By Aaron HutchersonThe Washington Post We’ve ranted and raved for years about the benefits of an instant-read thermometer and how using one can help you be a more confident home cook. It’s useful for baked goods, deep frying, custards, cheesemaking and — perhaps most so — meats, where over- or underestimating doneness can leave you with food that’s unpleasant to eat or that might even make you sick. Though the basic premise of measuring the temperature of meat is simple, that number can easily be misleading if not taken properly.
Recently, I was watching an episode of Netflix’s “Barbecue Showdown” in which one of the contestants stuck the thermometer probe vertically into the top of a steak and saw a reading they were looking for. But when they served the meat, the judges found it was undercooked. How could that happen? It’s possible the thermometer needed to be recalibrated.
The more likely answer is the contestant misjudged how far they inserted the metal tip into the steak. When measuring a food’s temperature, the key is to find what’s known as the thermal center. With any cooked food, the outside will be the hottest, and the temperature will gradually decrease until you reach the thermal center, which is the coldest area.
This is the temperature you want to read with your thermometer. (One exception to this rule is during sous-vide cooking, when the temperature of the food is consistent throughout.) When you factor in that the temperature sensor on some tools is quite small, it’s easy to imagine with thinner cuts of meat how inserting the thermometer too deep or shallow when going in vertically (under- or overshooting the thermal center) can result in a temperature reading that is higher than at the center.
In this case, you might conclude that the food is more done than it actually is. Instead, for things such as steaks, pork chops, burgers and boneless, skinless chicken breasts, it’s better to insert the thermometer horizontally, into the side of the meat, making sure to push the probe in far enough to reach the center. Some cooks also recommend inserting from the top at a slight angle, which can be beneficial for particularly wide cuts of meat.
It also helps to adjust the thermometer probe until you’ve found the lowest temperature reading. For larger cuts of meat, it’s important to take multiple readings. This is especially true for poultry, because the dark and white meat cook at different rates, which is why roasting a whole turkey can be so difficult.
Also, with whole birds, you want to aim for the thickest part of the breast and thigh, not the center of the bird, which is likely to place the thermometer in the poultry’s cavity. Another thing to keep in mind with any type of meat: Avoid letting the thermometer contact bones, fat or gristle, which can give an inaccurate reading. Lastly, it’s important to take carryover cooking into consideration, which means you want to stop cooking meat at a temperature lower than what you want to serve it at.
In basic terms, a food’s temperature tends toward equilibrium. Food will be hottest on the outside and coldest at the center. So, even when you remove food from its heat source, heat will continue to flow from the outside to the middle, causing the temperature of the thermal center to continue to rise.
How much? For a piece of meat, the temperature will generally increase anywhere between 5 and 15 degrees, depending on the size, shape, cooking temperature and type of meat. These factors make it difficult to give a precise answer, but generally, larger items will have a larger temperature increase than smaller ones. • Poultry: The Agriculture Department recommends that all poultry (chicken, turkey and duck, including whole birds, parts and ground) reach a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees.
(Note that some may choose to eat duck less than well done.) • Beef and lamb: Rare is 120 degrees, medium-rare is 130 degrees, medium is 140 degrees, medium-well is 150 degrees and well is 160 degrees. (The USDA recommends removing the protein from the heat source at 145 degrees and allowing it to rest for at least 3 minutes.
Additionally, it suggests that ground beef and lamb be cooked to 160 degrees.) • Pork: Medium-rare is 145 degrees, medium is 150 degrees, medium-well is 155 degrees and well is 160 degrees. (The USDA recommends removing the protein from the heat source at 145 degrees and allowing it to rest for at least 3 minutes.
Additionally, it suggests that ground pork be cooked to 160 degrees.) Note that other sources may list different temperatures for degrees of doneness, but this information is provided to give you an idea of what to aim for. For those concerned with food safety, follow the USDA’s guidelines.
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