The Perfectly Elusive Perfect Burger

[HOF44]

I’ve always wanted to try one of these.

 

[Mark The Homer]

Yesterday's lunch. Simple 5 oz cheeseburger cooked with a little butter low and slow at 250 F in cast aluminum pan, served on toasted brioche bun with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise. That's a heirloom tomato.

 

[Mark The Homer]

I’ve always wanted to try one of these.

It's your lucky day! Here's a copy cat:

 

[Mark The Homer]

So I was in Safeway yesterday and I noticed they had Wahl Sauce for half price - $3.00 a bottle. Probably because the best by date was approaching. The word "Wahlburger" was vaguely familiar, I probably heard of it on the internet. So I bought a bottle.



Got home. They don't have a Wahlburger chain in Maryland so I've never had a true wahlburger, but there was potential with this sauce. Made a burger today. It was not a wahlburger which is apparently made up of ground brisket, short ribs, and chuck, I just slow-cooked my normal ground chuck burger, nothing too fancy, salt & pepper, a little butter in the pan. Cheddar cheese. I noticed on YT that the wahlburger has the condiments on the bottom under the patty. Well, heck, that's how Sunshine does it too. So I built the burger that way. I put the sauce on both toasted buns. Spinach leaves on the bottom, followed by the salted tomato slice, onion rings, and pickle slices. It was pretty good! I will experiment with this further. The sauce is also apparently good with fries, onion rings, etc. The first ingredient listed on the bottle is "natural ketchup."

 

[Mark The Homer]

Per the unending quest for the ultimate in perfect burgery goodness, I think this is an important note:

• The FDA says you must cook your ground beef to 160 F minimum or you risk dying of e.coli or salmonella.

This is concerning.

HOWEVER, as Helen Rennie on YT points out, the odds of dying of either e.coli or salmonella are astronomically low regardless of how you cook your burger. She posted this four years ago. Using 2019 data, she points out that only one person died from undercooked ground beef in 2019. And 846 people died from riding a bike in 2019. Should we stop riding bikes? Should the Feds advise us to stop riding bikes?

My opinion is, if one trusts his/her/their ground beef/chuck source, one can cast this concern aside.

 

[HOF44]

I cook to 140-145 usually.

 

[RedWolf]

Medium burger for me. E coli be damned

 

[Boone]

I don't do temp checks on my burgers, I can kind of tell by how they 'feel' how done they are.

I will say this. If you ever get 'food poisoning' from contaminated ground beef, you may not die - but you may wish for it at some point. I got a bad fast food burger coming back from covering a game for ES back in the day. By the time I got home, I was throwing up and it went on for more than a week. Probably the sickest I've ever been and it only got fixed with some serious antibiotics.

That being said, I don't worry about it - I cook my burgers to medium.

 

[Mark The Homer]

I did too. It was when I was in my 20s. It was some shack in the Everglades on the Alligator Alley. Middle of nowhere. I ordered a burger. Dumb. I was horribly sick like that for a day. My buddy and I were living out of my Ford F-100 pick up truck at the time. I could go into more details but you don't want to hear it. Then I was okay. That was the last time I got food poisoning.

Speaking of which, I made a cheeseburger for lunch today. 1/3 lb patty. The ground beef is sold at Boarman's, they call it their "famous burger blend." They don't say what's in it, but I suspect it's ground brisket, short ribs, and chuck most of the time. I made a Farmer's Daughter Burger which I already posted about quite a while back but w/o pics. I also used a lot of the Wahl sauce mentioned above, on both buns. The cheese is pre-sliced cheddar. Seasoned heirloom tomato slice was placed on the bottom. On top were the pickled onions and spinach leaves. It was really good! The Farmer's Daughter Burger is a really good burger. It's worth checking out. The pickled onions add something special. And the beef flavor was legit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/2019/11/04/e24fb3d8-fcdb-11e9-8906-ab6b60de9124_story.html

Raw burger on piping hot 450 F cast iron, toast buns, two mins flip patty, smash immediately, flip back to original side immediately, cook until you see grease trying to come to the surface (about 2 mins), season, flip a third time, season again, add cheese, two mins later it's done. Very easy cook and very delicious. Voted best burger in Appalachia.

 

[Mark The Homer]

Kenji just released this vid two days ago. I'm not fond of posting a lot of YT vids in a forum thread like this because IMO a thread like this should be "by the people, for the people" but in this case, I think there is a lot of good info which has the potential to promote our quest of one day obtaining the perfect burger.

One of his points here is to keep it simple - that is, without a lot of toppings. Let the flavor of the beef shine through.

Here he shows us how he hand-grinds chuck, short rib, and brisket into ground burger meat with nothing more than a knife and a meat cleaver.

Then he demonstrates how putting salt into the ground beef before forming the patty is a really bad idea. Jump to the 13 min mark to watch the fun.

His goal here is to create burgers which are super crusty. He also introduces some interesting ideas such as placing thinly sliced onions on the burger first, followed by melty (American) cheese which melts into the onion ring slices. And adding a little sugar on top of the pickle relish which was added on top of his Japanese Kewpie mayo and ketchup (3:1) to make his burger sauce. His burgers here are quarter pound with non-fancy buns with few toppings. Perfect simple backyard bbq burgers for a crowd, I think. The idea is to emphasize the flavor of the beef. He says these burgers are his favorite.

