It’s August. The children have finished school for the summer, the sun is shining (we hope) and the barbeque has taken up full time residence in the garden. But did you know that the number of reported cases of food poisoning increases during the summer? A large number of these cases are as a result of eating undercooked BBQ food contaminated with germs and bacteria. Far too often people eat meat off a BBQ that has been charred on the outside but is still raw on the inside. Not a great dining experience and, in the case of chicken and sausages, dangerous too.
Sausages are made from ground meat and because of this they need to be cooked to a temperature of 72 degrees centigrade to be safe. The best way of making sure you’ve done this is by using a temperature probe to measure the internal temperature of your sausages to make sure they are hot enough.
How to cook sausages so they taste good and are safe too
It’s easy to overcook sausages and because you want to make sure they are thoroughly cooked, a common mistake is to cook them for too long on the hottest part of the BBQ, which means they end up burnt.
To avoid this happening, start by cooking your sausages on the hot part of the BBQ for a couple of minutes so they turn brown on the outside. Once this has happened, move them to the edges where it’s cooler and let them finish cooking there for another 10 to 15 minutes or so or until the inside has reached the correct temperature.
How to know when sausages are cooked
When your sausages are cooked all the way through:
- There will be no pink meat in the middle
- The juices will run clear
- The insides will have reached the correct temperature (this is where your temperature probe will come in useful).
We certainly don’t want to put you off having a BBQ this summer but we do want you to stay safe so please, if you are going to cook sausages, make sure they are sizzling before you eat them!
