pork shoulder roast temperature

I am going to roast a pork shoulder this afternoon, and I find conflicting advice on what internal temperature it should reach before being removed from the oven. Alice Waters, in The Art of Simple Food, says 135 degrees for medium-rare to rare. The Joy of Cooking says that nothing less than 137 degrees is safe. The label on the package says 150 to 155 degrees. The Joy of Cooking's recipe says 185 degrees. That's quite a range.

I generally go to about 140-145 for hunks of pork in the oven, and let it carry a little longer during a 10-15 minute rest.

Last night I roasted a center cut pork loin roast to 145 in the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes. It was just a bit under medium.

185 and you'll be using your pork for a doorstop.

Best,
Michael

With a shoulder roast, I'd probably want to braise it, not roast it. If that were the case, I'd take it to 190 (tightly covered with a small amount of liquid in the roaster), at which it would probably pull apart. You could then crisp up the exterior from there.

For straight-on roasting, though, the lower temperatures mentioned here are better but with that particular cut, you may not end up with anything that's really chewable when cooked via that method.

=R=

The "old rules" were 165F internal temperature. The fear was trichanosis and at one point, the fear more real than remote.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites ... inosis.htm

Having said that, if you are planning to serve pork rare, you better know your audience. While serving rare pork may be acceptable to some, a LOT of people will NOT touch it.

This really depends on how fatty the roast is and how much texture variation (from crispy to very moist) you want throughout, but I'd go towards the lower end of the ranges you have there, probably 140. The temperature will rise slightly after you remove from the oven if you let it rest near the stove (on a cutting board or counter nearby), especially if tented with foil. I'd recommend not cutting until the roast has had a chance to sit so the juices redistribute, but feel free to claim some crispy exterior bits while they're hot. Chef's right, after all.

Edit: what eatchicago and Ronnie said are not mutually exclusive. I agree with both. Go towards 140 if you're open roasting and 180 if you're braising with liquid and a tight cover.

I concur with Ronnie. With a shoulder roast, you want to cook it long enough for the connective tissue to breakdown. 140 won't do it. It'll be safe to eat but definitely on the tough side.

If you are going to roast it, then do it at a fairly low temp - 300 - and roast for a long time. The process will be like smoking without the smoke. Then you can blast it on high heat at the end to get some good caramelization. I've done a roast like this before & it turned out very well. Low & slow, covered with foil for a couple of hours. Then blast on high for 15 min or so to crisp up the outside.

Sorry, I didn't read closely enough to notice you were talking about shoulder. Ronnie and the others are absolutely correct.

In fact, if you want to do a shoulder in the oven, I'd look at a recipe for pernil, which almost always involve a long, slow cook at a low temp. and then a fast blast at the end for crisping. You won't need to worry about measuring the temperature since it'll be cooking for so long.

If you're going the braise to high heat route, don't forget to let the meat cool in the braising liquid before increasing the heat. This will make a huge difference in the end product.

It's in the oven to roast, so I'm committed there. I let it sit out well over two hours before I put it in.

I forgot one other piece of guidance: according to my electronic thermometer, there's only one option for pork: done = 170 degrees.

I think I'll shoot for the lower third of the 135-185 range and see what happens.

Hope your roast worked out well!

Just one brief addition to the discussion: the explicitness of the 137°F recommendation is due to the fact that that's the temp which will kill encysted trichina.

Of which there aren't many in commercial products/pork these days. Fewer than 100 cases per year are reported, many of these among foreign workers.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-51340791.html

If the pork has been frozen for several weeks (sorry, can't remember the temp/time) it is safe as well.

Geo

I ended up going to 150, 155 really by the time I got it all out of the oven and on a platter to rest. I decided to stop at that temperature based on the advice of one of my brothers, who is both a lawyer and a better cook than me. He said that if the pork producer's label said 150 to 155, I could be sure that their lawyers had been all over that wording to make sure they were covered from both a safety and a quality standpoint. Moreso the safety, I suppose.

Anyway, it came out great, very juicy, the merest trace of pink in the middle which, upon resting and rising a few degrees in temperature, faded delicately away. We ate several big slices of it and gave some to the canine as well. Juicy and tasty and perfect. I should add I didn't do any advance browning or flouring or oiling or garlicking, just oiled the dish, put the roast in fat side up, and sprinkled herbes de Provence on top (my latest thing; I'm sprinkling herbes de Provence on everything).

So I conclude, 150 to 155 is a very good target. But, there still is quite a bit of fat in the meat, so next time, I think I will take the braising route.

Today I have the rest of the sliced pork roast, along with the bone and what meat couldn't be cut off the bone, in the slow cooker with a bottle of barbecue sauce and some water over it, and the goal, if it works out, is to have barbecued pork sandwiches for dinner.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I'm not afraid of roasting a pork shoulder any more.