Tag Archives: Temperature

Real-time turkey: Carl Custer version

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Food safety sage Carl Custer (left, exactly as shown) shares his version of turkey time today from Bethesda, Maryland:

My nephew comes over with three gallons of peanut oil and a brined turkey to use my tamale steamer/turkey fryer. Instructions say 350°F oil for 52 minutes. At 35 minutes I pull it out and check deep thigh temperature with a Comark PDT 300.

It’s 175°F. ¡Ay carumba! Into the kitchen and double check deep breast temperature: 145! Male puppy! Back to the fryer for another 10 minutes.

Deep breast temperature in several places is now >170°F.

Earlier, a brine injected turkey goes into the grill/smoker at 7:00 a.m. Yawn.

It’s cold and drizzly so difficult to keep air temperature >200°F even with tarp and wind shields. Pull turkey at noon; it’s 150°F. Put into a 350°F oven with an 8 cm "L-shaped" probe. I wrap the probe with a wet paper towel so it doesn’t act as a "potato nail" and give a false high reading. An hour later it’s 160°F and coasting up to 168°F.

Mmmm mmmm good and safe.

Time may be on your side but temperature is better.

Carl also notes the raw birds were handled with latex gloves, and sinks were washed with detergent & paper towels, followed by 70% ethanol.

Texas Aggie food microbiologist, Carl Custer, sojourning in Merryland for past 38 years, smokes turkey (and other animal parts) following scientific principles.

Party on my porch: how I thawed my turkey

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Much has been written about how to properly defrost a turkey for the Thanksgiving food orgy. Sure, some buy fresh birds – I did a couple of times in the 1990s and decided it wasn’t worth it — or cook directly from frozen (which actually works, thanks, Pete), but U.S. government advice is to defrost the turkey, in the fridge, in cold water, or in the microwave.

I don’t like any of those options.

I purchased a 15-pound a Jennie-O frozen turkey on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010, at 6 p.m. from Dillons in Manhattan (that’s in Kansas). At $0.68 a pound, it was a protein centerpiece bargain.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 15-pound bird should take 36-48 hours to defrost in the refrigerator, or 6-8 hours in cold water in the sink. The later is a potential cross-contamination nightmare so no water is going near my bird. And I don’t have room in the fridge.

Instead I left the bird in its plastic wrapper and put it directly into the roasting pan, with a lid. It was so frozen and so solid, I left the bird at room temperature – about 66 F – overnight for 13 hours. It was still frozen in the morning.

On Nov. 21, at 8 p.m., I placed the bird in the covered roasting pan on front porch overnight where the ambient temp varied from 45F – 30F. On Nov. 22 at 8 a.m., 36 hours after purchasing the frozen bird, with an ambient temp 38F, the surface of the bird was 35F and the interior 29 F.

This is not for food service, this is for the home cook. And while I was initially concerned about cats and ‘coons, neither had penetrated the lid on the roasting pan.

On Nov. 23 at 8 a.m., the surface of the bird was 35 F and the interior, 29 F.

Same thing this morning, Nov. 24, 2010, at 8 a.m. I’ll probably leave it on the porch another night, and then bring the bird inside first thing Thursday morning so it starts to warm up and the center actually thaws.

Depending on where you live, a garage can work equally well for a long, slow thaw.

Pete Snyder at the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, Minnesota, has a summary available demonstrating the safety of thawing poultry at room temperature at http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Thaw-counter.html.??

My group wrote a review note on the topic a few years ago, and it is included in its entirety at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/10/articles/food-safety-communication/how-to-thaw-poultry-ignore-government/??.

And however the bird is thawed (or not) verify the temperature using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and cool the leftovers within two hours.

A timer for turkey roasting, thermometers also work

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Pop-up turkey timers often lead to overcooked disasters.

Florence Fabricant of The New York Times writes the reason was clear after she called a manufacturer: the timers are set to pop when the meat is 180 degrees, by which point it is hopelessly dry.

(Poor Canadians, still told to cook to 185F, but that may change to 180F; that’s what the gravy is for.)

So Fabricant tried out the Perfect Roast Timer, by Kikkerland in SoHo, made in China, is $12.95 at Mxyplyzyk stores, mxyplyzyk.com.

Fabricant says that after an hour and 20 minutes in a 375-degree oven, the legs of the timer whipped straight up from horizontal to vertical. “I let the chicken rest for 20 minutes before carving what turned out to be an utterly delicious bird, done to perfection. The timers are silicon and can be used in ovens as hot as 450 degrees.”

Tip sensitive digital thermometers also work. Stick it in.

And here’s a Saturday Night Live promo for, uh, Saturday’s show, featuring Bill Hader vomiting a turkey and guest host Anne Hathaway dry-heaving afterwards.

Dirty dining Vegas style: Souper Salad

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This is the way to handle a bad restaurant inspection, especially with the television cameras rolling: take responsibility, fix things, and no whining.

KTNV reports the Souper Salad was issued with 29 demerits by the Southern Nevada Health District, primarily related to a salad bar that wasn’t keeping foods at the proper temperature.

When Contact 13 stopped at the restaurant, Souper Salad was right in the middle of a re-inspection. The manager, Jeff Brooks, took time to explain to us his concerns about the restaurant’s C grade. "It was definitely a concern and that’s why we took care of the steps as needed."

