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.

We recommend cooking TC Farm chops to 130º, allowing them to rest covered for a few more degrees.

All fresh pork, whether pasture raised or raised in confinement, carries some trichinosis risk that requires cooking to 160 degrees to be safe. This results in pork that is overcooked for most tastes!

Our pasture raised pork is frozen at peak freshness, allowing you to enjoy pork as it’s truly meant to taste!

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 like to sear right from frozen in a pan with 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 maybe145º. 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)

If you haven't had a chance to try our TC Farm Sous Vide Ribs, you totally should. Pre-cooked and pre-sauced, you simply need to warm and serve them.

You can totally do that in the oven. It only takes around 10 or 15 minutes.

Or an even better idea? Toss them on the grill and sear them. (Click the video above to see the searing in action!)

So easy and soooooo good!

Resting is really important.

Cover your meat to avoid heat loss. Allow smaller cuts to rest 5 minutes and big roasts up to 20 minutes before cutting.

The larger the cut of meat, the longer you want to allow it to rest. Plan on smaller cuts to gain about 5º in the center and larger ones up to 10º.

You want to know your target temperature when grilling. A few degrees make a big difference!

Getting it right matters. Make sure you have a real thermometer. None of our tips help much if you’re simply guessing at the temperatures! 

Our take? Like a good pair of shoes or a good set of tires -- a little investment in the right equipment will pay off for years to come!