Vol. II · Heat Plate 8 of 11carryover, resting, roast, thickness, oven temperature, pull temperatureHT

Carryover Cooking.

When the meat leaves the oven, its outer layers are much hotter than its centre, and that heat keeps flowing inward.

Take a roast out of the oven when its centre reads 52 °C and, ten minutes later, the centre may read 56 or 58. Nothing is heating it from outside any more; the heat comes from the meat itself. At the moment it left the oven, its outer layers were far hotter than its centre (II.2), and conduction goes on carrying that heat inward even as the surface cools in the kitchen air.

How much the centre rises depends on how much extra heat is stored in the outer layers: more for thick pieces, more for hot ovens, less for thin steaks and low ovens. Cooks call the temperature at which they take food out the pull temperature, and set it below the target by the expected carryover. The workshop roasts to 52 °C, pulls the meat and lets it rest.

Below: the centre temperature through roasting and half an hour of rest, for the thickness and oven you choose; the rise after the meat leaves the oven is the carryover.

What you will learn
Workshop
A beef slab of the chosen thickness from 5 °C, roasted until the centre reads 52 °C, then rested in kitchen air (22 °C) for 30 minutes (thermal bench).

Pull early, by the right amount

A 60 mm slab from a 220 °C oven, pulled at 52 °C, climbs to 65.7 °C at the centre — 13.7 degrees of carryover, peaking 25 minutes after it left the oven. A 25 mm steak from the same oven rises only 5.5 degrees; the 60 mm slab from a 130 °C oven rises 3.9, because a low oven leaves much less excess heat in the outer layers. Carryover is the price of a steep gradient.

So the pull temperature depends on the piece and the method. For thick roasts from a hot oven, pull 5–10 °C below the target, more for a very hot oven; for steaks from a pan, 2–3 °C; for anything cooked in a water bath at the target temperature, nothing (XVI.7). If safety requires a minimum, the minimum applies to the peak reached during the rest only where a food code allows it — USDA's guidance for whole cuts of meat counts a 3-minute rest — never for poultry (XII.6).

At the stove

Roast a chicken or a joint with a probe thermometer left in the thickest part. When you take it out, keep watching the probe and write down the highest reading and when it came. Next time, pull earlier by that rise.

Carryover is the same physics that makes a thick casserole keep bubbling for minutes after it leaves the oven, and that keeps the inside of a large potato hot long after the outside feels cool.

Terms

Carryover cooking
The rise in the centre temperature after food leaves the heat, from heat stored in its outer layers.
Pull temperature
The centre temperature at which food is taken off the heat, below the target by the expected carryover.
Resting
Leaving cooked meat to stand before cutting; carryover happens during it.
Excess heat
The heat stored in layers hotter than the final centre temperature.
Food keeps cooking off the heat: pull it early, more so for thick pieces and hot ovens.

Sources

  1. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart" (foodsafety.gov), 2024.
  2. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.