry than with a beef roast but I still tend to side with safety more and after having some health issues the last couple years, I'm more concerned about some things that never concerned me in the past.

But Ann said it right. It's a moot point. She's gonna do it her way!

A key consideration is bacteria. If the meat hasn't been ground or butterflied, handled and rolled up then how can bacteria get inside a solid roast? So, the concern for internal temperature being in the "danger zone" very likely depends on the pre-condition of the meat. I venture to guess that a solid roast will be way less contaminated by bacteria (on the inside) than the others mentioned. So, it should be safe. Same idea if you bring meat to room temperature before cooking. In the meantime, the cut and handled surfaces where there will be bacteria, will be subject to oven temperature almost immediately. I've never heard this mentioned...

This post is 4 years old..whatever happened with that roast is well over and done.

The age of the posts and the considerations are two different things.

LOL

Well, the original poster has not been here since the day posted.

I don't mind old posts and new thoughts. Having just last month slow roasted a pork and into the freezer for a tamale making party today...or tomorrow probably.

I don't let any meat rest outside the fridge. No reason to. I want burgers and steak to be cold inside to prevent overcooking. Always nice med-rare. Good sear.

Pork I preheat high 400, then turn down to 220 when placed into the oven. Gets a sear before oven temp drops, then to 160 internal. Check at 3-4 hours. Usually takes 5-6 depending on the size of the roast.

Sous vide for chops and smaller loins but not for a roast.

I've been doing pork shoulders in a cheap old charcoal barbecue with a few minor modifications for indirect heating and a dual-temp electronic thermometer. We shoot for 200-250 oven temperature and 180 for the pork shoulder internal temp when done. It takes around 8 hours and the temp plateau around 165 is pronounced at about 2 hours. Great results!

This time I did a pork loin the same way but had the internal temp target at 140 when removed. No plateau of course and it went fairly quickly - 2-3 hours. Great results again! As with other roasts, rested the roasts wrapped in foil and a large towel in a cooler chest until time to carve and serve. Remarkable temperature retention this way without overcooking or dying out.