The most important tool that a bar-b-que cook needs is a good thermometer. In fact, a bar-b-que cook needs more than one. Because to really produce a good final product, the cook needs to monitor the temperature of the BBQ pit, and the food.

Most commercial pits come with one or more thermometers. But the accuracy of these dial thermometers is dubious. Meathead over at Amazing Ribs has one of the best articles on BBQ thermometers ever written on his site. You should read it. Now. Go on….

I agree with his assessment that the ThermaPen by ThermoWorks is the best instant-read thermometer and I own one myself. I even recommend it in my own list of must-have BBQ equipment. There will come a time in your BBQ career though when you will want to simultaneously monitor the temperature of two separate things to a high degree of accuracy. Like the temperature of the pit and the shoulder cooking in it. Or the temperature of the grill and the juicy T-bone you have on it.

Model TW8060 2-channel thermocouple sensor.

For this very application, ThermoWorks has come t the rescue again. My newest addition is their new model TW8060 2K Two-Channel Thermocouple With Alarm. Here is a pic of it in action during my recent summer BBQ party. It worked fantastically over two days simultaneously monitoring my pit and my food.

The coolest thing about this device, and what sets it apart from the BBQ thermometers you buy in the store is that this is simply a read-out for any standard industrial/commercial Type-K thermocouple. And ThermoWorks sells a bunch of different ones for whatever application you need, from simple food probes that work as fast as the ThemaPen to ceramic-sheathed probes which cam measure up to 2500°F. There is a sampling of available probes on the TW8060 page linked directly above.

I bought mine with two probes – the 113-177 smokehouse penetration probe which I leave in whatever I am cooking and the 8468-22 hi-temp alligator clip oven probe (good to 950°F). The alligator clip probe clips right t my smoker or grill grate and gives me a temperature right down by the food where I need it. Both performed flawlessly through 12 hours of shoulder, 5 hours of ribs, and 4 hours of bacon cooking. You can set a high and low alarm point for one channel which I used for my pit temperature. But if you wanted to, you could easily use this with dual food probes and monitor things cooking on different areas of your grill at the same time. Or multiple pit probes to look for hot spots.

The unit itself is inexpensive at only $69 + tax and shipping direct from ThermoWorks, but you will also have to buy two thermocouple probes and they are expensive. The smokehouse probe I bought costs $52 and the alligator clip probe costs $59. But for accurate measurements I can’t think of anyone besides ThermoWorks who makes this kind of quality equipment available to the home cook. And, their customer service is second to none. My interaction with them when I placed my order was excellent. I placed it on the web and the alligator clip probe was listed as out of stock. The site said t order anyway and a representative would contact me. Sure enough the next day I heard from someone named Lisa via e-mail and she was extremely helpful in exploring other probe options and telling me what was available and when they expected their backorder to be available. I couldn’t have been happier with their service.

28 lbs. of great shoulder!

All of this leads up to the results … using this new temperature monitor I cranked out 28 lbs. of about the best shoulder I’ve ever made. Thanks ThermoWorks!

So if you’re looking for a versatile tool to add to your arsenal I recommend the TW8060 from ThermoWorks. With the right selection of thermocouple probes you can have a highly accurate instant-read food thermometer, a BBQ pit thermometer, a grill thermometer, and even a high-temp oven thermometer for something like a wood-fired pizza oven. Nothing you are going to find in your local hardware or cooking store is going to match that kind of versatility.

Go out and get yourself one of these!

In the world of Bar-B-Que there are a lot of debates. Beef or pork? Ribs, shoulder, or whole hog? Memphis or Carolina? North or South? On which side of these questions you fall ultimately determines your own personal style. But for someone new to Bar-B-Que, these questions can be quite daunting. And distracting. So much time is spent arguing and discussing the merits of one or another style, technique, or trick that people often lose sight of what’s important. No matter how you look at it, the essence of Bar-B-Que is the control of heat and the application of smoke. These are the techniques which must be mastered. The rest you can play with for the rest of your life quite happily.

In case there are people new to Bar-B-Que who find there way to this blog, welcome. I thought I’d take some time to outline the areas of debate, and the pros and cons as I see them, of the classic debates. Then you can decide for yourself. To set some boundaries though, understand that I am talking about pork Bar-B-Que for now.

Ribs or Shoulder or Whole Hog

Each of these requires a different technique and each is tricky and rewarding in its own right. I assume you’re reading this because you want to cook some tasty food for family and friends. If you have competitive aspirations, then follow what the rules and customs of your competition circuit dictate. But for your own fun and pleasure, read on.

As one moves from ribs to shoulder to whole hog, things get harder. But not because of changes in technique. The difficulty is purely a matter pf practicality and logistics. A whole hog is big. It requires a big pit to smoke it, a big cold place to store it, and a lot of people to eat it. Ribs are small and manageable. Fundamentally, they are cooked the same way: low heat and smoke is maintained for long enough to bring the internal temperature of the meat to completion. The hard part for a whole hog is that one needs to maintain the right temperature in a big pit for many hours. Baby back ribs on the other hand can be made very well in a regular kitchen range in an afternoon.

