Texas A&M University, Department of Animal Science (Meat Science)

Authority

Academic

Territories

US

Primacy

secondary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-14

State

Read and citable

Original document

February 2022, by Rebecca Dittmar and Julie Prouse, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. THE CONSUMER HOT-HOLDING SOURCE BBQHQ WAS LOOKING FOR, and it is addressed to exactly BBQHQ's reader: 'Keep cooked meat, poultry, fish, and seafood at 140 degrees F or warmer until it is served', with a domestic method attached — move it to the side of the grill away from the coals, or hold it in an oven set to 200 °F. PUBLISHER NOTE: AgriLife Extension is a separate agency from the Department of Animal Science, and BBQHQ deliberately counts them as ONE publisher. Treating two arms of one university as independent voices would inflate corroboration in exactly the direction counting publishers rather than documents exists to prevent, and the conservative reading costs nothing here because the corroborating figure comes from Clemson.

Culinary practice, Technical

• Explicitly not safety: An extension consumer leaflet restating federal endpoints is not the instrument that sets them. Its holding advice is recorded as reader-facing practice, and the endpoints continue to trace to FSIS.

• “Poultry (whole, ground, parts) 165°F”

  Texas A&M AgriLife Extension's outdoor cooking leaflet attaches 'allow to rest for at least 3 minutes' to pork whole cuts in its temperature chart, and gives poultry — whole, ground and parts — a bare 165 °F with no rest.

  The omission is visible rather than inferred: the same chart, one row above, carries a rest instruction. A publisher that gives one food a rest and the next food none has made a choice.

  Where it applies:

  United States.

• “Keep cooked meat, poultry, fish, and seafood at 140 degrees F or warmer until it is served.”

  Texas A&M AgriLife Extension advises home cooks to keep cooked meat, poultry, fish and seafood at 140 °F or warmer until it is served, and gives two domestic methods for doing it: moving the food to the side of the grill away from the coals, or holding it in an oven set to 200 °F.

  Safety regime:

  Consumer guidance, addressed to somebody cooking outdoors for family and friends — the closest match in this catalogue to BBQHQ's actual reader.

  The same 140 °F Clemson gives, from an independent publisher. Clemson's figure was recorded as uncited; it is now a figure two American extension services publish rather than one.

  Method:

  The holding METHOD is the part no other retrieved hold source supplies. Every regulation states a floor and none of them tells a person with a kettle how to reach it.

  The same page caps the whole affair: cooked food may not sit out more than two hours, or one hour above 90 °F.

  Where it applies:

  United States.