bobquasit | Askville answer: Burgers

I don't often answer questions on Askville any more, but this was one I absolutely couldn't resist.

"what is your favorite way to grill hamburgers?"

What do you use in your ground beef to make your hamburgers the best? I like to use a little Worcestershire sauce and salt & pepper. But I am always looking for that perfect hamburger. Please let me know your favorites.

I’ve been questing for the perfect hamburger for more than thirty years now. I have a remarkably narrow palate - I don't eat fish, or any sort of birds if I can help it, and I'm not comfortable with the texture of steak - so I’ve probably eaten more hamburgers than almost anyone else in the world. Here’s how I cook mine.

First, the meat: this should be the best you can afford. Not too lean; 80-87% lean is the best range to be in. If it’s leaner than 87%, the burgers will tend to be relatively dry and flavorless. If there’s much more fat, you can end up with too much of the fat burning and it can smell nasty (and high-fat meat is often cheaper and of inferior quality). As for the meat itself, ground sirloin is good, as is black Angus. If you can get organic at a reasonable price, good for you!

If you have a dependable local butcher who can supply good-quality fresh-ground meat to your specifications without breaking your bank account, that’s an ideal solution. I had a butcher like that, but then without telling me he switched to using factory-ground meat from the same giant processing plants that some of the supermarkets use. I could tell immediately; it tasted horrible. I asked if the meat had changed after my first awful batch of burgers, and one of his employees quietly told me about the switch. I never went back.

After my butcher went bad I tried a lot of places. If you have a restaurateur’s license, you can obtain outstanding ground beef from restaurant supply houses. Unfortunately that isn’t an option for me. I tried organic ground beef from Whole Foods; it’s good, but quite expensive, even with the 30 cents per pound discount for orders over three pounds (I almost always grill at least three pounds of hamburgers at a time).

Supermarket meat in general can be very uneven, but if you find one with good, consistent quality, more power to you. If I have to use supermarket meat, I’ve found that 87% lean ground sirloin is the best choice. But that’s just what happens to be the best type at my particular supermarket (Stop & Shop); your supermarket may differ.

Eventually, to my surprise, I discovered an outstanding meat at my local discount club! It wasn’t the ground beef that they package there, but rather tubes of factory-ground meat. In the past I’ve had terrible experiences with that sort of meat (I once found an entire section of artery in one), but this was far better. It’s 80% lean (perfect), organic, and humanely raised and treated. And it’s $5.99 for a two-pound package, which is an excellent price. Best of all, the taste is absolutely great! Unfortunately I haven’t seen that particular brand for sale anywhere else.

Another nice thing about getting meat in a tube is that I can slice it into burgers with minimal shaping. The less you handle and squeeze the beef, the lighter and juicier the burgers will be. I use disposable food-handling gloves, but generally shape the meat as little as possible.

I don’t put anything in the beef. Some people do, but I’ve never cared for the result. If the meat is good quality, the natural flavor is superior to anything you can add.

I prefer to make large burgers. They cook better, and taste better too. Generally I get about two and a half to three burgers per pound of meat, so they’re not quite half a pound each. I have large hands, and that’s about the size I get when I put my hands together to make a ball of meat - though again, I no longer squeeze the meat into a ball and then flatten it. It’s better to treat the beef gently!

Now, the method of cooking: The best option (in my opinion, as is all of this of course) is grilling over a fire. You can get good results from almost any method, frying or broiling for example, but nothing matches a burger that’s been cooked over hot coals. I grill year-round, and have even grilled during blizzards! Fortunately (since I live in New England) I handle cold pretty well.

My grill is a simple Weber kettle. Before I start cooking, I scrape the cooking grill surface - I never wash it, because that would remove the oils that "season" it. The grill is sterilized by the fire before I start cooking in any case! Of course, since my grill is stored outside (we don’t have a garage) I always use a vinyl weather cover to keep it from getting rusty. Once I’ve cleaned the cooking grill, I move it to one side and build the fire.

At around this point I also throw a handful of wood chips into a cup of water. Mesquite, hickory...almost anything will do fine. Experiment to find out what works best for you. Local hardwoods can produce surprisingly tasty results. Naturally you shouldn’t use anything that will obviously impart a bad flavor to the burgers, such as pine.

