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What is you risk tolerance level for unsanitary summer BBQs?

2

Comments

  • PurpleThrobber
    PurpleThrobber Member Posts: 48,530 Standard Supporter
  • whlinder
    whlinder Member Posts: 5,385
    I can deal with a little pink, but hate raw burgers/chicken and contaminated spatulas and/or tongs

    BBQ? That sounds like a cookout.

    And if you invite me over and run a cookout but don't have some basic competency of properly cooking the food and preventing obvious contamination then we can't be friends.

  • YellowSnow
    YellowSnow Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 37,698 Founders Club
    I can deal with a little pink, but hate raw burgers/chicken and contaminated spatulas and/or tongs

    Sorry, boss. I used "bbq" in the sense of shitty, summer cook out, not the literal BBQ sense.

  • YellowSnow
    YellowSnow Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 37,698 Founders Club
    edited August 2024
    I can deal with a little pink, but hate raw burgers/chicken and contaminated spatulas and/or tongs

    Whoa there, pod. Let's clean a few things up…

    1- No one is running grill temps of 600 degrees. That's major grease file territory. My Weber is like 350 give or take when I'm cooking burgers and dogs.

    2- If you contaminated the spatula with raw burger paddies, going in for a quick flip isn't sanitizing shit. It has to be under some heat for like 20 or 30 seconds to do the tick. I usually put the spatula under a closed grill for a bit to do the tick. With tongs I shove them down there by the flame.

  • 1to392831weretaken
    1to392831weretaken Member Posts: 7,696

    The grease fire helps get you that desirable sear…

    I suggest a test: Get your hand in there and give the burger a quick flip with your hand. See how that works out for you. Whatever happens to the skin cells on your hands is what happens to the bacterial cells every time your utensil/grill/whatever gets even 350°.

    USDA says bacteria are killed at 165°. They recommend holding chicken at that temperature for three minutes to make sure all the bacteria are dead. That's for the center of the meat. The outside of the meat will be multiples of that temperature, which is instant kill territory.

  • 1to392831weretaken
    1to392831weretaken Member Posts: 7,696

    If you click the above and scroll down quite a bit to the bottom of Appendix A, you get to the equations used to determine pasteurization time for what multiple of bacteria reduction at what meat thickness. Appendix C, is where you'll find the actual government pasteurization tables for various meats. Table C.1 lists the pasteurization time for beef, pork, and lamb as 0 seconds at just 158°F. For chicken, pasteurization time is 0 seconds at 166°F.

    So unless your meat is EXTREMELY rare, transmission of bacteria from grill or utensils to cooked meat is impossible, as the cooked meat itself (let alone the environment into which you're shoving said utensil) immediately (zero seconds says the FDA) kills any bacteria that would be transferred.

    Again, the lettuce on your burger is WAY WAY more likely to get you sick (unless you heat it up to >160°). So is surfing HH on your phone while taking a shit, and we all do that.

    I'm starting to think that grilling is just too dangerous for you guysms, and you should probably just give me your grills. For safety.

  • houseofpain247
    houseofpain247 Member Posts: 393
    I can deal with a little pink, but hate raw burgers/chicken and contaminated spatulas and/or tongs

    Wait, people put cooked meat back onto the same plate as the raw meat?!?!

    I kind of with @1to392831weretaken in terms of dealing with the spatula or tongs, sometimes I'll wash between raw and cooked and sometimes I won't. But, getting a clean platter is an absolute necessity.

  • YellowSnow
    YellowSnow Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 37,698 Founders Club
    I can deal with a little pink, but hate raw burgers/chicken and contaminated spatulas and/or tongs

    It's not an issue of internal meat temps here with the contaminated spatula or tongs. If you get raw meat contamination on the spatula and then use that thing to then remove a done burger I don't know if the meat surface temp at the time is enough to kill the bacteria. It seems some analogous to putting the cooked meat back onto a dirty tray.

  • 1to392831weretaken
    1to392831weretaken Member Posts: 7,696

    The meat surface temp will be the exact same temperature as the grill at the time of meat removal. It would be impossible for it to be otherwise. Internal temps are lower, hence the mention, but surface temp is surface temp = grill temp. Unless you've got your grill turned down to below 160°, your meat will instantly sanitize your utensil. A fraction of a second at 160 does the job. E. Coli dies at 140°. The water coming out of my tap can damned near kill E. Coli.