So ultimately the answer to this is: do what you have the room for and the ability to perfect over time. Sure, you might be able to convince your buddies to build a temporary pit and do a whole hog with you, but you’ll probably get one chance to get it right and then never do it again for a decade. Ribs on the other hand you can make 10 times a year in a small kettle grill, so in a couple of years you’ll get really good and be the envy of your friends.

For me, ribs and shoulder fit well in the space and time I have. Maybe when I’m retired I can do a couple of hogs a year, but for now, ribs and shoulder are my main focus.

To Mop or Not to Mop

This is a debate as old as Bar-B-Que. Should your meat be mopped during cooking? The advocates say that mopping is critical to the flavor of the meat. The detractors say that it is an unnecessary waste of time that destroys the formation of a good “bark” on the outside of smoked meat. I fall somewhere in the middle. But there is an important warning that is often left out of the equation: mopping lengthens the cooking time. Each time you want to mop the meat you have to open the pit and heat escapes. It takes some time to come back up to temperature. Not to mention that the evaporating mop cools the meat itself.

For me this is a matter of time. Mopping ribs in the first couple of hours of cooking can easily add 1 to 2 hours to the total cooking time. So whether I mop or not is usually dictated more by the time I have than anything else.

Membrane On or Off (ribs)

Most people take the membrane off the back of a slab of ribs. This makes them easier to separate and more tender. But some people actually like it, especially when it cooks up crunchy. As Bar-B-Que has become popular in recent years, more people are being exposed to it. And most of these people don’t like the membrane. So it has become the custom pretty much everywhere to remove the membrane.

The AmazingRibs.com site probably has the best paragraph on this subject I’ve ever read:

The membrane can also get very tough and chewy, especially if you cook hot, and if you cook low and slow, it can sometimes get rubbery. You can just make slits in it and some fat will drain, but you still have the texture issue. In competitions, if you leave it on, you lose. In some subcultures it is common to leave it on, especially if it is cooked to crunchy. A lot of restaurants just can’t be bothered to remove it. But more and more people expect you to yank it and if you don’t they think your a rube or impolite. It’s like de-veining a shrimp. Skip it at the risk of deprecation.

What Sauce?

This is a never-ending debate. In my opinion it doesn’t matter. People love a good sauce so I usually give my guests a couple of choices ranging from a simple North Carolina ketchup, vinegar, and hot pepper flake sauce to a couple of bottles from Sweet Baby Ray’s or Bulls Eye. I occasionally even make a South Carolina mustard sauce. But at the end of the day your ribs should stand on their own.

The Final Product

I’m a big fan of dry-aged beef. At least compared to wet-aged beef. But I was always under the impression that individual cuts couldn’t be aged by themselves — whole primal cuts were the smallest that could be safely aged at home.

But in the March 2010 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine, they talked about a method of aging individual steaks at home (membership required)  by wrapping them in cheese cloth. From their article:

To try replicating these results at home on a smaller scale, we bought rib-eye and strip steaks (each $10.99 per pound) and stored them in the back of the refrigerator, where the temperature is coldest. Since home refrigerators are less humid than the commercial units used for dry-aging, we wrapped the steaks in cheesecloth to allow air to pass through while also preventing excessive dehydration and checked them after four days (the longest length of time we felt comfortable storing raw beef in a home fridge).

I thought I’d give this a try, at least for a couple of days at first, rather than four.

After 2 Days in The Fridge

And believe it or not, it worked well. I took a nice organic t-bone steak, wrapped it up in cheesecloth, and put it in the back of the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. I left it for two days and then salted it and cooked it up. And I felt that it was comparable to dry-aged steak that I buy from my local Whole Foods. It was definitely richer and more tender than a regular steak. As Cook’s said:

Sure enough, four days of dry-aging in a home fridge gave the steaks a comparably smoky flavor and dense, tender texture. As long as you remember to wrap the meat in plenty of cheesecloth, place it on a wire rack for air circulation, and store it in the coldest part of the fridge, you can skip shelling out extra money for commercially aged cow.

I will definitely do this again — in fact, I may never eat another steak without aging it for at least a little while. I suggest giving this a try if you like dry-aged beef.

Update 6/5/2010

Alton Brown recently aired an episode of Good Eats (“Porterhouse Rules”) where he described a similar method. Only he made  a home made rig to hold the steak using pie plates and wrapped it in paper towels instead of cheese cloth. But with two of my favorite sources of food information agreeing that this will work, I’m satisfied that it will work. You can find the recipe for the episode here.

Now What?

Get out there and grill some steaks! Yes, that is a picture of my own grilled porterhouse at the top of this post. Interested in grillmarks? Read about my opinion here.

Springtime is just around the corner, and just as I am often asked about what equipment someone should buy for their grilling friend/spouse/neighbor, I am also asked by people about what kind of grill someone should get. Gas grill, charcoal grill, wood smoker, electric smoker, or some hybrid device? Believe it or not, this can be a complex question. Hopefully, I can help sort it out for you.

