Summer Grilling Tips

Even most grocery “grass fed” beef is actually from a feedlot. They are fed all kinds of things to help make the meat more consistent and forgiving with rare temperatures.

Unless your beef was raised on a feedlot, we have found most our steaks are best at medium or even medium-well. We recommend about 125º plus a 5-10 minute rest where the steaks will get up closer to 130º.

The only other pasture-raised and organic-fed pork in a local grocery is from Pork and Plants - they do great work! But you will want to cook their pork to 160º due to the risk of trichinosis in fresh (not frozen) pork.

Nearly all other “happy” pork sold locally in the grocery is raised in confinement therefore does have a lower trichinosis risk, but we would still cook any fresh pork to 160º (which is overcooked to most tastes!)

TC Farm pork is frozen which effectively eliminates that risk.

For our pork chops, we recommend cooking them to 130º. Allow them to rest for a few more degrees.

Slow growth chicken dark meat is best at 175º before resting.

We like to cook the breasts up to 145º over high heat. If you can’t maintain 145º for 5+ minutes during the rest, you need to go to a higher temperature.

All of our brats are pre-cooked, and you might have wondered why.

We don’t use any binders or phosphates to increase the fat or water content in any of our sausages. This means the brats are best if cooked to a lower temperature to avoid fat rendering out. That’s something we can do longer and slower in-house than you could on a grill. This ensures safe temperatures and an ideal eating experience.

You want to avoid overcooking them and focus on searing the outside to get a good texture and bring the center to around 140º-150º so it is warmed through.

Don’t overcook the fish! Our fish is organically farmed without any risk of parasites or micro-plastics like wild-caught fish. This allows you more control over how much to cook the fish.

For the salmon burgers, we personally prefer to sear right from frozen in a pan with some olive oil. You can get great results grilling too. With higher Omega-3s than wild-caught fish, ours have more fat.

A bit of oil brushed on the outside can help with the sear. For the salmon burgers, we like to sear the outside quickly and then turn down the heat and slowly coast up to 140º or maybe 145º. To ensure safe eating, you’ll want to maintain something in that range for around 4-9 minutes (more time if you target the lower temps)