[Homemade] beef stew help
Need honest opinions from people who actually understand food safety/microbiology because I’m driving myself insane over this.
I made beef stew with beef, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, low sodium beef broth, fresh herbs, and a cornstarch slurry. It finished cooking around 9:30 PM. It was still extremely hot at that point and I knew putting a giant hot Dutch oven directly into the fridge wasn’t ideal, so I transferred it into multiple containers to cool faster. The containers were left uncovered in the kitchen overnight because I accidentally fell asleep before refrigerating them. They went into the fridge around 6:45 AM.
Additional context:
House temperature overnight was \~63°F
Kitchen is one of the cooler parts of the house
It was NOT sitting in a giant covered stockpot all night
It had been divided into smaller containers specifically to cool
It would be fully reheated/boiled before eating
Two healthy adults in our early 30s would be eating it
I already know USDA guidance says throw it away after >2 hours and I’m not arguing with the guideline. I’m asking more realistically: how dangerous is this ACTUALLY?
From what I understand, the main risks would be things like Clostridium perfringens from slow cooling of meat dishes, Bacillus cereus because of the starches, or possibly staph toxin. But does the fact that:
it was initially too hot to refrigerate,
it was divided into containers,
the house was cold,
and it would be boiled again
meaningfully change the risk profile?
I’m not asking for permission to eat it. I’m asking if this is “almost certainly fine but technically against guidance” versus “this is a very realistic food poisoning setup.”
Please no “if in doubt throw it out” copy/paste comments — I already know the official recommendation and am trying to understand the actual microbiology/risk here