I use kiln-fired chunk charwood instead of charcoal briquettes. Briquettes are formed with petroleum byproducts, and require lighter fluid to burn; you can taste that in the burgers, and it’s nasty. There are many different brands of chunk charwood that you can use, and they’re not much more expensive than briquettes. Another advantage of chunk charwood is that you can keep adding more to a fire to keep it going, without affecting the flavor of the food. I do this when I have to cook more food than I can fit on the grill at one time. It works wonderfully.

To light the fire, I use a chimney. And this is probably overkill, but I use brown paper to light it rather than newspaper; I suppose the inks and bleaches in newspaper probably all burn away, but why take a chance if you don’t have to? Supermarkets still have brown paper bags, and I always grab one or two every time I shop. I also use an odd type of husk that falls from the trees in my yard to supplement the paper. It burns rather explosively. Of course I never use lighter fluid.

The fire can take anywhere from ten to twenty minutes to be ready. When the chunks of charwood at the top are glowing red on the bottom, it’s time to dump the coals. Lately I’ve been using a two-zone method, so I dump the coals on one side of the grill only; the other side is for indirect (slow) cooking. The result is a more tender and juicy burger. Of course I wear a heavy arm-length leather glove (with insulation) to dump the coals out of the chimney.

Back to the burgers. If I’m grilling, I dunk them in a marinade shortly before they go on the fire. Research (not mine, scientific research) has shown that covering food with any liquid before putting it on a fire greatly reduces the number of carcinogens in the finished product. I use a mixture of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and a few drops of liquid smoke - with occasional experiments.

I once discovered an absolutely wonderful "thick and rich" soy sauce which made the burgers taste incredibly good. Unfortunately it was discontinued by the manufacturer soon after I found it. I still have one unopened bottle that I’m saving for a really special occasion. Some day I plan to make a visit to Chinatown and buy as many different types of soy sauce as I can, to see if I can find one that’s similar.

Once the fire is ready, I spray an anti-stick spray on the grill (Weber makes on that you can safely use even when the grill is on the fire), and put the grill on.

The burgers get just a quick dunk, because the marinade tends to break down the meat. Then they go on the grill. At this point there the flames themselves should be dying down or virtually gone; you don’t want the burgers to be actually in the flames much, if at all. If you’re using the two-zone method (as I do), you sear the burgers on the hot zone, over the coals, and then flip them. Once both sides are seared (i.e. they look well-cooked; it’s a matter of judgement) move them over to the "cool" zone. I'd say that searing takes about 30-60 seconds per side.

Once you've moved the burgers to the cool zone, throw some wet wood chips on the coals (remember the chips?) to add additional smokiness. Then put on the grill cover (not the vinyl one, the metal one) with the vents open, and wait.

There’s a bit of an art to determining when the burgers are done. Of course, there’s also the question of how well-done you and your guests like your burgers! Fortunately you have a guide when you use the two-zone method: the juice on the tops of the burgers. If it’s red, the burgers are rare (or possibly raw inside; be careful). When it starts to turn brown and/or clear, they’re medium. When it’s fully brown and clear (that is, you’ll see brown and clear juices on the tops of the burgers), they’re fully cooked; call it medium-well or well-done. They also often "plump up" at that stage; be careful when you bite into them, they're very juicy! Depending on how hot and large your fire is, it can take anywhere from five to ten minutes to get to that stage.

If the juices are completely gone, the burgers are probably burned.

When the burgers are done to your satisfaction, take them off, put the grill cover back on, and close the vents.

And that’s it! Serve with the best buns and condiments that you can get. Happy grilling!

P.S. - Leftover burgers can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for much longer. They re-heat best either on the grill (be careful not to overcook!) or by being wrapped in aluminum foil with bit of marinade and put in the oven at around 450 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes (this is handy to do if you're making french fries in the oven as well). They'll be on the well-done side, but still very flavorful! I've also had excellent results using leftover hamburgers to make dirty rice. The smokiness of the burgers adds a nice extra kick.

Askville answer: Burgers

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