What temp do you guys cook your pork to?

[BAPyessir6]

I usually go for 150F / 65C (give or take a few degrees either way) at least when doing chops, loin, tenderloin. My friend says she cooks all her pork to 140F / 60C (chops, loin/tenderloin, shoulder, except ham which is like 160F / 71C). As I think trichinosis does at 137F / 58C, I feel I would only cook my pork that low if it were doing sous vide and I know all the pork is a getting to the same temp.

Granted the potential of trichinosis is probably very very VERY low in commercial pork products (way more common if not exclusive to game meat/deer/boar etc.) but hey! I'm still paranoid.

What do you all cook your pork to? Any pink, or straight 160? What do you think of either mine or my friend's cooking temps/styles?

 

[msmofet]

About 160F to 170F.

 

[Andy M.]

You are correct that pork is safe to eat above 137ºF. I like it at 140ºF but SO doesn't like it so pink. So I cook it to 145ºF. That's for tenderloin, chops and loin roast. When I cook a whole shoulder for pulled pork, I smoke it and cook it to a lot higher temperature.

 

[dcSaute]

I'm with Andy - oven temp to 140'F - then rest.

there hasn't been a case of human trichinosis from commercial pork in decades.
which is .... finally . . . why the government recommendations of cook to 165'F bone dry and terrible were revised....

DW also has a "OMG! it's pink!!!" affliction, otherwise I'd go a bit lower.

 

[caseydog]

I usually cook pork sous vide, so I can cook to a lower temperature for a longer time**. I want my serving temperature to be 145F, so I pull it at 140F, then quickly sear it. There is no carry-over cooking with sous vide on its own, but the searing finishes the job.

CD

** Cooking safety is a combination of temperature and time.

 

[jennyema]

I cook tenderloins and chops to 140.

 

[taxlady]

I cook tenderloins and chops to 140.

Same here. I lived in Denmark in the early 1970s. They were cooking pork to pink even back then. I asked about it, because trichina was still a thing in the US. They told me that there hadn't been a case of trichina from a Danish pig in over a hundred years, and that was in the '70s. They still had (and may still have) very strict regulations about what me meat you could bring back to Denmark from a visit to countries outside of Scandinavia. I asked about that, because I had been eating that meat in those other countries, so I would already be contaminated if it had anything. The customs agent laughed. We aren't trying to protect travellers. We don't want you bringing it into Denmark, where it could go into the bucket that someone slops their pigs with.

 

[msmofet]

I like to cook my pork and poultry well done.

 

[dragnlaw]

I usually cook pork sous vide, so I can cook to a lower temperature for a longer time**. I want my serving temperature to be 145F, so I pull it at 140F, then quickly sear it. There is no carry-over cooking with sous vide on its own, but the searing finishes the job.

CD

** Cooking safety is a combination of temperature and time.

I just don't understand that. Why does bringing something up to a certain temperature and then removing it from the heat source not have carry over with one method but does with another?

 

[Andy M.]

Meat cooked sous vide is in a water bath that's a certain temperature. At some point in time, the entire piece of meat is at that temperature and cannot go any higher. In a 137ºF water bath, once everything reaches that temperature there cannot be any carry-over.

This differs from cooking in a conventional oven were the oven temperature is much higher that the target temp for the meat. In that environment, the exterior of the meat gets very hot and the heat slowly transfers into the center of the meat. You take a piece of meat out of the oven and heat continues to transfer from the hotter exterior to the cooler interior until an equilibrium is reached.

 

[dragnlaw]

OK, I get it Andy, thanks.
I sort of knew but my brain has a hard time accepting.
Now I know this isn't, or probably isn't, practical or maybe not even doable, but... If there were a temperature probe on the Outside of the meat in the oven, and once the outside layer of meat reached (eg) 140 degrees and then the oven was immediately lowered to match that temperature, there would be carry-over or not, to have the center of the maet brought up to that temperature.

and yes I understand that the exterior of the meat is not protected from drying out as it would be in a bag... but in theory??

is this too garbled?

 

[Andy M.]

OK, I get it Andy, thanks.
I sort of knew but my brain has a hard time accepting.
Now I know this isn't, or probably isn't, practical or maybe not even doable, but... If there were a temperature probe on the Outside of the meat in the oven, and once the outside layer of meat reached (eg) 140 degrees and then the oven was immediately lowered to match that temperature, there would be carry-over or not, to have the center of the maet brought up to that temperature.

and yes I understand that the exterior of the meat is not protected from drying out as it would be in a bag... but in theory??

is this too garbled?

In that circumstance there would be carryover. It's just not practical or as controllable.

 

[dragnlaw]

Of course, understood. Thanks.

 

[Andy M.]

Another point about SV cooking. if you put a tougher cut of meat such as flank steak or chuck roast into SV to cook to medium it may be done (cooked through) in a couple of hours. If you keep cooking it at the same temp for 10-12 hours, you'll end up with a steak/roast that's as tender as filet mignon but still cooked medium. However, if you leave it in too long, you end up with a mushy piece of meat.

 

[dragnlaw]

I had heard about the mushy part. Is there a guide as to what is tooo long?
BTW, I don't have a sous-vid
e.

 

[Andy M.]

I had heard about the mushy part. Is there a guide as to what is tooo long?
BTW, I don't have a sous-vid
e.

I'm not aware of one. I did ruin a roast early on by cooking it too long. It was a perfect medium-rare roast of beef . . . Mush.

 

[Andy M.]

There is always concern about food safety when cooking meats. We are aware of 165ºF being the safe temp for killing off the harmful bacteria that can be found in food. You get your meat to 165ºF and it's safe. Most home cooks don't use a thermometer so it's guesswork often resulting in dry/overcooked meats.

The 165ºF number comes from the USDA. What many do not know is that that's not the only option. You can make as foods safe at lower temperatures if the food is held at that temperature for a prescribed length of time. So chicken breasts (for example) can be cooked to 150ºF and held at that temp for at least 2.8 minutes and it's as safe as that 165ºF chicken. A simple thing to do with sous vide.

Why bother? If you've been eating 165ºF chicken breasts all along, you wouldn't believe how much better they can be at 145ºF-150ºF. Tender and juicy with a texture like real meat. The best chicken breast I've ever had was cooked to 147ºF and finished in a CI skillet for a nice brown exterior.

Check out the chart below.

 

[dragnlaw]

Do those still apply to the collagen that needs to be broken down in thighs and legs. Nothing worse than red meat around the bones. Yeah, it reached it's temperature but unless cooked longer - yuck.

but nice chart, gonna keep that for reference. Thanks!