The Touch Test

• Gently prod the meat to informally assess its doneness. There are textural and visual cues to look for when you touch the pork. Meat becomes firmer as it cooks, and you can use your own hand as a guide to determine is the pork chops are appropriately firm. Use your index finger to feel the rounded, fleshy area below your thumb on the palm of your opposite hand. Tuck your fingers into a fist, but do not clench: Properly cooked pork feels semi-firm but still tender, like your palm when you make a relaxed fist. Briefly press the tops of the pork chops with your finger to assess their texture. If the meat is softer and squishier than the base of your thumb, the pork chops are not fully cooked.

Meat Thermometers

• The only way to correctly gauge a pork chop’s doneness is to check its internal temperature with a meat thermometer. Once the pork chops are browned on the surface and semi-firm, insert a meat thermometer into their centers. Check the internal temperature of each chop. Keep the shaft of the thermometer away from the bone. If the thermometer touches the bone of a bone-in pork chop, it may give an inaccurate reading. The most common kitchen thermometers are instant-read, which you should not leave in the pork while it is cooking. Alternatively, digital probe thermometers transmit the temperature to a small monitor that is connected to the thermometer itself by a wire. Digital thermometers should stay in meat throughout grilling. You can use either type for grilled pork chops.

Internal Temperature

• Pork must reach an internal temperature of 145 F to be safe to eat. Once you remove the pork chops from the grill, ambient heat continues cooking the meat for a few minutes, raising the internal temperature several degrees. The National Pork Board recommends removing the pork from the grill once its internal temperature is 140 F. Cover the meat with aluminum foil and let it rest for 10 minutes. Resting the meat allows the juices to thicken, which helps keep them juicy. Leave the thermometer in the pork while it rests to ensure the internal temperature does reach 145 F -- it’s safe to leave instant-read and digital thermometers in meat while it rests.

Other Visual Cues

• It is safe to eat pork chops that are that pink in the middle as long as the pink flesh is thoroughly opaque and it reached 145 F. When you slice into the pork chop, the natural grain of the meat should be distinguishable and the flesh should glisten with juice. The inside of a pork chop becomes whiter, smoother and drier in appearance the longer it cooks.