Food safety — read this first
Stop and deal with this first
A minced or processed product that is pink or raw in the middle has not reached a safe endpoint, and unlike a steak it cannot be served that way. Put it back on until the centre reaches the figure your territory publishes, and check with a thermometer rather than by cutting and looking.
Burgers or sausages charred outside and raw inside
The outside is charred and the middle is not cooked, which on a minced product is a food-safety problem rather than a cooking-quality one.
Work out which one it is
Each cause below lists the signs that point at it rather than at the others. Start with the signs, not with the fix.
A thick patty or a fat sausage over a fire built for thin ones.
commonSigns it is this one
- The outside blackened within two or three minutes a side.
- The whole cook happened over the coals, with no fire-free side used.
Why it happens: Heat arrives at the surface and conducts inward slowly. A hot bed colours a 2 cm patty in a couple of minutes a side, long before the centre has reached an endpoint that mince has to reach — and a sausage, being round, presents its thinnest section to the bars and its thickest to nothing.
What to do
- Move them to the fire-free side, lid on, and bring the centres up there before serving. — during cook, reliable
The char will not improve. The inside can still get where it has to be, and on a minced product it has to.
Next time
- Build two zones, colour over the fire, finish beside it.
Rendering fat kept catching light and burnt the outside while the middle waited.
commonSigns it is this one
- Flames came up around the food repeatedly during the cook.
- The char is patchy and sooty rather than an even crust.
Why it happens: Burgers and sausages drip fat continuously, and fat landing on hot coals ignites. Flames wrap the food and blacken it fast without heating it through — surface char from burning fat is not the same event as conducted heat, and it adds almost nothing to the inside.
What to do
- Move the food off the flames and let them subside; do not douse them with water. — during cook, reliable
A flare-up and a grease fire want opposite handling. This is the flare-up. A fire burning accumulated grease in the base of the barbecue is not, and is dealt with in the flare-up record.
Next time
- Keep a fire-free area to move to, and clear accumulated grease between cooks.
What this covers
This is BBQHQ’s diagnosis for burnt outside, underdone inside, still raw in the middle, on the foods below.