I am afraid that if I make the patties before freezing the increase in surface area will dry out the meat.
It’s too difficult to get a rare burger using a grill. My perfect burgers start with a one pound steak. I trim off any visible fat, then grind the steak (alternatively have the butcher grind it). Divide into two 1/2 pound patties. Pop them into the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes, then vacuum seal the patties. Sous vide the burgers 120 degrees F for 40 minutes to an hour (whichever time works for you).
During the final five minutes of sous vide cooking, get a cast iron pan very hot. Pat the burgers dry with paper towel, then sear 15 to 30 seconds a side. Perfect medium rare burger every time.
My only additions:
Instead of “black pepper, salt, and onion or garlic powder”, I simplify by just using onion salt and black pepper. After seasoning, let your patties rest on the counter for a few minutes. Leaving the patties alone for a while after forming them seems (to me, at least) to make them hold together better on the grill.
I’m a constant flipper. I use a digital kitchen timer and flip every minute and a half until done. I also try to keep moving the patties to different spots on the grill so that some of them don’t get overcooked by hotspots.
I love pretzel buns, but I’m low-carbing right now, so I’m just eating the patties and cheese. I’ve tried toasting the (regular) buns on the grill as well, but apparently I need a gentler touch, because I usually burn 'em. Too bad, because toasting really elevates a burger.
The “only flip once” business might come from pancakes, where the most common newbie mistake is flipping them more than once, which leads to tough pancakes. But of course, a burger is not a pancake.
And a microwave is the worst possible tool for defrosting. Much better is immersion in warm water. But if you can’t even spare the time for that, even just putting them on the grill frosty would work better than a microwave.
Thanks, that’s what I wanted to know.
My burgers are OK without oiling (using a 75% or 80% burger), but I was asking specifically about chicken sticking. This will help.
Your first sentence makes no sense to me.
What you can do (and what I sometimes do if I have extra thick patties) is to cook the meat gently either on the cool side of a charcoal grill, as far from the coals as possible, or on the top rack with the burners set to low on a gas grill (usually only half the burners), aiming for a cooking temp of about 250 degrees or so. Let them come up to temp (usually about 20-30 minutes, depending on a number of factors. A thermopen or similar is helpful here. Bring them to about 100-110 internal.) Take them off the grill, and fire it up as high as it can go for about 5-10 minutes. Finish by searing about 1 1/2 minutes a side, and you should be good to go. I usually keep the grill open at this part, since I don’t really want the heat to surround the burger, just be on the bottom.
That’s the slightly fussier method if you want to maximize the amount of rare center. The traditional way of searing and then bringing it up to temp on the cool side of the grill works as well, but creates a bit more doneness banding in the finished burger.
If you’re making 1/2 pound burgers, it really shouldn’t be any problem to get a rare or medium rare burger on the grill. 1/4 pound and thinner, yeah, that’s a bit more difficult to impossible once we get to 6-to-a-pound, but people don’t usually cook grilled burgers quite that thin.
Well, I like to sear my burgers, but I want them rare to maybe medium rare. On a grill they end overcooked.
Ahh, OK. Yes, I want a thick 1/2 pound burger that is rare throughout, not just the center.
Yes, sous vide would be the easiest way if you have a sous vide (which you seem to), but, otherwise, if you’re somewhere without a sous vide, do essentially the same sort of thing (bring up slowly to temperature) on a grill and finish over high heat.
THis is not entirely accurate - there is ‘ground beef’ - which may be any mixture of leftover cuts + fat to get it to the labeled ratio - then there is ground chuck, sirloin, etc - which are those cuts specifically ground (and no added fat).
For me - 1/2 ground chuck + 1/2 ground sirloin + salt, pepper and garlic.
best damn burger - or meatloaf, etc - you’ll eat.
For me, the ultimate cut for hamburger is ground short rib, though that does make for quite a rich hamburger. If it’s too rich for you, cut with sirloin. But I will use any mix (or alone) of short rib, brisket, and chuck, maybe settling on something like 1/3 each of sirloin, brisket, and short rib if I’m feeling like being fancy. More often than not, though, I just end up with the pre-ground 80-20 choice chuck from the butcher counter.
sounds like I need to go to the butcher shop .
Serious Eats goes for a mix of 6 oz sirloin, 5 oz brisket, and 12 oz oxtail. That is way too much a pain in the ass for me to get the meat off the oxtail, I don’t care how good those burgers are.
Heston Blumenthal goes for 50% short rib, 25% chuck, 25% brisket.
Most of the blends I see online go for a mix of any of sirloin, short rib, chuck, and brisket, and look for a final fat ratio of 70:30 - 80:20. Mark Ruhlman seems to say the blend isn’t as important as the final fat content that you want to be in that range. Straight-up short rib will end up on the fatty end of that range, so that’s something you might want to cut with a bit of sirloin. If you like sirloin-chuck at 50:50, try starting with sirloin and ground short rib at 50:50. Hell, have fun with it. Make five patties going from 0:1, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1, 1:0 ratios of the two meats and see what works best for your tastes. Experiment!
Geez, tugs collar you guys are making some fan-see burgers, I’ll still throw in my hat though, as I’ve been told I make rad burgers 
Costco extra lean beef (yes, extra lean) and I break it up a little into the bowl.
Saltine crackers, mortar&pestled into a coarse ‘gravel’ - enough to cover the meat in a thin layer.
Garlic & onion powder - thin layer.
Paprika - thin layer.
Mustard powder - thin, sparse layer.
One ground herb/spice (say cloves, coriander, cumin, etc.) - sparse layer.
One dried herb (thyme, parsley, tarragon, etc.) Less sparse layery
That sounds like a lovely meatloaf!
Ninja’d!!
Them ain’t burgers, boy. Them’s mini-meatloaves. Although if anybody came near my burger with ground cloves I’d clove them sumthin’ good!
Parks and Recreation has some thoughts on the matter:
There’s some good advice in the OP, sure, but there’s one important item missing - smoke.
It taste good, and here’s what you do. Prior to starting your fire, put a cup to two of hardwood chips on to soak. I can’t hardly tell the difference between the different options, except for apple. But whatever you have or can get will do. It’s all good.
Once you have a good bed of coals and the grill is hot (damn hot), dump the excess water and spread the wet chips over the coals. Replace the grill (you do have a grill lifter, right?), drop the burgers, close the lid them let 'em cook.
I agree that nice diamond shaped grill marks make for a lovely looking steak (and that counts for something), but because burgers should be cooked to at least medium or more, they don’t really show up on burgers, and the cheese will cover them anyway, so I tend to just go with the 2 flip method previously mentioned.
Jesus. I’ve never heard such palavering over cooking burgers, which is a super simple affair.
Patty them up, season if wanted, get the grill hot, flip them as necessary, remove meat (and place cheese slices at the very end to melt onto the burgers), let rest and serve.
Why are some of you people making this complicated? It’s the most simple process for cooking meat in the world!