Safe Food Internal Temperatures for Cooking

It’s essential to know the safe food internal temperatures you should reach when cooking. Especially chicken needs to be cooked to a safe temp before eating. Beef isn’t as easy as chickens with a precise number you need to reach. I’ll explain both types of meat and the temperatures you want to achieve.

How Long Will It Take To Smoke Chicken to a Safe Internal Temperature?.

You should always cook chicken and any poultry to a safe internal temperature of 165°F. This will kill the salmonella found in poultry. How long it will take to get there depends on your piece of chicken and the temperature you’re cooking at.

Smoking chicken on your pellet grill isn’t as complicated as some think. However, judging doneness by look or feel is gambling with your health. This could leave you sick or eat a dry piece of meat. Make sure you use a thermometer. This can be an instant-read thermometer you use to spot-check parts of the chicken. Or a probe thermometer you leave inside the meat. This helps you track the temperature and know precisely when it reaches 165°F. A thermometer is the only reliable way to know when your meat is safe to serve.

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How Long Will It Take To Get To 165 Degrees?

This will depend on a few factors. This includes the size of the meat, the temperature you’re cooking at, and the cut or type of meat you’re smoking. A butterflied chicken breast will be finished cooking much sooner than a whole chicken. Just like a spatchcocked chicken will be done sooner than one left whole.

Since it’s impossible to give accurate information for your timing, always use a precise instant-read or probe thermometer.

How Long Will It Take to Smoke Beef to a Safe Internal Temperature?

This answer isn’t as straightforward as cooking chicken since cooking chicken to a safe internal temperature, you need to reach 165°F, and that’s it. Once you hit that temperature, you know you’re done. However, when it comes to beef cuts like steak, the time it takes to cook the steak will vary by adding this question: what is your desired doneness? Do you want medium-rare or medium-well?

How long it will take you to cook your piece of beef now depends on how thick it is, what temperature you’re cooking at, and what internal temperature you desire to reach.

Food Scientist Harold McGee

When deciding the internal temperature to cook your meat, there’s an important distinction to know between whole muscle cuts and ground meat. The food scientist Harold McGee from the Food Network explains:

“… meats inevitably harbor bacteria, and it takes temperatures of 160 degrees Fahrenheit or higher to guarantee the rapid destruction of the bacteria that can cause human disease — temperatures at which meat is well-done and has lost much of its moisture. So is eating juicy, pink-red meat risky? Not if the cut is an intact piece of healthy muscle tissue, steak or chop, and its surface has been thoroughly cooked: bacteria are on the meat surfaces, not inside.”

Harold McGee

This means that your whole cuts of beef must reach an EXTERNAL temperature exceeding 160°F. You’re standard methods of cooking, such as grilling, braising, sautéing, smoking, etc., will raise the surface temperature far past 160°F. You know this because meat begins to brown at 230°F. Since the harmful bacteria live on the surface of the meat, people rarely become ill from rare or medium-rare beef.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest that you take additional caution when cooking food for more at-risk people. This includes the elderly, children under 7, and any immuno-compromised persons. In these cases, we suggest following the USDA guidelines.

Ground Meat Guideline

When the meat is no longer a single muscle but is now ground up, the internal and external temperatures no longer apply. Harold McGee says, “Ground meats are riskier because the contaminated meat surface is broken into small fragments and spread through the mass. The interior of a raw hamburger usually does contain bacteria and is safest if cooked well done.”

E. coli isn’t killed until the meat reaches 155°F; therefore, the USDA sets the minimum safe temperature for ground beef at 160°F. We couldn’t agree more. Anytime you cook a ground beef product, cook it until the internal temperature reaches 160°F.

If you liked what you learned here and would like to learn more, read When Are Your Ribs Done and How Do You Know?