Your basic choices are:

Grills

• Charcoal
• Gas
  - Traditional
  - Infrared

Smokers

• Vertical/water
• Horizontal / dedicated pit
• Electric

Hybrid

• Ceramic
• Grill/smoker Combinations

As always, there are myriad factors effecting this decision. Each of the devices listed above is better at one aspect of cooking than another. Rarely can a single device prove competent at the wide range of tasks from cold-smoking salmon and sausage to hot-smoking ribs and pulled pork to grilling vegetables and fish at low heat to searing a steak. So the first question to be answered is this:

What kinds of food will you cook and how often?

The main division is between grilling and smoking, because these techniques are done at such divergent temperatures – grilling typically above 350°F (and searing meat above 700°F) while smoking is done at or just below 250°F. With few exceptions, a grill with the burner capacity to heat to 700°F will not easily maintain a low temperature of 225°F. And of course, having multiple specialized devices is best, but other considerations will affect this.

Next, you need to answer the one question that affects everything:

How much money are you willing to spend?

The simplest small charcoal grill can cost as little as $20 and make a decent steak once and a while. Yet you can also drop $20,000 or more on a large custom BBQ Pit. The amount you spend is limited only by how much you have.

Finally, there are some logistics that come into play:

How much room do you have?

Most people are limited by the space available to store their toys. Either the size of their deck or patio or the space in the garage is going to limit the number of pieces of equipment you’re going to buy.

The Pros & Cons

So, factoring in all the information above, what’s the recommendation? That’s still a tough decision. I’ll start with what I own and why, and then make some recommendations.

My Stable of Grilling and Smoking Devices

1. A Char-Broil RED 4-burner infrared gas grill. I bought this grill three years ago when the 2008 models first came out and I have been absolutely thrilled with the results. This is the first grill I have ever personally used that can get to 800° F and sear a steak, and also hold a steady 250° F temperature and turn out competent bar-b-que. I have written extensively about this grill in the Char-Broil forum on my favorite message board, the BBQ Source. Since this is such a versatile grill, it’s a good foundation to build from.One word of caution: after the initial debut of this grill in 2008, several quality problems have been reported, particularly with the similar but smaller 3-burner model of this grill. The issues are well documented in the Char-Broil forum mentioned above, but please check into the issues before buying!
2. 

   Modified NBBD Smoker

   New Braunfels Black Diamond smoker. I bought this in 2002 when I moved into my current house. It has taken some modification, but it’s now a competent bar-b-que pit. Every year I break it out in the summer to smoke for my Carnivore’s Carnival. The first five years I did four racks of pork ribs at a time. Last year I added pulled pork to the menu and did two shoulders and four racks of ribs. The smoker performed flawlessly for two days straight (14 hours for the shoulder and 6 hours for the ribs). This smoker is now sold as the Char-Broil Silver Smoker mentioned above.

3. Brinkmann Smoke-n-Pit vertical water smoker. I’ve had this for about 10 years now. The Smoke-n-Pit was the first real wood smoker I ever had the gave me the first confidence that I could produce real bar-b-que ribs by myself. Unfortunately, I haven’t used it since I bought my Black Diamond. But this was the device that got me and my friends hooked on bar-b-que, so I make sure it stays sheltered in my garage. At one point in my life, this was also the grill that let me eat good food when I had, literally, no money to my name. My first one was a gift from a friend and was well used. But an hour with an electric drill and wire brush and one can of high-temp paint and it was back in working order. When the food budget was low, I cooked hamburger and cheap pork cuts over a fire built from branches from the trees in my yard. I had several apple trees and the apple-smoked pork loin was amazing.
4. Bradley Digital Smoker. This is my newest purchase, and it’s only a month old. But I already love it. The Bradley is, IMHO, better than the Mastrbuilt because the smoke generator is a separate unit and this facilitates cold smoking better. It makes a decent hot smoker, but is really the only choice (other than a custom built device) for cold smoking. In fact, I have a nice salmon fillet that cured in salt and sugar for 12 hours waiting to go into my Bradley as I write this.

Great, So What do I buy?

OK – here are my recommendations.

If You Want to Cook and Hot Smoke

If your budget is unlimited, you can have the best of everything. Of course I recommend the equipment I have – a good quality gas grill, a dedicated smoker, and a nice electric smoker for convenience.

But if you have a medium budget — like $400 to $600, I recommend starting with a good gas grill with at least an infrared searing burner. Many people have luck with Chinese produced grills from the big-box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot. Just read the imported grill message board at the BBQ Source forums and you’ll get an idea about what’s working in any given year.

If you are really limited in budget, I recommend a good charcoal grill, like a Weber kettle. A One Touch Silver starts at $89.99 retail, and as long as you are willing to put in the work, you can learn good fire control techniques and sear steaks and make passable bar-b-que all on the same grill.

The Only Thing I Smoke are Marlboros … What Grill Should I Buy?

