This TikTok Hack Will Change The Way You Drain Ground Beef

There are certain immutable facts of cooking — one is that, no matter how lean your ground beef might be, when you cook it, it's going to release some grease into the pan. Sure, you can just stir it back in. But you can also drain it (and maybe avoid coronary artery disease in the process). But then if you drain the hot liquid, what are you supposed to do to dispose of it? In the days before the internet regularly alerted us to all the many errors of our ways, lots of people would simply have poured that beef grease down the drain. However, if you do this enough times, you might end up with a serious clog in your pipes, according to Express Sewer & Drain.

Other options have included pouring the grease into an old can and then tossing it (although that's not totally environmentally-friendly), or blotting the grease with paper towels (but that certainly seems like a waste of paper towels). Then there's the option of letting the grease harden in the pan before wiping it out and tossing it, but isn't that really just an excuse for letting your dirty pan languish on your counter? It might seem there's no perfect solution, but thanks to this viral TikTok from @dev.in.a.grif (Devin A Griffith), we now have a viable hack that promises to change the way we drain our ground beef forever.

Not all viral TikTok hacks are worth the time we spend clicking "like" on, let alone trying them at home. But somehow, in the midst of a seemingly ordinary day, a TikTok went live with a simple idea that promises to change the way you drain ground beef forever. It comes from @dev.in.a.grif, who clearly is an effective TikTok user as she's closing in on 44,000 followers at present, though she doesn't seem to post much in the way of kitchen- and cooking-related topics. Yet, paradoxically, that really makes this particular TikTok feel more trustworthy.  

"Turns out I have been straining grease wrong my entire life," the robotic voiceover intones as we see a hand slide a sheet of aluminum foil into a kitchen sink, press it down into the drain to form an aluminum foil "receptacle," perch a colander over the receptacle, and pour the contents of a sauté pan filled with ground beef and grease into the colander. As you watch, you'll be mesmerized as the grease goes where it needs to be — right into the receptacle, and from there, presumably, neatly and harmlessly into the trash. Will it change the way we drain ground beef forever? That would be a hearty "yes."