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I have a pork shoulder cooking in the oven right now at 100° C (212° F). I was planning on roasting it for 7 hours, will this be long enough to cook it safely?
I saw the FDA chart about minimum internal temperatures - but am not sure how to translate that to oven temperature/time.
100°C for 7 hours sounds just about perfect. The meat will be meltingly tender by then. In fact I think you could go even lower on the temperature if you like, say 80°C or 90°C. Of course, if you want to be absolutely sure, check with the thermometer, but unless you know that your oven is unreliable or you happen to be in possession of the largest pig shoulder in the world I am 100% sure it will be more than done in 7 hours on 100°C. Good luck!
100°C seems a little low. I've done a bone-in pork shoulder at 120 for 8 hours before now, I think the norm is 2 hours a pound (450 g) at that temperature.
To be safe you should really use a meat thermometer, trichinosis is not something you want to have.
Strictly from a food safety perspective, 7 hours at 100°C will very probably get you to where you want to be.
HOWEVER... if that is your target, you will be left with a tough hunk of meat with lots of fat and connective tissue, and I'm almost certain you will not be happy with the result. To achieve tenderness, you need to go pretty far past the safety recommendation.
For slicing, you'll most likely need to hit around 77°C (170°F) internal, give or take a couple of degrees. For pulling, your internal will probably have to get upwards of 90.5°C internal (195°F), or even higher -- again give or take a couple of degrees.
To get there, I don't know if 100°C is going to cut it, especially in 7 hours. I did some pulled pork yesterday out of a Boston butt (part of a whole shoulder), and it cooked 8-9 hours at 122°C (250°F).
If I were to offer some advice, I'd say crank up your cooking temperature by about 25-30%. Also, use the thermometer as a general guideline for when to start checking for doneness, not as an absolute measure. Once you come within a few degrees of your target, use your eyes as well as the feel of the meat to determine whether you're ready or not.
Check out some barbecue forums for better, more detailed advice. Even if you're roasting your meat in the oven, the same concepts still apply (sans the smoking aspect). I recommend:
First, the cooking time will depend on the size of the piece. For about 6lbs I would say you are looking at 10-12 hours at 200F (2h per pound is a good rough starting point). With but and other tough cuts your objective is not minimum internal temperature. You want to go higher, because connective tissue begins to fall apart at about 190F, so that is the internal temperature you are looking for.
I cook a 4 kg pork shoulder every Christmas I set oven at 100 Celsius and cook it overnight so it’s ready in the morning, set and forget. 14 hrs seems to be perfect for all that connective tissues to fall apart. It hasn’t failed me yet
At 200-225 degrees F, I plan for about one hour per pound on my Big Green Egg. Using an electronic probe thermometer is ESSENTIAL. It takes out all the guess work. 200 F degrees internal temp is perfect for pulled pork.
I cooked a large shoulder of pork on the bone in an Aga. it was aimed at feeding 8 people but there was a large amount of meat left over. It had one hour at 228 centigrade to get it hot and the 24 hours at 110 centigrade. It was magnificently cooked. To our surprise the centre was at 100 centigrade at the end. A problem to watch out for was the large mass of oil which overflowed the roasting tray during the night. Next time we will drain off the oil a couple of times during the cooking process.