If you want to improve your grilling technique the single best thing you can do is invest in something that allows you to really control the heat. Most cheap gas grills don’t allow this: even turning their knobs through a full range only changes the burners from really hot to very hot. So, if you have the budget, I’d recommend a good quality gas grill. And note that good quality doesn’t mean stainless steel. Stainless is a convenience feature — it does nothing to aid cooking. Weber gas grills have a great following. Jenn-Air used to have a loyal following, but I’ve read that their grills have declined in quality over the last couple of years. A company called Nexgrill makes a few models under different brands (sold at Costco and Sam’s Club for instance) and while a lot of their stuff seems like junk, a number of the people on the BBQ Source seem happy with them. Realize though, that a decent grill these days starts at ~ $600 and goes to $2000. If your budget is more modest, I recommend looking for a used deal on Craigslist and putting a little elbow grease into cleaning it up.

I Have the Grill … I Want to Smoke.

If you just want the end product and have the budget, an electric smoker can allow you to experiment with everything from sausage to ribs to shoulder to fish. For versatility and convenience, an electric smoker can’t be beat.

But, electric smokers aren’t the best for real, large cuts of bar-b-que like ribs and shoulder. For this you need something that burns wood (or charcoal). A cheap offset horizontal smoker is usually the way to start, but you can buy a pit that stretches any budget. Running a wood pit requires a commitment … smoking shoulder can mean 14 to 18 hours of tending a fire every 30 minutes to keep a constant temperature. But the reward is worth it. Nothing makes the great tasting bark on a shoulder like a long slow smoke over real hardwood.

It's Winter Here in Massachusetts

The other day I watched a show on Food Network about the 2009 World Chili Championships, in Reno, Nevada. Over the course of the hour I learned a lot about what sacrifices people make for “competition chili” versus regular chili. Like having only three hours to get everything cooked and insisting that the finished chili be smooth and absent any chunky tomatoes, onions, or peppers.

Kind of like bar-b-que, there are probably as many chili recipes as there are chili cooks. The International Chili Society, which conducts the World Championships, has an interesting rule: each year’s winner must publish their recipe so the rest of the world’s chili cooks can see what won. No secrets! That’s pretty cool.

I looked over some of the winners and realized that my own personal chili style kind of fit the general championship theme: rich chili pepper base; minimal green peppers and onions; and real beef cut into small cubes rather than ground beef.

But I also realized that many of the winners worked through various rituals and additions of ingredients that simply made no sense to me — they must be based on superstition rather than actual experimentation. So using some of the recipes I found on the Chili Society’s website as inspiration, I decided to adapt my own chili recipe to see if I could come up with something good.

My basic thinking:

• Chili peppers should form a rich base. Chili powder should be home made as much as possible.
• The tomato base should be strong and not watery.
• Meat should have “tooth,” that is, be bite-able and chewable, not mushy like over cooked ground beef.
• There should be a complex heat, but not mouth-burning.

So here’s the recipe I came up with.

Ingredients

• 6 dried ancho chili peppers¹
• 2 dried cascabel chili peppers¹
• 2 dried arbol chili peppers¹
• 2 special dried hot Hungarian peppers²
• 1 T cumin seed
• Kosher salt
• 2 lbs. sirloin, cut into 1/4 to 3/8 in cubes²
• 4 slices smoked bacon
  
• 1 – 2 T Worchestershire sauce
• 2 cans Ro-Tel tomato & chili pepper mix
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 15 oz. can beef broth/stock⁴
• 1 15 oz. can chicken broth/stock⁴
• 4 cloves garlic, minced fine
• 1/2 C green bell pepper, chopped fine
• 1/2 C white or yellow onion, chopped fine
• 1 – 4 T light brown sugar
• 1 -2 T masa harina (fine ground corn meal) or corn starch (to thicken if necessary)

Preperation

Build the Chili Powder Base

1. Heat your oven to 325° F. (Or optionally heat a cast iron skillet on the stove top on medium-high heat.)
2. Spread the chili peppers on a baking sheet.
3. Toast in the oven for 10 minutes, or until dry and fragrant.
4. Remove peppers and let cool. Turn off oven.
5. Spread cumin seed on hot tray, and return to  hot oven for 5 min. (oven is off — residual heat will roast seeds).
6. Remove stems and seeds from peppers.
7. Crumble peppers into spice grinder in two separate batches:
8. In one batch, grind cascabel, arbol, and hot hungarian peppers (this will be HOT chili powder)
9. In other batch, grind ancho chilis
10. Grind toasted cumin seed

Brown the Beef

1. Chop the bacon into small pieces and place in a pot over low heat. Cook until crispy and the fat has rendered.
2. Add the beef, being careful not to crowd the pot. Add a pinch or two of kosher salt and let brown.
3. Remove to a separate bowl.

Sweat the Base

1. Add more oil/bacon fat to the pan if necessary, and dump in the onions and peppers. Add a pinch of salt.
2. Cook until translucent, stirring occasionally (~10 min).
3. Add the garlic and stir for another minute.

Bloom the Chili Powder

1. Add most of the ancho chili powder to the pot and stir (I reserve about 1 T in case I need to adjust the seasoning later).
2. Add the ground cumin (again, reserving some to adjust seasoning later).
3. Add between 1/2 and all of the arbol/cascabel chili powder (to taste — the more the hotter the final chili will be).
4. Keep stirring for a minute or two until the whole mixture is fragrant.