 

[RedWolf]

My burger is always the same. Very simple. The only question I ask myself is with or without bacon

Ustedes son locos

 

[Mark The Homer]

Here's a burger I used to make like 20 years ago. I don't even know what to call it. Two 3-ounce patties sealed together with a seasoned onion slice inside. It's a lot like a Juicy Lucy already posted, but it uses an onion slice. Try to seal those sides up by pinching or folding them over so that when the onion juice starts to render, it stays inside the burger. IMO, you don't want to use toppings that will overpower the flavor of the onion slice inside. I used the Wahl sauce on the bun. Cook so that the onion slice inside reaches around 150 F. Damn delicious.

 

[Ashburn Dave]

I'll have to try adding butter to my next burger. This is from Malcom Reed in his perfect grilled burger:

"To grill the burgers place each patty on the cool side of the grill first – here’s a little tip – use your thumb to make an indention in the center of each burger and place a pat of burger in the thumb print (it’ll make them juicy)."

 

[Skinsfan1311]

So I was in Safeway yesterday and I noticed they had Wahl Sauce for half price - $3.00 a bottle. Probably because the best by date was approaching. The word "Wahlburger" was vaguely familiar, I probably heard of it on the internet. So I bought a bottle.

View attachment 10491

Got home. They don't have a Wahlburger chain in Maryland so I've never had a true wahlburger, but there was potential with this sauce. Made a burger today. It was not a wahlburger which is apparently made up of ground brisket, short ribs, and chuck, I just slow-cooked my normal ground chuck burger, nothing too fancy, salt & pepper, a little butter in the pan. Cheddar cheese. I noticed on YT that the wahlburger has the condiments on the bottom under the patty. Well, heck, that's how Sunshine does it too. So I built the burger that way. I put the sauce on both toasted buns. Spinach leaves on the bottom, followed by the salted tomato slice, onion rings, and pickle slices. It was pretty good! I will experiment with this further. The sauce is also apparently good with fries, onion rings, etc. The first ingredient listed on the bottle is "natural ketchup."

View attachment 10493

We have a Lidl near our house and, every once in a while, they have premade fresh, (i.e. not frozen), Wahlburger patties for sale. In spite of my inherit distrust of pre-made burgers, the Wahlburger patty was very good.

 

[Mark The Homer]

Good to know! There's a Lidl right on Rt 40 on my way to Pioneer Pit Beef. I stop by there sometimes for the skirt steak which is pretty good. It's an inside skirt steak which is all I've ever seen anywhere. I think the outside skirt steak is what most people prefer. I will check it out next time and look for wahl burger patties

 

[Skinsfan1311]

I don't do temp checks on my burgers, I can kind of tell by how they 'feel' how done they are.

I will say this. If you ever get 'food poisoning' from contaminated ground beef, you may not die - but you may wish for it at some point. I got a bad fast food burger coming back from covering a game for ES back in the day. By the time I got home, I was throwing up and it went on for more than a week. Probably the sickest I've ever been and it only got fixed with some serious antibiotics.

That being said, I don't worry about it - I cook my burgers to medium.

I remember my Mom eating raw hamburger when I was a kid. Hell....I remember bull and oyster roasts in the early 80's here in Maryland where they would have pans of raw hamburger. People would load up with some raw burger and onions. I'll eat almost any damn thing, but raw burger never appealed to me....

 

[Mark The Homer]

I've never heard of that! Eating raw ground beef! That's a new one!

AI says it's sometimes referred to as steak tartare. I've heard of that!

 

[Skinsfan1311]

Good to know! There's a Lidl right on Rt 40 on my way to Pioneer Pit Beef. I stop by there sometimes for the skirt steak which is pretty good. It's an inside skirt steak which is all I've ever seen anywhere. I think the outside skirt steak is what most people prefer. I will check it out next time and look for wahl burger patties

Really? They often have a inside skirt steak for sale there, but I always pass because outside is supposed to be better. I'll pick one up next time they go on sale and try it. I marinate them overnight, cook them hot, fast & rare anyway and always on the grill. They have a lot of good, and sometimes different, stuff their. The Sweet Chili Thai style sauce is amazing. The Boom Boom sauce ain't bad either. Sometimes I'll serve that up as a change of pace with Cajun Style shrimp, (instead of Remoulade or cocktail sauce), at the tailgate. The bakery is really good too, at least as far as baguettes, croissants, and bagels are concerned. The pretzel rolls are very good too.

 

[Chris]

I buy whichever is on sale every week. Personally I can’t really tell a difference.

 

[Mark The Homer]

I buy whichever is on sale every week. Personally I can’t really tell a difference.

Yes, the outside is supposed to be better, but I've never seen one, so I tried the inside when I saw it at Lidl and it came out great. Non-FB Anne loved it! Nice beefy flavor. Reasonably tender. I've done it several times. It's fun to use my hook tool too - I don't get to use it often. Meanwhile I saw one once at Boarman's and bought it and to my surprise, it was not as good, not as tender as the Lidl skirt steak. I did not expect that. But the Lidl ones have been consistently good for me.

Flat iron steak is very similar and I've had a lot of good luck cooking those - even the ones I've found at HT.

Here is the cooking technique I used and the carving too. Except I cooked mine on a charcoal Weber kettle