Food safety logs and restaurant costs

Food Temperatures, Holding and Cooling

Most food safety rules are time and temperature rules. These pages check a reading, a hold time or a cooling log against the limits the FDA Food Code and USDA guidance publish, show where the two differ, and give a printable sheet where you need one. The cold chain page reads a data-logger file in your browser and prepares a printable report with minimum, maximum, average, time out of range, excursions and mean kinetic temperature. Your state or local health department adopts its own edition and may be stricter, so treat the results as a check, not an inspection.

Tools in this group

  • Cold Chain Monitoring: Logger CSV to Printable Report — Load a data-logger CSV or paste readings, type the allowed range, and get the lowest, highest and average, each excursion and the mean kinetic temperature in a printable temperature record report. The file stays in your browser.
  • Food Danger Zone Time Calculator — Add each stretch the food spent out of temperature control to see the total, the time left against the 2-hour or 4-hour limit, and what each source says to do.
  • Food Temperature Log — Type your readings, one per line, to see which are within the stated limit and which are outside it, or switch to a blank sheet with the limits printed above each column.
  • Hot Holding Temperature Checker — Enter a hot or cold holding reading to see it against the limit you choose, and add the time food left temperature control to get the discard-by time.
  • How Long Can Food Sit Out? — Enter how long the food has been out, the air temperature and the rule you follow to get the time left and the clock time the limit ends.
  • TCS Food List — Search what the Food Code definition of time/temperature control for safety food names, or enter a water activity and pH to read the definition's Table A or Table B.
  • Two-Stage Cooling Method Checker — Enter when cooling started, the starting temperature and your readings to see the clock-time deadlines and whether each target was reached in time, or print a blank cooling log.
  • VFC Temperature Log and Vaccine Storage Check — Type your minimum and maximum readings to see which checks fall outside the CDC range for a vaccine refrigerator or freezer, or print a blank daily log.
  • Walk-In Cooler and Freezer Temperature Log — Type your readings to see which are inside the limit you pick (Food Code, USDA or your own), look up storage temperatures with their sources, or print a daily log.