Good practices fore safe summer grilling.

Get wooly with your grill. There’s probably a little bit of gross stuff stuck to the metal grate, left over from the last time you cooked out. Get rid of that bacteria-covered char with a scrubby, some hot water and a little bit of dish soap.

Be a quicker picker-upper. Paper towels are better than dish rags and sponges for cleaning up meat juice, especially if we’re talking about raw meat drippings. Don’t run the risk of contaminating anything else. We’re talking biohazard here. Wipe that stuff up and get the paper towel into the trash right away.

Say sane with sanitizer. If you can use soap and hot water while cooking outdoors, great. But sometimes you won’t have that option. At the very least, keep your hands clean before cooking and before eating by using hand sanitizer or sanitary wipes.

A plate for everything and everything in its plate. Cross-contamination is the enemy of safe outdoor eating. Raw meat, poultry and seafood need to be separated. Use separate cutting boards. Be mindful of the juices they leave behind. Uncooked and cooked food need separate plates, too. Here’s a common example: Say you bring a raw steak to the grill on a plate and then slap it on the fire. When it’s cooked, for goodness’ sake, don’t put it back on the same plate you used before cooking it (unless you’ve thoroughly cleaned it in the meantime).

A food thermometer will be your best friend when you’re cooking outdoors. The stem of the thermometer needs to sink two inches; if you have a thin, flat piece of meat, you can insert it through the side. Take the meat off the grill to take its temperature. Make sure that steak is 145 degrees. Make sure your burgers are 160 degrees. Make sure your chicken is 165 degrees