Grill50 — Practical Grilling & BBQ Guides

Sausages on the Grill: Pork, Beef, and Poultry Temperatures

The USDA brochure gives 160 °F for uncooked sausages that contain ground beef, pork, lamb, or veal. For uncooked sausages that contain ground turkey or chicken, the figure is 165 °F. This guide shows how the USDA chart and brochure apply to each type, and how to probe a link.

Minimums by sausage type

The USDA Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart lists 160 °F for ground meat and sausage in the pork group and in the beef, bison, veal, goat, and lamb group. It lists 165 °F for all poultry, including poultry sausage. The 145 °F figure in the chart covers steaks, roasts, and chops, not sausage. Pork and beef sausage are both listed at 160 °F, in the pork group and in the beef, bison, veal, goat, and lamb group.

Fresh and ready-to-eat sausage

The brochure says fresh sausage must be kept refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating. It describes ready-to-eat sausages as dry, semi-dry, and/or cooked. It gives bologna and frankfurters as examples of cooked sausages. The chart has no separate reheating figure for ready-to-eat sausage. It does list 165 °F for leftovers of any type.

Practical advice: treat cooked sausage you are reheating as leftovers, and check it with a thermometer. For fresh sausage cooked by the consumer, the brochure’s storage chart gives 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator after opening.

How to probe a sausage

Clemson Extension’s pork guide says to use a digital meat thermometer to test for doneness in several places. Clemson Extension’s lamb guide says recent research has shown that color and texture indicators are not reliable.

  • Practical advice: push the probe into the thickest part of a link or patty, away from the casing ends.
  • Practical advice: on thin links, slide the probe in from the side rather than from the end.
  • Practical advice: wait for the reading to settle before you record it.
  • Practical advice: check a second link or patty, since one reading can miss a cold spot.

Practical advice: do not judge a link by its color. Practical advice: a link that feels firm to the touch is not proof of doneness either, so use the thermometer.

Common mistakes

  • Practical advice: cutting a link open to check the middle, which lets juices out.
  • Practical advice: treating a poultry sausage like pork because the two look alike.
  • Practical advice: using the steak and roast figure on sausage.
  • Practical advice: pulling sausage off the grill as soon as the outside browns.

Limits

The brochure is marked Revised May 2011. The brochure says the product should display cooking directions that are sufficient for the intended user. Practical advice: check the current FSIS chart and the package label before you cook. Practical advice: keep raw links cold until they go on the grill.

For poultry at other cuts, see chicken grilling temperature guide. For ground beef patties, see burger grilling guide. For probe technique, see grilling with a meat thermometer.

Sources

Recently Published

Topics