Begin the Simmer

1. Deglaze the pan by adding one can of beef stock and turning the heat up to high.
2. Stir to release all the fond from the bottom of the pan.
3. Return the meat to the pot.
4. Add the Worcestershire sauce, 1 can of Ro-Tel, and tomato paste. Stir.
5. Bring the pot to a simmer, and let cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, and adding chicken stock as necessary to keep everything covered and loose in the pot.

Bring it Home

1. After 2 hours, add the second can of Ro-Tel.
2. Adjust the salt as necessary.
3. Simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, add the brown sugar, one Tablespoon at a time, until the desired sweetness is reached. (I usually use 1 – 2 T total).
5. Let cook for another 30 minutes.
6. After 30 minutes, thicken with either cornstarch dissolved in chicken stock  or straight masa harina.

Notes

¹ I usually get my peppers from Penzey’s Spices, at http://www.penzeys.com.

² I don’t know the actual name of the peppers I use. Many years ago my father and his friends brought seeds for these peppers to the US from Hungary on one of their trips home. My family (I’m actually the only one left) has been growing them ourselves for at least 40 years. They do very well in northern climates. They are about 4″ long maybe as thick as your pinky finger when fully grown, and turn from a dark green to a rich red. When green they are very hot. When red they are nearly unbearable. When dried they put other peppers to shame. The closest thing I can commonly find is a Thai chili. These peppers are legendary among my friends who appreciate hot food.

³ You can use many cuts for this. Competitive chili cooks appear to have nearly universally standardized on tri-tip as the meat of choice, but I tend to go with whatever my butcher or supermarket has on special. I’ve used general sirloin roasts, top sirloin, or whatever. I stay away from any stew meats or chuck roasts for this.

⁴ Lately I seem to be using Swanson “Stock for Cooking,” but any quality broth will do.

Full disclosure - I got the picture from Wikimedia Commons. I usually eat my food rather than photograph it.

Grilling continues to gain popularity in the United States. And message boards all over the internet are alive with people asking how to achieve the perfect grill marks on their steaks. Grill marks are those blackened lines on a grilled steak, often in a diamond pattern when seen in a restaurant or on the Food Network. Most people quest for these grill marks believing that they offer the final aesthetic touch to their food. And there are all sorts of hints and tips and processes discussed for how to go about getting them.

But these people are missing the point. Grill marks are not created as part of the perfect grilling process. They are the result of the perfect grilling process. Grill marks are not made — they emerge when things are done well. They are a symbol of perfection.

What’s required to achieve this perfection? Many things must ace in harmony to enable these marks:

1. Proper heat: the grill must be hot enough to sear the meat and create the Maillard reaction, but not so hot that the part of the meat not touching the grates is also charred. This also requires flame / flare-up control. Thus, grill marks indicate that the cook understands heat control.
2. Proper heat transfer: well defined grill marks are produced when the grill grates can transfer a sufficient amount of heat over a sufficient amount of time into the meat to enable the browning reaction. Not all grates can do this. Cheap thin grates do not have enough thermal mass to build up a reservoir of heat to maintain the temperature necessary. And shiny, smooth grates don’t have enough surface area to enable the reaction. So showpiece grills made to look nice don’t work. Real tools are required — a quality grill with heavy (usually cast iron) grates is necessary. And these grills require more care and effort than something made of shiny stainless steel. Thus, grill marks signify that the cook has invested in quality equipment.
3. Grill marks are achieved with a minimum of movement of the meat. Again, this relates to heat control. The meat must be left in one position long enough to allow the grates to sear the lines in the meat, but not so long that the lines burn or the rest of the meat cooks too much. To achieve the diamond pattern, one rotation on each side is required.  Then the meat is flipped and the technique is repeated on the other side. Why a single turn and a diamond pattern? Because, a grill cooks through several heat transfer methods (conduction, convection, radiation, etc.) but conduction is a critical component and the most efficient. So putting the meat on a grill with sufficiently hot grates and leaving it without a rotation would result in areas touching the grates cooked more than other areas not touching the grates. So the meat must be moved at least once to even out the cooking process. Therefore, the bare minimum number of movements for a perfect steak is four: on the grill, rotate, flip, rotate, serve. More than four movements result in lines all over the steak. While making five or eight or ten movements might not make much of a difference on your home grill, for a professional working dozens of steaks at a time, efficiency is paramount. Too many movements and the cook won’t be able to keep up with all the orders. Thus, grill marks signify the cook’s mastery of the cooking process. Diamond grill marks show that the cook understands the heat, equipment, and technique well enough to properly cook a steak with a minimum number of movements.

So if you want to know how to get good looking grill marks on your steaks, it’s simple. Get good equipment. Learn to control the heat properly. Practice knowing how long to cook a steak. Master these things and the grill marks will come on their own.

What do grill marks demonstrate? That the cook knows what he or she is doing. The ultimate test: when a cook can put multiple steaks on the grill and cook them all to different requested levels (rare, medium, etc.), each with four movements, and with even grill marks so that the lines in each direction and on both sides are all the same color. That is the mark of a master.

