Q: Beef doneness temp?

Andy said:

Does every cut of beef cook to rare, medium-rare, etc., at the same
internal temp,

Yes... temperature is absolute.

Quoted message said:

not counting cooking time or cut thickness?

These are variables which have nothing to do with your question as
posed above.

Quoted message said:

would a 1 inch thick NY Strip and a 3/4" flank steak and a 1" thick
hamburger (certified non-ecoli?) all be medium-rare at 145 degrees internal
temp?

Apples and oranges... preground meat must be fully cooked to 160ºF.
Meat you grind yourself that is cooked immediately after grinding may
be cooked rare, in fact may be eaten raw. Buying preground raw meat
should be a misdemeaner... selling preground raw meat should be a
felony... dealing in burgers should be a capital crime.... exhibiting
The Clown is child molestation, Ronald deserves lethal injection. I
honestly see no difference between Ronald McDonald and The Marlboro
Man.

Sheldon

Andy said:

Does every cut of beef cook to rare, medium-rare, etc., at the same
internal temp, not counting cooking time or cut thickness? In other words,
would a 1 inch thick NY Strip and a 3/4" flank steak and a 1" thick
hamburger (certified non-ecoli?) all be medium-rare at 145 degrees internal
temp?

Andy

AFAIK, yes.

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Sheldon said:

Andy said:

Does every cut of beef cook to rare, medium-rare, etc., at the same
internal temp,

Yes... temperature is absolute.

Quoted message said:

not counting cooking time or cut thickness?

These are variables which have nothing to do with your question as
posed above.

Quoted message said:

would a 1 inch thick NY Strip and a 3/4" flank steak and a 1" thick
hamburger (certified non-ecoli?) all be medium-rare at 145 degrees internal
temp?

Apples and oranges... preground meat must be fully cooked to 160ºF.
Meat you grind yourself that is cooked immediately after grinding may
be cooked rare, in fact may be eaten raw. Buying preground raw meat
should be a misdemeaner... selling preground raw meat should be a
felony... dealing in burgers should be a capital crime.... exhibiting
The Clown is child molestation, Ronald deserves lethal injection. I
honestly see no difference between Ronald McDonald and The Marlboro
Man.

The same applies to every corporation that still purveys trans-fats.
You know, I have been eating raw beef for most of my life. I guess
maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never gotten sick from it. I've even
eaten grocery store ground beef raw zillions of times. I certainly
wouldn't recommend it to others, but I really do do it with no
noticable ill effects.

Quoted message said:

Sheldon

--Bryan

"Food Snob" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:1141141058.246615.65310
@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Quoted message said:

The same applies to every corporation that still purveys trans-fats.
You know, I have been eating raw beef for most of my life. I guess
maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never gotten sick from it. I've even
eaten grocery store ground beef raw zillions of times. I certainly
wouldn't recommend it to others, but I really do do it with no
noticable ill effects.

I remember eating raw store-ground hamburger as a kid and it actually had
flavor!

Andy

Andy said:

Does every cut of beef cook to rare, medium-rare, etc., at the same
internal temp, not counting cooking time or cut thickness? In other words,
would a 1 inch thick NY Strip and a 3/4" flank steak and a 1" thick
hamburger (certified non-ecoli?) all be medium-rare at 145 degrees internal
temp?

The doneness-temperatures remain constant. Except that 145° is medium.

110-115 - Pittsburgh rare or "bleu" in French-speaking places. Cold, red
interior, thin line of searing on all sides.
120-125 - rare - cold red center.
130-135 - med-rare - warm red center.
140-145 - med - warm pink center.
155-160 - med-well - hot pink center as a narrow line.
170+ - well - hot, brown throughout, up to and including charred and
crusted surfaces.

Forget what the meat thermometers say. If you let meats cook to the
temps they say, but the time the rest is over, it probably has moved
into the next doneness level hotter.

Anything over 145° will have killed most any parasites and bacteria.
Game and all ground meats should be cooked to at least that.

Pastorio

Quoted message said:

Anything over 145° will have killed most any parasites and bacteria.
Game and all ground meats should be cooked to at least that.

I agree with all the information about cooking times and the hazards of
undercooked meat, however, I still indulge in various forms of ceviche. I
would argue that safe food handling procedures and proper and prompt
storage of meat is more important than temp.

