I have a picky family that is very finicky about food but one of the few things everybody loves is cheeseburgers on the grill. Consequently I have made them scores of times and have gotten quite good at them. Not that it is a hard dish to learn to make, it is hard to think of something simpler.
Nevertheless, whenever I go to a party that serves grilled burgers they are done horribly much more often than they are done well.
Some tips to a great burger:
[LIST=2]
[li]The most important tip is not to use premade pattys, especially not the frozen ones. They taste like school cafeteria sausage and have the consistency of a hockey puck. Wolfgang Puck could not produce a great burger with these.[/li][li]Use ground beef with 78-85% fat. Anymore and the dripping will cause a fire and any less will mean a dry burger. [/li][li]Form balls out of the ground meat then gently press them into loose patties. If you work them to much they will get dry.[/li][li]Top each burger with salt, pepper, onion or garlic powder, and MSG. Some people like to work the spices into the meat but I find it starts to taste like meatloaf instead of burgers and this way is quicker.[/li][li]Preheat your grill and oil it. Depending on the grill you may need a grill mat or foil to put down. Low end grills allow flareups if you don’t put something between the heat and the meat. Flareups dry out the meat, give a bitter taste, and cause cancer. [/li][li]Put burgers on the grill and leave for several minutes, monitoring to make sure no flareups occurs. I flip twice, once half way, once right before I put the cheese on. Flipping more will shorten the cooking time but can cause leaking of juices.[/li][li]You will know when it is done when the juices run clear. The need to be cooked that long to be safe, unless you have irradiated meat, or have ground you own meat.[/li][li]Any type of cheese is acceptable and after putting the cheese on and closing the lid, I turn off the burners and let the residual heat melt the cheese.[/li][li]Transfer to a dish, cover with foil, let rest a couple minutes, assemble the accouterments and then enjoy.[/li][/LIST]
I use premade patties from a butcher - they get rave reviews. I add no spices, don’t oil the grill, and only flip once, after 6 minutes on a covered grill. Approx 4 minutes later, I turn off the (gas) grill, apply cheese, and cover. My personal preference is to apply BBQ sauce upon flipping.
For a true pro move, get pretzel buns and lightly toast them!
When beef goes into the grinder, what comes out the other end is hamburger. Hamburger is hamburger, and no matter what you do to it, it will never be anything but hamburger.
Not sure what exactly you are getting at here. I could say that when things are prepared and then eaten they are food and no matter what you do they are still food.
Lee Iacocca relates a story about Henry Ford raving over the Ford Executive chef cooking the perfect burger which Ford ate often. I turns out the source of the burger was a high quality steak that had been ground up. I’m guessing that the statement “It will never be anything but hamburger” doesn’t really mean much.
I usually try to grill the burgers at my house. The Mrs. is an excellent cook but she shapes her burgers about the size that she likes to eat them. Then they plump up too much and look like meatballs to me.
I like to add a dash of dried garlic or some dry rib rub (sprinkled on, not worked in) before cooking them. I’m not fond of adding sauce on the grill though I confess that I wouldn’t turn one down if offered one.
Sauce on the grill usually leads to fare-ups and bitter sauce, the way most people do it. I usually just heat a small pan of sauce on the side burner and mop the burgers when they come *off *the grill. That way the sauce can permeate the meat while it’s resting.
I was about to say, no that sounds right. Then I realized the last word.
I pretty much agree with the OP, except maybe for point #7, as I like my grilled burgers (which I make from bigger, fatter patties than my griddled ones) to be medium rare on the inside, so a decent amount of not just pink, but red.
For me, one of the most important things is OP’s point #3. DO NOT OVERHANDLE THE MEAT! Just handle it enough to get it into shape. You are not making sausage. You are not making meatloaf. You don’t want to knead the meat. One of the several things that make a burger WONDERFUL is a light, airy texture. I wanted to punch Gordon Ramsay straight in the kisser when I saw a Youtube video of him making hamburgers with an egg in it for binding. Why do so many people fuck up hamburgers? You want it to be light. It’ll hold together just fine without massaging the crap out of it or throwing binders in there.
And there’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers constantly. In fact, that’s the current wisdom for making a perfectly done burger that’s well-browned on the outside and juicy medium rare on the inside. I don’t have the patience to baby sit my burgers, so I generally don’t do that.
Here’s the bit on flipping, although that’s on a flattop. I suspect given #7 (in the OP), the OP doesn’t need to use this technique, since this is more for burgers for lower levels of doneness.
I wonder how the “only flip once” myth got started. I’m guessing from people who flip so many times that they end up cooking longer than someone who only flip once.
The way I form my patties is to get a pound of 80/20 hamburger, cut it in fourths, then just gently form each quarter into a patty. No need to make a ball because it’s already mostly flat. I just flatten it some more and round off the corners.
I tried making turkey burgers on the grill awhile back and that was a mess. I’ll stick with using the cast iron skillet for those.
I’m sure you know that over-handling the mix for meatloaf (or meatballs, for that matter) results in the same sort of end product as over-handling the makings for a hamburger: dense and dry.
Also, why don’t people use an instant read thermometer? If you really want to serve food that won’t poison people, use science not luck. The best hundred bucks I’ve spent was for a Thermapen, but there are much cheaper options you can buy right in the grocery store. I use mine for everything from sausages and burgers to pulled pork and making jam.
And the only time I ‘single flip’ is if I’m making smash burgers.
Not all premade pattys are the same; Johnsonville Grillers are quite good. They’re pork rather than beef, though, and I’ve only seen the Cheddar & Bacon and Steakhouse Onion around here.
Biggest mistake people make is after flipping they push the flipper down on top of the patty and squeeze all the juice out. DON’T do this. Cook it with the grease in it. You’re squeezing out all the flavor.
Incorrect, the cheese should not be melted, it should be added after the meat is removed from the heat and right before consumption. The fats in the cheese change significantly and no longer have a cheese taste and is more of a cheese-wiz product if one does this.