Food safety is the least exciting part of outdoor cooking and the one place where getting it wrong actually hurts someone, which is a strange combination that keeps people from taking it as seriously as they should. Everything else on this site is about flavor. This category is about not getting anyone sick.
The core numbers come from the USDA, not from tradition or a pitmaster’s gut feeling: 165°F for poultry, 145°F as the minimum rest temperature for whole cuts like steak and pork chops, 160°F for ground meat. None of those are negotiable the way a “done” brisket at 203°F is negotiable — that number is about texture, these are about safety, and they don’t move for personal preference.
The danger zone matters as much as the target temp. Meat sitting between 40°F and 140°F for more than two hours, or one hour above 90°F outside, is where bacteria actually grow, regardless of what temperature you eventually hit.
If you’re ever unsure whether something sat out too long, the safe move is to throw it out. That’s not a satisfying answer, but it’s the correct one every time.
For most of human history, “done” was a guess. You poked it, cut it open to check the color, watched […]
Meat Temperature Chart: Safe Internal Temps for Chicken, Pork, Beef & Fish Read Post »