# Making sure ground beef was cooked: can leftover fat help? And another Q... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2010, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522 "2010-03-15T05:57:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/1 "2010-03-15T05:57:29Z")
As I mentioned in [another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=555799), I cooked a little over a pound of ground beef (crumbled) that was very brown, so I had a hard time seeing the obvious signs of doneness. I cooked it with the heat on the border between medium and medium high, I think. According to the label, I believe it was 85% lean angus (on sale). I don’t remember how long I cooked it all, but I did try to stir and flip the crumbled chunks. Now, what I do remember is the remarkable lack of draining I had to do: there wasn’t even three tablespoons (as in the utensil) of fat left; it might even have been about, or less than, two. Can that fact be taken as an indication of whether the beef is all probably cooked through? I’d love to be prepared if I indeed am gonna get sick in a few days from eating parts of it. 🙂 (Everything’s mixed in with colorful sauces, so it’s hard to tell now, and it represents six more future meals, so if I throw it away, I’d better have good reason.) Speaking of ground beef and food poisoning, Wikipedia says the incubation period for nasties is generally a few hours to “a few days.” Can anyone be more specific? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/2 "2010-03-15T07:26:39Z")
The ground beef meat is browned, and crumbly, and liquid free you’re _still_ not sure it’s cooked enough? I… ahh… think you’re safe. ---
**Author:** ![belladonna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@belladonna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/belladonna)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/3 "2010-03-15T12:10:52Z")
You didn’t get a lot of grease back because it was lean meat. Fry up a pound of bright pink, bargain-bin ground “beef” (not chuck, or round, or sirloin) and you’ll have a cup of grease or more. As for food poisoning, with ground beef you’d be worried about \*e-coli \*which has a bunch of different strains–from shitting-yourself-silly to dead-as-a-doornail. It takes about 2-4 days to kick in but can have a longer incubation period in some cases. However, as **astro** pointed out, I’m pretty sure you’re okay. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/4 "2010-03-15T16:53:00Z")
> [@astro](#): > > The ground beef meat is browned, and crumbly, and liquid free you’re _still_ not sure it’s cooked enough? I… ahh… think you’re safe. Well, it was brown _before_ I cooked it. That’s the problem; the color makes me wonder whether some crumbles aren’t cooked through, or have a side I didn’t flip over because I didn’t recognize by color that it wasn’t flipped. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/5 "2010-03-15T17:13:56Z")
Can I just send you five bucks so you can buy some fresh meat? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/6 "2010-03-16T06:28:42Z")
> [@belladonna](#): > > You didn’t get a lot of grease back because it was lean meat. Really? I didn’t think 85% was that lean. And does that mean that what **astro** mentioned about the relative liquid amounts being a sign of doneness isn’t necessarily so? > [@](#): > > As for food poisoning, with ground beef you’d be worried about \*e-coli \*which has a bunch of different strains–from shitting-yourself-silly to dead-as-a-doornail. It takes about 2-4 days to kick in but can have a longer incubation period in some cases. How much longer? And is it common for it to be so long? (And isn’t campylobacter also in ground beef?) > [@AuntiePam](#): > > Can I just send you five bucks so you can buy some fresh meat? Heh, I know. I’ll think twice about freezing ground beef long-term in the original package from now on. I ate the rest of the batch I had available. I figured that I had a good chance of having e. coli or campylobacter from the past two meals involving the stuff (soft taco filling) if any of it was undercooked, so what’s a little more gut bacteria among friends? 🙂 It’s my fault, though. I really should’ve flipped and examined all the crumbles more closely to make sure that the brown color was cooked meat, not the brown shade it was when it was raw. I’m a total kitchen incompetent sometimes. 😛 Still not sure what I’m going to do with the portion I set aside as a future pasta sauce base. Maybe toss it; it’s not like pasta sauce (or the remaining portion) is expensive anyway. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/7 "2010-03-16T07:14:19Z")
Just cook the remaining portion long enough to brown the meat - not the regular brown color, but char-brown it. It will add extra flavor to the sauce. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-sure-ground-beef-was-cooked-can-leftover-fat-help-and-another-q/532522/8 "2010-03-18T12:37:07Z")
I’ve been cooking hamburg for more years than you’ve been alive, I’ll wager. Bright red burger, lean burger, grayish burger that’s been hanging around a day too long, fatty burger, turkey-chicken-venison-lamb burger. I put it in a saucepan, chop it up well over heat, mix and stir till it’s simmering and not pink. Then I add a cup of water if it’s fatty and bring that to a simmer. The hot water and grease are then easily poured off (I dump mine in a colander to drain over another pot). The drippings go in an old coffee can or even empty potato chip bag and can be thrown away.