Michigan State University Extension

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Academic

Territories

US

Primacy

secondary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-15

State

Read and citable

Original document

May 1982, by Alden Booren and Christopher Oberg, and the answer to a question BBQHQ had concluded had no evidence behind it. It states portions THREE WAYS for one food — 'four small servings, three good servings or two liberal servings per pound', then 'to be sure to have enough for hungry adults, figure two and one half servings per pound' — which makes appetite a visible variable rather than a hidden default. It also refuses to give a cooking rate, in terms BBQHQ could have written itself: 'Because of variations in size, shape, weight, air current, water and method of cooking, a rule of minutes per pound cannot be given.' That is a land-grant university declining to publish the number Texas A&M hedged and BBQHQ derives the brisket window from.

Culinary practice, Technical

• Explicitly not safety: PUBLISHED IN 1982, and its endpoint guidance shows it: it gives beef '140°F is rare, 160°F is medium', which is pre-modern American advice. Its portion arithmetic has not aged and its temperatures have. BBQHQ takes the first and refuses the second, and the endpoints continue to trace to FSIS.