Best Ratio's (%) for making burgers

What are the best percentages both of fat to meat ratio and also ratio of different cuts in your burger. Some reccomend choice sirlion. some reccomnet putting a little cream in the beef. some a little brisket...whats your home favortie or your favorite;s burger joints way to do them right?

Kbear

When making burgers at home I like using a mix of ground chuck and ground sirloin. As far as the fat ratio, I like a burger that is juicy around 80/20 lean to fat.

I go with a 93/7 lean to fat, it costs a bit more, but I think it's worth the improved taste.

I like an 80/20 lean to fat...and I like ground chuck. If i really want the burger to be special, I'll buy a chuck roast, and some beef fat and gring em myself.

I'm an 80/20 guy myself. Recently, my wife got some ground sirloin 90/10 on sale and it did make good burgers, just not as juicy. When I get serious, I grind a chuck roast myself and probably end up with something like a 75/25 mix by weight and they are the best. I'm not sure if that's because of the extra fat or the fact that it's fresh ground; most likely both. One of these days I'm going to try fresh ground brisket. That just might end up being a 70/30 batch. pb

I really like 85/15 ground beef. But I also like ground Bison which I believe is about 95% lean.

80/20 is my choice for best taste, but I usually choose 90/10 or better for the lower fat.


Tom

The 90% lean hamburger from the local meat market makes a darn nice hamburger.

I'm surprised so many folk like a lean burger.. 80/20 here for the flavor, not to mention keeping the meat togethar on the grill.. Less fat = more crumble..

Anyone ever tried using marrow instead of fat? I remember reading it was better because rare marrow is easier to digest than rare beef fat, but I never got around to trying it.

Ground chuck at home; I think it's 80/20.

Where I go for my restaurant burgers,

http://www.hollyeats.com/JacksBurgers.htm

"Anyone ever tried using marrow instead of fat?" essemjay58


No, but when I was a kid, one of my favorite treats was the marrow out of the roasted bones put on some type of toasted bread with salt and pepper.

Originally posted by UncleVic

I'm surprised so many folk like a lean burger.. 80/20 here for the flavor, not to mention keeping the meat togethar on the grill.. Less fat = more crumble..

Right again Burger Breath! 80/20 is the way to go if the patties are made by hand and you don't squish the meat together, As they cook down and "Tighten up" they're just fine.

quote:

Originally posted by CajunKing

Kbear

When making burgers at home I like using a mix of ground chuck and ground sirloin. As far as the fat ratio, I like a burger that is juicy around 80/20 lean to fat.

Cajun King - That sounds like AB's Burger of the Gods. That is a great tasting burger.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_13959,00.html

Jim

The fatter, the better and the slower gets you more.

You do not have to cook hot or grill hot to get the best and in fact, it does better if you go slow.

That is the reason for cocktails during the cooking or grilling process.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

The fatter, the better and the slower gets you more.

You do not have to cook hot or grill hot to get the best and in fact, it does better if you go slow.

That is the reason for cocktails during the cooking or grilling process.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

now here's a man who understands Logic! good Thinkin'!

As a self-professed "Burger Geek", I have been eating 80/20 burgers for a little over a half century. They still taste best to me and so far the old heart is still tickin' (knock on my antique meat grinder).

For a long time I used sirloin or ground round for burgers.Good tasting but dry.Then I tried my local butchers ground chuck(80/20)and havent looked back since.Flavor and juicy!!

I'm grinding a chuck roast in about an hour but this piece is not very fatty so I'm going to add some bacon and try to eye-ball it into the 80/20 range.

I accidently removed a london broil from the freezer yesterday instead of a chuck roast so I did the chuck roast today. Plenty of fat on this one and we had some terrific hamburgers off the grill about an hour ago!

I'm always amazed how good a hamburger is that is freshly ground out of a decent cut of meat. The flavor and texture is light years beyond the average sweat shop hamburger you buy at the grocery. I actually like it better then the butcher because I have control over the grind and can season as I go.

If you're not grinding your own hamburger you really should give it a try. It took about 15 minutes to slice and grind the chuck roast, season the burger, and make the patties.

Speaking of "grinding" chuck for burgers ... I have just about always ground my own, or had the meat department at the supermarket grind a roast of my choice.

However, lately, many supermarkets in my area will NO LONGER grind a roast for me. They cite "cross contamination" as their reason for refusing to grind meat from their own counter. That sounds like an excuse to me.

Of course, I still have my trusty KitchenAide meat-grinder attachment (which I have just about worn out - the attachment, that is), AND I have my grandmother's mechanical meat grinder (now a cherished antique) so I will still grind my own beef and pork.

But it seems to me that the increasing number of refusals to grind meat, OR to serve a burger up the way I request it (usually medium rare) is starting to p*** me off.

What do you think? Are they legitimately concerned about our "health" or are they just being obnoxious?

How I long for the return of the good old-fashioned butcher shop (which is getting harder and harder to find)!

It's not cross contamination when they grind beef in the same machine used for beef. So if thay are grinding beef for the sales counter and refusing to grind beef on a cuctomer's request, they are just blowing smoke. Talk to the store Manager. I have.

Now most will not grind pork or other meat in the same machine used for beef. This just shows that the meat department is not cleaning the the grinder after each use and only have one big grinder for beef. In my opinion, they should have a smaller grinder that is easy to clean for customer request to grind pork, lamb or chicken, ect.

I bought an electric grinder from Northern Tools for about $100 and have been grinding my own beef for about 10 years now. The ground beef from my local store just did not taste right. I believe thet were adding something to their grinds to keep it red and making last longer on the self. The beef tasted much better when I grind it.

Spit it out edwmax!

Your first post was interesting and informative. PLUS, I personally enjoyed your input.

I certainly agree with you about home-ground beef tasting BETTER than the stuff one buys in a supermarket.

What was "deleted"? It takes a bit of "gettin' used to" to navigate this website.

Not only that, it takes a bit of "perseverance" for us "newcomers" to survive.

HA, ha.

I just duplicated the post while editing it and since I don't have Mod status here, I couldn't remove it completely. Sorry

I agree that home grinding is better. However, when you buy your beef from the same store and they (the store) claim to grind their beef fresh daily, there should not any difference in the taste.

My wife's calling, I got to slice up some hog jouls into bacon. It beats paying almost $4 per lb for reg. bacon and we like it.

Use the "trashcan" icon to delete your duplicate post.

I use a 75/25 ration... I don't care about the extra fat because we pretty much only eat burgers that have been on the grill..... over hickory I might add

Hmmm, maybe I should run down to Lowe's and grab some meat.

Dennis in Cary

check out alton brown on good eats. he did a whole show on this. i used a food processor in very small batches with a sirlon trimmed between the fat and meat then used the fat in the grind with some chuck. cooked over charcoal and hickory a great burger.

A few yrs ago, Cooks did a series of tests on burgers. They concluded that Ground Fresh chuck was the meat of choice and 6oz burgers of that meat were superior. they also concluded that U should NOT squeeze the meat together, use it in loose form..
my 2 cents worth to this discussion.
In Two of our restaurants i used to have the Chuck ground fresh daily and cooked on the grill, then finally decided the Char Broiler worked best. It didn't take long before we were swamped with burger and fries orders.