The New York Times published an article on 6/11/09 that once again named poultry as the largest source of food poisoning in the US. Also listed as causes of illness: vegetables. In fact, the article had this to say:

Researchers counted leafy vegetables, fungi, root vegetables, sprouts and vegetables from vines or stalks as separate categories. Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, noted that if all of the produce categories were combined, outbreaks associated with vegetables would have far exceeded those in poultry.

Of all the food categories mentioned in the article, one was absent: hamburger. In fact, it wasn’t even mentioned.

So, as I said in my original hamburger post, most people won’t get sick from a rare burger.

Found this while searching the web the other day. As I stated in my hamburger post, I think that most published recommendations related to food safety are overly conservative. An article I found in the NY Times from back in 1997 had this to say:

“The health advice that is offered by the Federal Government is the one-size-fits-all variety. But when it comes to their own lives, many of the same public health officials who warn about the dire consequences of eating foods like hollandaise or pink hamburgers say one thing for official consumption and do another in private.”

Also,

“But except for chickens, a recent test of 70 food samples by The New York Times suggests that very little food is contaminated.”

And finally,

“Of eight experts interviewed, five admitted that they do not follow Federal food safety guidelines to the letter. But officially they take a narrower view, because few Americans are as well informed as they are about the risks. The officials maintain that they carefully weigh the choices when they engage in what one called ‘slightly risky behavior.’ Still, not all of them would speak to this point on the record.”

And remember, this article was written in 1997, when contamination was worse than it is now. I’m not sure I can say much more …

As I wrote in my rare hamburger post, I think that people’s fear of getting sick from undercooked ground beef is overblown. The other day I was in the supermarket and I saw something that got me almost as worked up as the message board post. Standing in the chicken section, a woman was about to pick up a whole bird, totally wrapped in plastic. Then she paused, walked past me, around the corner to the vegetable section, and came back with a plastic vegetable bag. She turned it inside out, pulled it over her hand, and only then did she pick up the chicken wrapping the already plastic wrapped bird in another layer of plastic.

Are you fucking kidding me? It’s not toxic waste! It’s a chicken. I’m not saying that you should lick it, but what kind of mind-bending brainwashing does it take to make someone so utterly terrified of their food that they treat it like it’s a biohazard. Actually, probably more carefully than a biohazard because I’m betting she doesn’t glove up or wrap her hand in plastic when she wipes her ass.

I was stunned. Appalled. Dumbfounded.

So I decided to do a little research into the actual chances of contracting salmonella from a typical supermarket chicken. I’m betting that they’re higher than getting sick from a rare hamburger, but certainly not deserving of this kind of treatment.

So here it goes …. how safe is our chicken?

Turns out, it’s probably not very safe at all. Probably the main test of consumer chicken has been done by Consumer Reports magazine, which found in 2007 that 87% of supermarket chickens were contaminated with either campylobacter or salmonella or both.¹ While disturbing, the presence of some amount of bacteria doesn’t necessarily translate directly to sickness potential. In order to cause illness, there must be a certain concentration of bacteria and you must consume a minimum number before illness is guaranteed. In susceptible individuals that seems to be at least 400 to 500 bacteria² but more in most people. In fact, the amount of contamination required to cause noticeable illness varies widely depending on the organism (eg. campylobacter or salmonella), the age of the individual, any underlying medical conditions, and even what they eat along with the contaminated food.³

Unlike my hamburger conclusions then, it’s hard to say how safe things are. We know that chickens are likely contaminated. And we know that some varying amount of that contamination could make you sick. But unlike hamburgers, I don’t hear anyone asking for or advocating serving rare chicken. So until I dig up a little more information, my guess is that there won’t be enough bacteria on the outside of a wrapped chicken to make you sick, but if the person doing the picking had issues then maybe the caution is justified in her case.

But you certainly won’t see me double bagging my poultry any time soon.

² Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins Handbook, US FDA Center for Food Safet & Applied Nutrition, http://www.foodsafety.gov/~mow/chap4.html. Retrieved 6/2/2009

³ http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/environmental/foodsafety/ref_manual/chap_3.pdf

The other day a topic popped up on my favorite BBQ message board about undercooked hamburgers. If you don’t want to click the link and read the details, the basic gist is that the poster invited some guests to a cookout. The poster made a dish and the guest made a “teriyaki burger.” The guest wanted to serve the burgers with the centers cooked only to 115°. This really upset the poster who insisted to his guest that this was unsafe and that his kids were forbidden from eating them. He was so upset by this that he asked the forum whether violence was justified against his guest! Within the first 12 hours after the post, the forum consensus ranged from “serving burgers that rare is child abuse” to “you should have punched him.”

Ever the contrarian, I decided to jump in and defend the guest, saying that much of today’s fear about undercooked ground beef is way overblown. And rare burgers are fine if one understands the risks and accepts them willingly. Because the people at the BBQ Source are nice and civil, the debate remained subdued. But it’s clear that, at least in that forum, I am in a minority. So I set about researching the topic and trying to build my case. Rather than monopolize the forum, I’ve decided to build it here.

