How the calculator works

The form is built from verified rows in the database. Temperatures, fat levels, and lethality targets are only those printed in the selected FSIS table.

1. Select a product that exists in the active 2021 source version.
2. Select only parameters that table uses (fat appears for chicken and turkey; it is hidden for meat Table 2).
3. The server runs an exact lookup on product, temperature, fat (if any), target, and active source version.
4. Exact match returns the published dwell time plus table, page, row, and column.
5. Anything else returns no exact match. Nearest published source temperatures may be listed. No interpolated minutes are returned.

Temperature conversion uses °C = (°F − 32) × 5 / 9, rounded half-up to one decimal place for display. Original source °F values are stored and never replaced by the converted number. Where FSIS printed a °C value in the table, that printed value is stored separately as temperature_c_source.

Relative humidity is explained on the result because it is a critical operating parameter for using the tables. It is not a dwell-time column, so it is not a required calculator input.