In other words, I still get the shivers when I think of my grandmother
defrosting meat on the counter all day, but only occasionally worry about
my very rare hamburgers.

pgluth1 said:

Quoted message said:

Anything over 145° will have killed most any parasites and bacteria.
Game and all ground meats should be cooked to at least that.

I agree with all the information about cooking times and the hazards of
undercooked meat, however, I still indulge in various forms of ceviche.

The low pH of lime juice or vinegar is bactericidal. It's why pickled
things work safely and vinegar is used as a sanitizer.

Quoted message said:

I
would argue that safe food handling procedures and proper and prompt
storage of meat is more important than temp.

Well, no. "...safe food handling procedures and proper and prompt
storage of meat" don't kill trichinae in game meats. They don't kill
salmonella. E. coli just love that kind of thinking. As do all the other
undesirable critters that populate meats.

The meat comes with pathogens and spoilage bacteria already built onto
the surfaces. Handling and storage keeps their numbers from increasing
at geometric rates. "...safe food handling procedures" must include
slaughter, cleaning the carcass, breaking the carcass down, butchering,
cutting and packaging for retail sale, transporting through all those
steps and then to the home for storage and handling thereafter. You
can't count on everyone in the chain doing what's best for you. The odds
aren't good.

"Proper storage of meat" is based on appropriate temperatures to
minimize growth of both pathogens and spoilage bacteria. It doesn't stop
it and it doesn't eliminate it.

Quoted message said:

In other words, I still get the shivers when I think of my grandmother
defrosting meat on the counter all day, but only occasionally worry about
my very rare hamburgers.

Apologies here. But your criteria are based on flawed information. Here
are two papers from a food science organization whose work has proven to
be solid.

1) THAWING AT AMBIENT TEMPERATURE ON THE COUNTER
"In summary, the research study by Jiménez et al. (1999) supports the
previous study by Klose et al. (1968). The USDA is correct to allow raw
meat, fish, and poultry to thaw at room temperature. There is no risk
in thawing these products at room temperature."
<http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Thaw-counter.html>

2) WHICH HAMBURGER IS SAFE?
"The USDA still has a long way to go, because we do not need to cook to
160F. The reference it uses for 100,000-to-1 Salmonella kill also
points out that 15 seconds at 155F or 52 seconds at 150F or 2.7 minutes
at 145F will all give the same kill [Goodfellow, S.J. and Brown, W.L.
1978. Fate of Salmonella inoculated into beef for cooking. J. Food
Protect. 41(8):598-605]. Of course, the hamburger is even more red at
these lower temperatures."
<http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents2000/Pinkburger.html>

But it's not rare. The lowest temp above is medium and it needs to stay
at that temp for nearly 3 minutes for a 100K-1 kill.

Store-bought ground beef isn't safe to eat raw or rare because it
becomes virtually all surface. Bacterial contamination is almost always
a surface phenomenon, and the more surface there is, the greater is the
likelihood of bacterial presence, and the greater is the likelihood of
large numbers.

Pastorio

Enlightening, thank you for the polite response.

We may be comparing apples and oranges to some extent - countertop thawing
can be used, but my grandmother had the chicken out a LOT longer than it
took to just thaw.

Moreover, I am not arguing the severity of undercooked meat illness, only
that I was taught in restaurants that it is much less common form of hazard
than is poor handling.

Again, thanks for keeping the discourse positive. Now I am just curious.

pgluth1 said:

Enlightening, thank you for the polite response.

We may be comparing apples and oranges to some extent - countertop thawing
can be used, but my grandmother had the chicken out a LOT longer than it
took to just thaw.

Understood. Also remember that grandma cooked chicken until the leg bone
moved freely. At least 180°F. That effectively sterilizes the bird. Also
very likely that grandma's bird wasn't as contaminated as today's.

Quoted message said:

Moreover, I am not arguing the severity of undercooked meat illness, only
that I was taught in restaurants that it is much less common form of hazard
than is poor handling.

And it seems to be true. But both need to be considered. Does it really
matter, intellectually, which one is causing you to throw up yesterday's
lunch, today's and part of tomorrow's?

Quoted message said:

Again, thanks for keeping the discourse positive. Now I am just curious.

Be careful about your info sources. There's a lot of hysterical terror
about the table masquerading as "information."

Pastorio