Do you use an internal thermometer for your meats?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been thinking about temperature in regards to cooking more than usual lately, mostly because I’ve been doing a decent amount of sous vide cooking and I just got a thermo pop thermometer. I seriously love that thing.

I happened to be at a trivia night at a bar a while ago and they asked about the minimum safe temp for steak. I guessed either 140 or 145 and we had to be within 10 degrees. The guy said the temp was 160. For ground meats yes, but not so for whole steaks. He quoted the USDA site and clearly read the wrong part.

The next time I cooked chicken using a sous vide recipe, the temp seemed low to me after having seen the USDA chart. After some research I found that the temp, depending on meat type, if held long enough can indeed be safe.

The minimum cooking temps, much like expiration dates are weighted on the safe side of things, as they should be. Protecting people from harm is the whole purpose of this. Are the people that are potentially being saved by these guidelines actually utilizing thermometers?

I could be very wrong, but I would think that thermometer usage would be higher in homes where it is being used as more of a tool to “perfect” the food’s temp, rather than make sure it’s just safe to eat. I’m thinking of temping a large roast, Chateaubriand, filet mignon, sous vide meats and other really temperature sensitive meats. When cooking a pork chop or burger or chicken breast, doneness might be judged more often by sight. Why use a thermometer when you can clearly see it’s fully cooked?

So, do you use an internal thermometer? If so, how and when? If you think they’re not needed please explain.

2

I have a Maverick 733 dual input thermometer

I use it when cooking on my off set smoker. Pork Butts are safe to eat at 160, but the tenderness is not really there until it hits 205. Brisket needs to go to 205 also.

Chicken needs to get to 160, but dries out soon after that

3

You need to try a chicken breast cooked sous vide, it’s as juicy as you could imagine. If you want a char, you can do it, I usually just put either a balsamic glaze or marinara for plain breasts. If I marinate it in Italian dressing I might just eat it as it.

4

I do, sometimes, mostly when I’m cooking chicken. It’s easier than guessing.
A lot of that comes from being a Certified Food Safety Manager and taking the ServSafe class three times now. While that’s all designed at protecting the public, it’s not like it’s that hard to temp chicken (or thicker cuts of beef that aren’t cooked for a long time (like in a crock pot)).

I also wear gloves when handling raw meat (and hot peppers for that matter) when cooking at home for the same reason. But part of it is just laziness. Sure, I could wash my hands afterwards, but it’s easier to put gloves on, open the package, put the meat in the cooking vessel, throw out the package, put anything I used to open the package (knife, usually) in an already opened dishwasher and throw out the gloves. If done carefully, everything remains sanitary and when I’m done, I usually bleach my counters if I’m at all concerned. But, again, I err on the side of caution, it hardly takes any more effort and the chance of getting sick goes down significantly.

5

Why three times? Do you need to be re-certified every so often? If so that’s odd, since food prep doesn’t really change much.

I was lucky enough to get my A+ cert before you had to renew it every year. That’s different though.

6

In Wisconsin, at least, it has to be retaken every five years. Furthermore, they just recently changed the rules so now I have to retake the entire class instead of just re-certifying every 5 years. The class is 8 hours, the re-cert class was the exact same class but instead of 8 hours and then a 100 question test, the re-cert people got to get up and walk out at the 4 hour mark.

As for changes, actual,y, a lot of things change. Safe cooking temperatures change, the amount of sanitizer changes, the speed at which hot items have to be cooled changes (off the top of my head, all of these things have been lowered). On top of that, it’s good to have a refresher course so you don’t get lax with these things.
Just recently, Wisconsin made their law about how long an employee that’s showing signs of a foodbourne illness stay out of work more stringent. Federal law says they need to go 24 hours without showing symptoms, WI updated their law to 48 hours. It’s due to Norovirus becoming so popular, that’ll probably go Federal sooner or later.

Cut Tomatoes and cut lettuce were also added to the list of potentially hazardous foods.
I don’t remember which one it was, but a new illness was added to the list (making it the “Big 6” instead of “Big 5”) that requires me to report it to the authorities if an employee gets it, as well as exclude or restrict them from being around food.
There was some allergy stuff that I don’t recall hearing the last time I took the class.

But, really, the big things are the time/temp rules and the sanitizing rules. They do change from time to time.

I remember many years ago, we had a health inspection, the inspector asked us how much bleach we used to sanitize fruit before cutting it. I told her and she looked at me like I was a compete moron and said ‘where’d you come up with that number, that’s way to much bleach’. I said ‘YOU told me last year to use that much’. She denied it, I pointed to a sign that I had posted, that she gave me the last year. The sign was posted, literally, 3 feet from us, and said ‘we were just basing it on what you told us’. She re-iterated that it was too much, told me that we needed to use much and proceeded to write us up for it. Classy. Sorry, I don’t read the food code (on any level) on a regular basis, if they change something major like that, they need to find a way to get that information to me OR tell me at inspection time without giving me an infraction for it.

I’m so glad we have a local inspector now instead of a state one…or maybe I just like the inspector personally. Eitherway, things are a lot smoother now.

7

Poking around on some of your government websites, I don’t see anything about the licenses expiring. I’m kind of surprised. It seems odd (at least to me), that I could take the class and they could expect, not only that nothing would change but also that I would remember it all and still practice it all 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years later.

However, as I was poking around, I was reminded of something. There’s two parts to this. You take a class (ServSafe being the most common), then you send the certificate in to the state and get a license. The certificate expires after 5 years. I wonder if your license expires with it.

