Transporting cooked meat?

Jeremy_131558

hello friends.

So I'm cooking ribs for a party tomorrow. Would like to cook at home and finish at the party roughly 30 minutes away.

Do I..

A: cook at home, chill and then retherm for an hour?

B: cook at home and then dump water and ribs into a cooler and hope it holds close to temp for the drive?

C: cook at home and then use the old BBQ trick of wrapping the product in a beach towel, tossing in a cooler and taking it?

Any alternative measures will be pondered as well.

Thanks!

tjschmidt333

I think the primary issue you should be considering is the holding temp of the food at all points in your process. Once cooked, you either need to chill it or make sure it stays above 140 F. Below this you are in the food danger zone and you start to run a greater risk of bacterial contamination. If you are not sure about it, I would not do it especially if you are serving a group of people. This leaves B and C out. You should either do option A or just cook the ribs at the party. In a restaurant setting we have cooked the ribs in the morning and then chill them. They are then warmed up on a gas grill which is around 10 minutes (or you can sub your retherm for an hour) when an order comes in. In my opinion, your first concern should be the safety of the food for others and it should override any convenience factor. Don't take any chances, even if small, that the people you are feeding will get sick. Good luck and have a great party.