Hi all,

On Wednesday I cooked a whole chicken in a crockpot, and it turned out fantastic. I left the "juice" and bones and bits in the pot and stuck it in fridge to do broth (I've never done this before). I forgot about it until about 3pm yesterday.

-3pm yesterday put crockpot on low and added about a quart of water.
-crockpot switched to warm at about 9:00 or so
-kind of forgot about it until about 11:30pm when I cut the crock pot off.
-realized it was too hot to put in fridge, so decided to let it cool a bit (thought I would put it in fridge when I woke up in the night to pee)
-did get up to pee a couple times in the night but COMPLETELY forgot about it.
-found it on counter at 6am, hoping it wasn't ruined by being left on the counter and turned off for about 6 hours

-feeling hopeful, I've had it in crock pot now for about 3 hours. The broth looks and smells good and want to strain it and use it, but I don't want to get food poisoning.

Does anyone know if this is safe to eat? My house temp is in the upper 60s.

Thank you!!

I would not eat it but I am paranoid about that stuff.

I would not eat any meat or rice that was out longer than an hour room temp to the touch..if u left it 6 hours it probably took 2ish to cool so you've got 4h room temp! Not in my comfort zone but ikwym it seems such a shame to throw it out..

I remember helping my mom get back to normal after her being super sick .. Well she had stocked up on meat including 2 family pks of boneless chicken! And tons of veg, basically everything was expired (she was sock 2-3wks) easily $150 down the drain ( but, better safe than sorry!!

I'm with Natalia.

An hour at room temperature is about my outermost limit, too. In fact, I'll generally refrigerate stuff when it's still fairly warm (not hot, but warm). I'm super-ultra-paranoid about it because I have a touch of emetophobia and food poisoning is one of my nightmare scenarios.

It is always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to food poisoning. I'd toss it.

I am pretty liberal when it comes to expiration dates, how long stuff sits in the fridge, etc. If it isn't slimey, funky smelling or growing fuzz, I consider it still good. bbbbuuuuutttt... Meat stock that sat out all night... hmmm... I would probably pitch it. Maybe reheating it kills anything growing... idk. I know you hate to waste it... but stock is easy to do again.

If it were veggie stock - I would say no biggie. But meat. I have read that meat starts to grow bacteria after it sits out for 20 mins. TWENTY minutes. That is nothing.

I agree with Natalia. I am SO paranoid that I immediately put hot leftovers in the refrigerator in my garage which only has bottled water, soda and beer in it. I only put items like sesame seeds, ketchup and mustard that many people do not refrigerate on the doors of my kitchen refrigerator. I freeze things in my basement refrigerator, and once frozen, I move them to my kitchen freezer. This is because both my parents were total germaphobics!

The only difference between stock that's been left out on the counter and the growth medium used in my microbiology class from college is a few herbs.

That goes for vegetable stock as well as meat-based stocks, so I don't trust either of them much. But again, I did note that I'm pretty paranoid.

Pitch it! If you've ever had a case of food poisoning, you wouldn't hesitate a bit.

Ruth, how's it going, baby?! You still on the beach? I am a little more radical now, lol but I hope to be able to be just beachy in maintenance minus the grain.

Throw it out.

It's unanimous -- it goes.

Thanks, everyone.