Just to be clear, in Wisconsin, you can only send submit the certificate (to get a license) 3 years after the date you received it, so the expiration date isn’t (in my state) how long you have to send it to the state. I couldn’t tell you what happens if you wait until the 3 year mark to send it in. I don’t know if the state gives you a license for 5 years or they still expire it on the date on the certificate. I’m guessing the latter, because, as I said, you have to retake it every 5 years.

8

I use one of those cheap, poke it in thermometers. They’re close enough.

I don’t use it all the time because I find cooking times in most recipes for oven roasting are accurate as long as the size of the roast matches the recipe. If I want perfect doneness, I’ll use it.

I do use it more frequently when I’m grilling a large piece of beef; steaks are easy. I also sometimes use it for chicken breasts on the grill, there’s times when you know it has to come off or it’s going to be ruined, but you also know the amount of time you’ve had it on is less than usual.

I think the recommended internal for chicken is 160, but for grilling, I don’t buy boneless breasts, I buy ones with the skin and the rib meat attached and take the rib meat off myself. These usually end up significantly bigger than the skinless ones. They’re a little trickier to get fully cooked with some sort of char on the outside but without outright burning the whole outside.

In the situation I mentioned above, I’ll stick the thermometer in lengthwise to make sure I’ve got as much exposed to the center of the meat and I’ve found 120 or higher is OK (not ideal, but OK) to take those off and hold in a container with a lid to finish. I wouldn’t serve them right away, but after holding, every once in a while the center will be very faint pinkish, but I’ve never had a problem.

9

I use a Thermapen instant read thermometer for everything, not just meat. It is the Rolls Royce of food thermometers. It’s pricey, but I’ve probably spent that much on useless thermometers over the years. When the recipe (or microwave box) says “cook to an internal temperature of 165,” I do.

While we’re on the subject, everyone who uses their oven should get an oven thermometer. They’re really cheap. I’ve never met an oven whose dial accurately reflected the real temperature inside the oven.

10

I use it mostly for things like roasts that I want to carefully avoid overcooking. And I’ll sometimes is it to double check the temps in a whole roast chicken to make sure it’s done, but I can also do that by visual inspection. In barbecue (pulled pork and brisket), I will only use it to let me know when I should start checking for doneness. I do not use the thermometer to tell me when the meat is done, as I’ve found it varies even if using the same cut. I’ve had shoulder done at 192, and I’ve had others go to 200-ish before they got wobbly and a fork easily slid in. I’ve also overcooked shoulder waiting for it to get to a particular temp (197 used to be my target), so I just go by feel. For me, it delivers more consistent results.

11

I’m sure people who know what they’re doing can “just tell” when a piece of meat is done, but we also use the ThermoWorks Thermapen now and it has immeasurably improved the quality of our BBQing. Our thick-cut pork chops have never been better!

12

Safe temperatures involve holding time also. With sous vide you can cook meat below the recommended temperature and hold it longer. Look for a sous vide pasteurization guide to get the low down. Just like when you cook with other means you don’t have to pasteurize the food, but then you have to meet the traditional safe temperatures.

ETA: I don’t have to check sous vide cooked meat with an internal thermometer if it’s had sufficient time to heat through, the water temperature is all that’s needed. I don’t use a thermometer for most steaks because I can feel when they’re done. If the meat is thicker than an inch and half I use a thermometer.

13

Chicken breasts are so thick these days that I really do rely on a thermometer to check that inner temperature. Beef, I don’t mind underdone. Chicken? A whole 'nother matter.

14

Like pulykamell, only for roasts. Big expensive roasts, like the Christmas standing rib of beef. I have a thermometer that plugs into my gas oven, and the oven display shows the internal temperature of the roast.

Expensive beefsteaks on the grill get the finger poke test. Chops, fowl, fish, shellfish, etc., I feel I’ve had enough experience to know when they’re done.

I don’t measure shit, either. Tablespoon of butter? That looks right. Salt? That’s enough. Caraway seed in the sauerkraut? The more the better.

15

I have this Williams-Sonoma electronic thermometer with 2 probes. Got it several years ago when cooking a turkey for thanksgiving. I now use it when cooking most meats on the grill or in the oven. Mostly to make sure it’s “done” or for safety when grilling for large groups, and to make sure chicken, etc doesn’t get too done and dried out.

I might look into getting an “instant” thermometer, but this one works fine. Plus it has all kinds of setting for different meats and an alarm.

16

Unless it’s a turkey or a roast or something big like that, a thermometer is not needed. I don’t care what the USDA or whoever says, they change the “rules” all the time anyway, so I’ll just prepare things how I like them and have done them for years.

17

I have a couple of internal thermometers. I’m partly worried about safety and doneness, but internal thermometers are a great replacement for a timer. I don’t cook a rib roast for twenty minutes a pound, I cook it until it reaches 135-140 F. Time is never more than approximation for doneness, so if I measure what I want directly.

My nicer thermometer actually checks both the oven/grill temp and the internal temp, and has a remote readout with a beeper to let me know if any number goes too high or too low. I’ll use the thermometer on pretty much everything that takes longer than half an hour to cook. That way, I can let it cook while I work on something else without worrying that I’ll forget to check on it.

18

Of course not. American retail meat does not need to be cooked at all. Cooking changes the flavor, so cook it until it looks ready according to your taste.

19

We have this thermometer. I don’t know that I’d say we use it every time we cook meat, but we use it extensively. I tend to think of cooking times as an guideline: if the recipe says that it will take 40 minutes, then I’ll stick the thermometer in at 30 minutes, set the desired temperature, and wait for the alarm to tell me it’s done.

20

I also have a Thermapen. In fact, I’m on my second one, as the first one went wonky on me for some reason. I like the second one better, as the display rotates and is lighted.