My Argument

1. Food safety guidelines published by the Government and other organizations are too conservative because they are either:
   • Designed to limit legal liability.
   • Designed by the Government to eliminate the greatest amount of risk for all segments of the population.
   • Based on commercial practices which are ultra-conservative in order to limit the impact of large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness.
2. The incidence of illness caused by E coli and other pathogens, while significant, is low, and comparable to other dangerous activities in normal life which people routinely discount.
3. Most ground beef in the US is processed safely and the large scale of many food recalls is caused not by evidence that beef is contaminated, but rather a desire to “be safe” at all costs.

The Pathogens

So, what is everyone so worried about? There are three primary pathogenic organisms that food safety types worry about in ground beef¹:

1. E coli (generic)
2. Salmonella
3. E coli O157:H7

Listeria, Campylobactr, and others are occasionally mentioned, but the three above are clearly the main causes of food poisoning from ground beef.

Current Guidelines

The world is full of guidelines for safely cooking ground beef. Basically, all suggest cooking ground beef to at least 160° to deactivate most bacteria ^1,2. But 160° also renders a burger pretty tough, particularly if it was made from 85% or 90% lean beef.

Concessions

I am most certainly not going to argue that cooking ground beef to 160° isn’t safer than cooking it to 120°. That is clearly not the case. But I do believe it is overkill and that cooking a burger very rare is most definitely not child abuse or worthy of physical violence.

Argument

Contamination of Ground Beef is Declining

First, contrary to what is shown on the news, I believe the incidence of ground beef contamination is relatively low, and in spite of the popular perception, I believe that the incidence of contamination has been going down for the last several years. As evidence, various trustworthy sources say:

• During 1996-2003, the estimated incidence of Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli O157, Salmonella, and Yersinia infections declined substantially. ³
• FSIS [Food Safety Inspection Service of the USDA] reported declines in the frequency of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of ground beef for 2003. ⁴
• The estimated annual incidence of several infections declined significantly from 1996-1998 to 2005. ⁵

Although there have been a few small upticks ⁶, the general trend is that food inspection is getting better and the incidence of contamination is decreasing.

So what are the actual chances of contamination?

Probability of Getting Sick is Low

One model predicted an annual probability of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (the common effect of E coli; see this article) of 3.7 x 10^-6 and a probability of mortality of 1.9 x 10^-7 per meal for the very young^{. 7} I interpret this as saying, in a vulnerable population (children), the chances of exposure to pathogenic E coli which will cause illness are roughly .00037% and the chance of resulting death is .000019%. This is effectively 0 until populations get large (like the 304,000,000 people in the US). I do understand that this includes burgers cooked in all stages and would be higher for rare burgers. But it does provide a good baseline perspective.

The important question is how does one relate the chance of contamination to cooking temperature? After all, this discussion was started by a burger cooked to only 115°. One USDA publication ⁸ referenced a paper ⁹ which addressed this via a predictive model for E coli contamination based on cooked temperature. Here’s what they had to say:

The model’s median probabilities of infection from E. coli O157:H7 are 51 per million at 130°F, 0.88 per million at 145°F, and 0.07 per million at 155°F.

Elsewhere, they mention that the relationship between the probability of contamination and cooking temperature is inverse and exponential. So after plotting the three data points, I used Excel to regress a line through them and came up with the following equation:

P_c = 4E + 12e^-0.264T where P_c is the probability of contamination as a % and T is the temperature in Farenheit. (R² = 0.9997.)

Solving this for a temperature of 115°, we get a probability of 0.26%. Now that’s not 0 by any stretch, but it’s also nowhere near 100%, so it hardly qualifies as child abuse. And, since this model was built in 1998 and contamination values have declined significantly since then, the 0.26% probability can be considered an absolute worst case.

So, let’s put that percentage into some perspective. Here are the probabilities of some other events for comparison.

Probability of being struck by lightning in the US (annual): 0.00035% ¹⁰
Annual probability of dying in a car crash: 0.02% ¹³
Annual probability of dying from a heart attack: 0.15% ¹⁴
Annual risk of a male smoker developing cancer (assuming a 78 year lifetime and smoking began at age 18): 0.16% ¹¹
Annual risk of having a heart attack: 0.41% ¹⁵.

That last one is particularly relevant. If you’re looking for a reason not to eat an undercooked hamburger, it should probably be to avoid a heart attack, not because you’re afraid of food poisoning.

Most Beef is Processed Safely

There is widespread acceptance that grinding one’s own beef from a large primal cut is safer than eating pre-ground beef. ¹⁷ I’m not really sure this is true — unless you practice good hygiene at home you’re re just as likely to spread surface contamination to the inside of your meat as a grinder in a big packing house, but nonetheless, people believe this to be true. I contend however, that my local supermarket, which grinds it’s own ground beef from large cuts, is more likely than I am to practice good hygiene, since they have inspectors and lawyers looking over their shoulder. And since most ground beef sold for retail is ground in the store, most ground beef that consumers buy is relatively safely made by their neighbor working in the meat market rather then cooked up in some distant, dirty slaughterhouse. ^{1, 2} One more reason why we shouldn’t overly fear a rare hamburger!