He says he had all the food at the salad bar thrown out, and that the salad bar was adjusted to the appropriate temperature. And in the end, Brooks says he stands by the quality of his restaurant. "Unfortunately sometimes these things happen. I do care about the type of food, the temperatures of the foods I feed to the public. I’m not one of these managers that doesn’t care about it."

We spoke with the Health District, which confirms, the restaurant was re-inspected. Souper Salad made the necessary changes to go from 29 demerits down to only 4, enough for an A grade. Looking into their history, this was actually their first C grade in 3 years.
 

UK consumers still washing whole chicken –they shouldn’t, cross-contamination risk

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An estimated three quarters of consumers who buy whole chickens wash them, potentially spreading bacteria on to work surfaces for up to a 3ft radius, research by Which? has revealed.

The Telegraph reports the most recent figures from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) suggest that 65% of raw shop-bought chicken is contaminated with campylobacter.

And while most government agencies now advise against washing chickens, cookbooks and Internet recipes are full of it (bad advice and poop).

An FSA spokeswoman said,

”Washing raw poultry is a common kitchen mistake, and it simply isn’t necessary. … By washing your raw bird, you’re actually more likely to spread the germs around the kitchen than get rid of them.”

Here’s another common kitchen mistake, courtesy of the FSA: piping hot is not a food safety indicator and color is a lousy indicator. Use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.
 

deadly food poisoning; procedures weren’t followed, management clueless

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Three patients died, 42 other patients and 12 staff members got sick from Clostridium perfringens in improperly stored chicken salad, so the administrator and associate administrator at Central Louisiana State Hospital have, as they politely say in the South (and smile while the knife goes in), left the facility.

The appropriately named Town Talk reports today the investigations also revealed what the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals termed unacceptable process and management issues.

The investigations, ordered by DHH Secretary Alan Levine, found serious deficiencies in dietary services and concerns with the overall operation of the hospital.

Levine said,

“The day of these tragic deaths, I went to Pineville with Deputy Secretary Tony Keck to personally assess what had happened. We ordered a comprehensive investigation into the patient deaths, and asked other agencies to conduct expert reviews into various issues.

“The staff at CLSH was cooperative, and I’m grateful for that. But I have seen enough evidence of unacceptable performance that I am convinced major changes are necessary. Basic policies were not followed. Staff was not properly educated. The findings across the board raise real concerns related to overall management that go beyond the food service area.”

Lifesoy sucks at food safety so FDA shuts them down

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Lifesoy Inc., a San Diego-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat soy products cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for preparing, packing, and holding articles of food under insanitary conditions, has entered into a consent decree of permanent injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The consent decree requires Lifesoy to stop manufacturing and distributing food products until the company registers with the FDA and complies with federal laws regarding sanitary practices.

Lifesoy made sweetened and unsweetened soy milk, fried tofu, fresh tofu, soybean pudding, and other soy products for human consumption. The government’s complaint further alleges that Lifesoy did not hold and store the foods under proper refrigeration conditions to prevent the growth of microorganisms.
 

‘My mother died, so we’re roasting a pig; drop by’

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That’s the way to celebrate a life.

The mother was the matriarch of the Weisbender family, 96-year-old Violet, who died March 21, 2010.

She had nine kids, many who stayed in Manhattan (Kansas). Amy and I have become friendly with a few of those kids as they improved our house, informed us on local politics and hosted the annual Labor Day fish fry where Violet was a fixture and we got introduced to the extended family of, according to latest estimates, 96.

Amy and Sorenne and I paid our respects down at the Veterans’ Club earlier this evening, dining on pulled pork and beans provided by the Cox Brothers and maintained at a proper temperature.

Good food, friends, lots of kids.

Son Russell gave us the blanket that Sorenne is now permanently bonded with. Son Tim, who provided the quote in the headline, also made our day yesterday, by dropping off this handmade sign which now graces our house in Manhattan (Kansas). Notre maisonette en ville — our cottage in the city.

Thank you.

Temperature measured with thermometer more important than times a burger flipped

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There’s a website devoted to all things hamburglery that decided to tackle the question – is it better to only flip a hamburger once or several times on a grill?

Author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt purports to have tested the 1-flip-versus-multiple flip hamburger by preparing a dozen 1/2-pound burgers into equal-sized patties, seasoned them just before cooking with an equal amount of kosher salt and black pepper, then seared them in a steel skillet pre-heated to 450°F (which was temped with an infrared thermometer before adding the patties). The ambient air in the kitchen was at an unbearably hot 76°F. Each patty was cooked to an internal temperature of 125°F, and was then rested for five minutes at room temperature before being autopsied for examination.

The author then applied intact beef roast info to ground hamburger which is wrong and dangerous.

• 125°F (or 51.7°C) is the temperature at which beef is medium rare—that is, hot but still pink, cooked but still moist and able to retain its juices. Any higher than that, and muscle fibers start to rapidly shrink, forcing flavorful juices out of the meat, and into the bottom of the roasting pan.

Make my burgers a thermometer-verified 160F. They’re plenty juicy and won’t make your guest barf.