Recipes engineered for perfection—what exactly does that mean? The Science series takes you inside the experiments behind 50 cooking concepts featured in our new book, The Science of Good Cooking, by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.
You can’t get any more American than burgers. We grill them. We pan-fry them. We make them out of beef or turkey or even tuna. It seems like everyone is on a quest to make the ultimate burger. And here at the test kitchen, we’re no different. When developing our own recipe for Juicy Pub-Style Burgers, we began with beef and then turned straight to science.
Here you can see Associate Editor Dan Souza getting started in the kitchen. When he and I sat down to talk about the chapter in The Science of Good Cooking that would deal with ground meat, we knew one thing: Oh yes, there would be burgers. But before we get to Dan’s experiment, and the actual burger itself, let’s back up: Meat. How does it work?
THE BACKSTORY
Well, beef is composed of long muscle fibers. You can see them, for example, in the grain of this piece of flap meat. Those muscle fibers are wrapped in tough connective tissue, which binds them together.
For burgers, we need ground meat. The act of grinding shears all of those muscle fibers into very small pieces that are easy to chew. When these fibers are cut, they release “sticky proteins.” These sticky proteins are important because they allow us to bind the meat together to form a burger.
But making the ultimate burger isn’t as simple as buying a package of ground meat. There are a few things to consider.
First: the size of the ground pieces of meat. When it comes to burgers, you don’t want the meat ground too fine—you’ll end up with dense and rubbery burgers. You don’t want meat that is ground too coarse either—then your burgers will have gristly bits and fall apart as they cook. But you don’t have any control over the size of the grind when buying packaged ground meat from the market. You also don’t have any control over the particular cuts of meat that go into each package of ground beef. And because most preground beef in the United States comes from one of about a dozen processing plants, this means that one package of ground beef can contain meat from upwards of a hundred different cattle.
What to do? Here at the test kitchen, we like to grind our own meat. This may sound daunting, but it’s really very simple. All you need is a freezer and a food processor. Grinding your own meat allows you to control the cut, the flavor, the fat content, and the size of the grind. You’ll end up with a better tasting, more tender burger.
THE EXPERIMENT
Talk is easy, but for the test kitchen experiment in The Science of Good Cooking, we knew we needed proof. How? Well, Dan stockpiled some beef and started cooking.
He made two sets of burger patties. One Dan made with store-bought 90 percent lean ground chuck. The other he made with flap meat that he first cut, then froze, and finally ground in the food processor.
He cooked them to medium-rare, let them rest for 5 minutes, and then he got crazy.
Tasters had confirmed that the home-ground burgers were more tender than the preground burgers, but we needed a way to show it. So Dan began dropping 10-pound Dutch ovens on top of each burger from 6 inches above the counter. And what happened?
Well, he made a mess.
The burgers reacted differently to the weight of the Dutch ovens. The store-bought patties smushed a little but remained relatively intact. They barely oozed any liquid at all. However, the home-ground burgers, made with meat that Dan had ground coarsely, flattened like pancakes, spewing their moist interiors all over the cutting board. They were clearly the most tender of the bunch.
So in conclusion: Grinding your own meat allows you to have control over the cuts that go into your burger, which determines flavor and fat content. Grinding your own meat also lets you control the grind size, which determines how tightly packed together the patties are. Put that together, and you’ve got the science of the ultimate burger.
MAKE IT NOW
Our recipe for Juicy Pub-Style Burgers is free through October 1, 2012.
Got any burger questions? Leave 'em in the comments.
About the Author: Molly Birnbaum
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I’m curious; how much of this is because you ground your own choice of cuts with your own choice of grind size, and then how much is because you used the meat right after grinding it as opposed to a good day or so after the store ground it? Would be an interesting second test.
What’s confusing to me is fat content. I like to use 80/20 ground chuck. The problem I have when choosing which cuts to grind is, how do I know that what I grind is 20% fat? I can choose cuts that give me the best probability but depending on which piece I buy or what day of the week it is, there can be varying amount of extra fat left on the cut. How do I know how much to trim off to make sure my burgers are not too fatty but not dry?
I have tried relentlessly, but cannot find flap meat anywhere near Lexington, KY. Are there alternatives? A chuck roast, or boneless short ribs? Thanks!
This story feels like it’s missing the most important part, a discussion of what cuts of meat to use and what results different cuts would bring (plus fat content, etc.).
What other cuts of meat are best to use? Why freeze and use a food processor and not just use a meat grinder? How long do you freeze it for? Like a rock or just firm? What happens if you grind a lot and store it? Does it become just like the store meat?
So many things left incomplete….
Visit seriouseats.com for a complete exploration of what cuts to use when grinding your own burger meat. Kenji Alt, who used to be at CI, has a regular burger storyline going at that site. Hint: the best burgers are not ground from just one cut, but from many different cuts of meat, each of which brings its own character to the mix.
Apologies for the delayed response here! But I spoke with Dan Souza, test kitchen experiment editor extraordinaire, who had some burger wisdom to share:
GV: The amount of binding is not dependent on time, but rather how finely ground the meat is and how much is manipulated after grinding. For the book we also tried over-grinding meat ourselves and found that its texture was close to that of store bought. We’ve left batches of properly ground meat overnight and it was still lose and crumbly the next day.
Matt: This is a good question and unfortunately there is no simple way to tell at home. Beef processors, distributors, and some supermarkets use an instrument to determine fat content when blending. Without that, it’s difficult to accurately measure marbling (intramuscular fat) in a piece of meat (visible intermuscular fat is obviously easier to measure). Taken all together, chuck generally boasts about 20 percent fat overall (between marbling and intermuscular fat), so if you start with a large enough piece, you will be in the right range.
amytrimble2000: It also goes under the name sirloin steak tips, which may help you track it down. Chuck roast offers more fat but a bit less beefiness then flap, while boneless short ribs offer lots of fat and richness but, again, less pure beef flavor than flap. In Our Old-Fashioned Drive-in Style Burgers, we used a combination of flap meat and short ribs for great flavor and fat.
willholmesny: See above for some details on chuck and short ribs.
thestip: See above for some details on chuck and short ribs. You can absolutely use a meat grinder–our freeze and food process method is for those who don’t own one. We cut the meat into 1/2-inch cubes, spread it on a sheet pan, and freeze it until it is firm around the edges but not solid, which takes roughly 30 minutes. We’ve never tested storing the ground meat for long periods of time, but it stays fine in the fridge overnight.