Conclusion

All things in life are best evaluated from an informed perspective. The problem is that good information is hard to find. There is a ton of information written by people, or more likely their lawyers, which all but guarantees that you won’t get sick after cooking your hamburger to the consistency of a truck tire. But no one bothers to tell you that you likely wouldn’t have gotten sick anyway, even if you left a little juice in the burger. And that’s my conclusion: since most ground beef isn’t contaminated in the first place, and cooking it to a reasonable 130° reduces the risk of illness close enough to 0 (for me anyway), eat a nice juicy burger and worry about the heart attack it’s probably going to cause instead. The main issue at play here is of course is the “Availability Heuristic:” people’s tendency to over-value unlikely but memorable events and under-value familiar events when making decisions. ¹⁶

For me, this boils down to an individual’s tolerance for risk, and while eating a raw burger might be more risky than sitting quietly and reading a book, it’s by no means the riskiest thing most of us do. Of all places, the European Food Information Council had probably the best summary:

Data from the United States shows that there is an approximate annual probability of dying from foodborne illness of 3.6 in 100,000 [0.0036%]. This is 7 times greater than the risk of dying from tuberculosis in the US each year and 100 times greater than the risk of dying from floods. On the other hand, this risk is 78 times lower than the probability of dying from heart disease, 57 times lower than dying from cancer and 4 times lower than dying from motor vehicle accidents. Even the mere act of eating food poses an annual risk of dying from choking of 5 in one million [0.0005%].

Everything we do in life poses some degree of risk. Attitudes to foodborne and other risks should be based on well-informed decision-making and science rather than allowing sensationalised media stories to lead us to believe that the risk is greater than it actually is. ¹²

Now, I have a confession to make: I prefer a nice burger done on a griddle to medium with a nice crust on the outside. But, if I have to grill a burger, I prefer it rare (pink) in the middle and I have eaten hundreds of rare burgers in my life.

So, what do I do in my own grilling:

1. This may be the most important part: I ask people how they like their burgers and cook them that way. I people want a well-done hockey puck, so be it. When left up to me though, here are my guidelines:
2. For vulnerable populations (old people, kids, pregnant women, etc.) I cook burgers to a nice medium all the way through.
3. When using pre-made patties, I aim for medium-rare, with a hint of pink in the center.
4. If using fresh ground beef from my supermarket, I leave a nice juicy pink in the center.

Your own tolerance for risk may vary, but from now on I hope this helps you decide from a position of knowledge rather than one of fear. Happy grilling.

References

¹ Fact Sheet: Pathogen Control in Ground Beef, American Meat Institute, http://www.meatsafety.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/2168

² Focus on Ground Beef, USDA Fact Sheet, http://www.fsis.usda.gov/fact_sheets/Ground_Beef_and_Food_Safety/index.asp

³ Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection: Editorial Note, Medscape Today, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/474981_2

⁴ Holt KG, Levine P, Naugle AL, Eckel R., Food Safety and Inspection Service Microbiological Testing Program for Escherichia coli O157 in Ground Beef Products, U.S., October 1994-September 2003. In: Program and Abstracts Book of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2004. Atlanta, Georgia: International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2004:100.

⁵ Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection With Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food—10 States, United States, 2005, Journal of the American Medical Association, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/19/2241

⁶ FAPC Provides Advice on Approach to Current Concerns with E. coli O157:H7* on Raw Meat Products, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, University of Oklahoma, http://www.fapc.okstate.edu/ecoli.html

⁷ Cassin, Lammerding, Todd, Ross, & McColl, Quantitative risk assessment for Escherichia coli O157:H7 in ground beef hamburgers, Int J Food Microbiol. 1998 May 5;41(1):21-44.)

⁸ Ralston,Katherine; Brent, C. Philip; Starke, Yolanda; Riggins, Toija; and Lin, C.T. Jordan. Consumer Food Safety Behavior: A Case Study in Hamburger Cooking and Ordering, USDA Agricultural Economic Report No. (AER804), May 2002. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer804/

⁹ Marks, Harry M., Margaret E. Coleman, C.-T. Jordan Lin, and Tanya Roberts, Topics in Microbial Risk Assessment: Dynamic Flow Tree Process, Risk Analysis, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 309-328, 1998.

¹⁰ National Lightning Safety Institute, http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/probability.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹¹ Based on Villeneuve PJ, Mao Y., Lifetime probability of developing lung cancer, by smoking status, Canada., Can J Public Health. 1994 Nov-Dec;85(6):385-8.

¹² Risk: Putting activities into perspective, European Food Information Council, http://www.eufic.org/article/en/food-safety-quality/risk-communication/artid/risk-activities-into-perspective/, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹³ Annual probability 1 in 5000, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/planecrash/risky.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁴ Based on 445,687 heart attack deaths and 305,000,000 US population. Heart attack statistics from Heart Attack and Angina Statistics, American Hearty Association, http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4591, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁵ Based on 1,260,000 annual heart attacks and 305,000,000 US population. Statistics Ibid.

¹⁶ Overcoming Bias: Availability, University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/availability.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁷ http://www.meatbasics101.com/ground_beef_01.htm