Instructions

1. My aim: a burger that is easy to throw together on a weeknight, flavorful enough to stand up to the person who adds every condiment known to mankind to his or her burger, and yet balanced enough to satisfy the minimalist burger eater (ketchup only, please!).
2. Just like you want to use a clean skillet with a little oil to cook dinner on the stovetop, you want to start with a clean grill with oiled grill grates when making dinner on the grill.
3. Ground beef with an 80/20 mix is the best for grilled burgers—this means a mix of 80 percent lean beef and 20 percent fat. The 80/20 ground beef you would buy in the supermarket is usually ground chuck, which is great for burgers. (Something leaner like 90/10 is usually ground sirloin, which tends to dry out when cooked over the high heat of the grill.)
4. Raichlen actually prefers mixing ground chuck and ground sirloin to create his own mix of 80 to 83 percent beef and 17 to 20 percent fat.
5. The heat from your hands combined with room-temp ground beef can melt and smear the fat. This prevents the fat from binding with the lean meat, causing too much of it to render during the cooking process, resulting in a dry, dense burger.
6. Leave the ground beef in the refrigerator until you’re ready to season it and form the patties. Then mix the ground beef just until it comes together and not a second more. Form it into patties and put them back in the fridge until you are ready to grill.
7. Less is more when it comes to mixing the ground beef and forming patties. If you’ve eaten a burger that crumbles apart as you eat it, that was most likely a result of someone overworking the beef. The results are similar to what happens with a broken emulsion. You are trying to get the fat and the protein to bind together, but if you overmix it, you will “break” the binding, causing your burger to dry out, crumble, and lose flavor.
8. This takes into account the inevitable shrinkage that happens during cooking.
9. All over the Internet and in cookbooks, you will find burger recipes that will instruct you to make an indentation in the center of the patties, usually about the size of a thumbprint or a tablespoon. The goal of “dimpling” is to prevent the burger from puffing up in the center. But does it really work? Like everyone else, I wanted to prevent puffing, but I also wanted to minimize shrinkage with my burgers, so I tested it out.
10. One more tip: Rather than smash the patties together in your hands, place approximately 5 oz of meat on a tray or platter lined with parchment. Gently flatten the top of the burger and make your wide shallow depression (“dimple”) with one hand while pressing your other hand against the sides to form a circle. This creates a depression without overheating or overworking the ground beef.
11. For Raichlan, the best choice for grilling burgers is always wood or charcoal because of the additional flavor and charring that happens with those grills.
12. “It’s more versatile. You get a hotter, drier heat which gives you a better sear,” Raichlan said. If you use charcoal, you can add different kinds of wood to contribute to the smokiness and enhance the overall flavor of the burger.
13. However, millions of Americans prefer gas grills because they are easy to use, and you don’t have as much of a mess. Don’t worry—you can still cook a great burger on a gas grill!
14. Please note that the USDA recommends cooking ground meats to an internal temperature of at least 160°F, which is well done without any pink in the center. Cooking burgers to other degrees of doneness should be done at the cook’s discretion.
15. However, feel free to frequently flip your burgers. Raichlen once believed it was best to let the burger be and only flip once during cooking, but he has since changed his tune and cites research that says frequent flipping cooks a burger more evenly.
16. Add cheese about 1 minute before the burger is finished cooking. Some of my favorite flavors are Swiss, cheddar, and Havarti.
17. Whichever buns you prefer, butter the top and bottom of the bun, and then plop them on the back of the grill, out of direct heat, until they are golden. Start toasting the buns when you have a minute left on the patties.
18. You can blend different cuts of meat, add mushrooms, anchovies, herbs, or cubes of cheese. I’m a big fan of lemon zest in my burgers, because it helps cut the fatty flavor of the beef. Ultimately, the choice is yours. As long as the patty is meaty and juicy, you can’t go wrong.
19. This recipe will make 6 burgers that are 1/3 pound each. The patties should be 4 inches across and 1 inch thick at the edges before cooking.
20. Put the cold ground beef in mixing bowl. Sprinkle the other ingredients evenly over top. Fold the meat over a few times to get everything incorporated. This entire process should only take about 30 to 45 seconds. Don’t over handle the meat.
21. Rather than forming the patties in your hand, form them on a tray. This makes it easier to shape the patties without over-handling or warming the meat. I like to use a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, but any tray or platter will do.
22. Cover the patties with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge while you heat up your grill and butter your buns.
23. Heat a gas or charcoal grill to 450 to 500°F, or hot enough that you can only hold your hand above the grill grates for about 1 second.
24. Place patties on the grill over direct heat. Cook to your desired doneness:
25. Flip the burgers at least once during cooking, or as often as you wish. Do not press down on the patties at any time.
26. When you have about 1 minute left on the cooking time, add the cheese to the burgers and the buttered buns to the grill over indirect heat.