Please help, I Filleted a Springer yesterday and soaked it over night in my favorite brine, 5:00 this morning I rinse the meat and place on smoker racks allowing it to air dry until my wife gets up and can put in the smoker(I went to work at 5:15). My wonderful wife decided to leave the fish on the counter until I called her at 2:10 this afternoon. My question- is this fish already spoiled? the temp in the house is around 70 degrees.I told her to go ahead and smoke it. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Tough call but I tend to think it's O.K. afterall it is basically salt cured from the brine. Smoke it, but let your wife try it first.

Bacteria starts to form once the temp rises above 40 degrees F. The general rule for cooling food is to get it below 40 degrees within 4 hours or less to lessen bacteria formation. You are dealing with the opposite direction, warming, so bacteria actually forms quicker the warmer it gets. The food was out for more than 8 hours. Toss it.

I just lost a freezer full of elk and deer when my wife didn't close the door all the way. (a strap from a lifevest on top of the freezer caught in the door) I would rather toss the meat and be safe than take a chance on poisoning my friends and family.

Then again, you could smoke the meat and hand it out to the a-holes who are poachin' sockeyes. Let them take the chance, not your family.

I say smoke it and eat it. I once went to a friends house really drunk and ate some taco meat that was sitting on the counter. After I got done eating about half of it he told me it had been sitting there for three days. I was so drunk that I didnt care and continued to finish it. I never got sick. Ive eaten plenty of nasty stuff in my day as well as drinking lots of river and lake water plus ive eaten lots of dirt and its never hurt me. Infact I think its made me imune. No time like the present to get started in building your up your imunities.

Rich, you might actually be classified as mildly insane. What color was the taco meat? Slight shade of green, maybe? I'm sure you keep parties interesting.

If you smoke the fish, then make sure the internal temprature exceeds 160 degrees. This will kill the bacteria that had formed. If your unsure of the temp., put it in the oven for 20 minutes or so at 200 degrees to make sure you get the meat hot enough after you pull it from the smoker.

Heat will kill the bacteria, but it does nothing to their byproduct, toxins.

Beings how the fish was cured in a salt-sugar brine it`s probably okay. I would`nt take a chance if the fish had`nt been brined though.
I was about 3 hrs into smoking some steelhead and salmon (2 full racks) a week or so ago for my mom`s wake(bless her soul) and my 2 year old decides to take off down the street to the neighbors house to play on thier little tykes climber. Well, I went down and got her, came back and decided to pull her`s back out from under the tree. The ladder on the dang thing hit the smoker, (a charcoal smoker no less) and knocked it over, water and all, covered the fish in ashes water and whatever else was in the thing.. Ended up having to go buy some fresh salmon because I just didn`t have the time to thaw and brine any more out before the funeral. Not that this story pertains much to what happened with you, it just made me think about that again. I had kind of forgotten about that with everything else till I read this post.
It`s good to be able to laugh about it..
Tony

Thanks guys, I tried some this morning and it tasted okay and I not blowing chunks, I'm still going to throw it out just to be safe. Besides, the less fish in the frig/freezer-the more reason the wifey hast to let me go rip lips!