Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Just a random compliment: I love it when people do articles like this!

where did you get the infrared thermometer?
fascinating as always :) i am shocked by the results-i've always been a single flip girl. think i'll have to turn on the oven this weekend & bust out my meat grinder.
and no, i'm not sick of hearing about your lovely wife.
keep up the awesome science!

nervous multi-flippers FTW!

The oven makes sense. I think this must be why a lot of good burger places broil their patties. Like at the Corner Bistro in NYC. There, they place a whole bunch of patties and broil it. although i don't think they sear it off, it's just plain broiled. but now that i think about it, i don't think they broil it at a low temperature like 225. it's probably closer to 300-350 is my guess.

Great article! love the science of food. i wish i had done my science project when i was a kid on this stuff!!!

I really enjoy your articles. The scientific approach is so fresh.

@sally599

Buy your meat from a trusted butcher who grinds their meat on-site (many supermarkets do this), or grind it yourself, and you'll greatly minimize that risk!

"Chilling the meat to almost freezing in the center - ensure that you will quickly sear the outside but the inside won't start to cook, then flip and sear and remove to a warming area that will bring the meat up to the correct temp and minimize moisture loss."

this makes no sense to me at all and doesn't seem to work with the laws of physics.

I too like the oven method, but have never tried the low temp and then searing but that sounds like the best of both worlds. Your basic burger recipe also says season after forming the patties. I think you get better flavor if you mix the seasoning into the meat before forming the patties. Great research article...almost like a science project!

Kenji, as always, you rule. And lines like this make me LO effing L: "like a chimp at the Bronx Zoo, can't seem to leave his meat alone"

Sous vide would be a good way to go instead of firing up the oven. Or, use your toaster oven. I love my toaster oven, and I don't think they get enough respect or consideration as serious cooking tools.

Either you really need to check your color balance on that camera, or we need to make sure we all mean the same thing when we say medium rare.

Those burgers look pretty rare to me. You're saying medium-rare is 125°, correct? Anything I can find puts that pretty squarely into rare territory, with the medium rare starting 130 (going up to 145° according to some sources), and visually, is definitely more on the pink than the raw/red side.

Right?

In case it's not obvious, I'm planning on trying this method, but I do like my burgers cooked more fully than appears above... I think.

Thanks Kenji, I missed the link to the recipe. BTW, I love what your teachings.

Not only are your posts educational, but too damn funny. Excellent Simpson's reference - 'You don't win friends with salad!'

@stratusgd

For me, rare is when it's still only warm in the center, and essentially looks raw. Medium is when it's fully pale pink, and well is when it's gray.

So medium-rare is when it's not quite pale pink, but certainly doesn't look raw any more. OTherwise, what's the term for that? Sub-medium-rare? Rare-medium-rare?

I temp the burgers at 125 in the pan, then let them rest for 5 minutes ,so they do actually carry over a bit to closer to 130, which puts them within medium-rare range for most defiintions

Another thing to note. I sliced them then took photos, but setting up the photos takes a little time, so the during which time the meat oxidizes and shows a more distinct red color than a freshly cut burger. That has a lot to do with the color in the photos. (try it - cut a steak and let it sit for five minutes, then compare it to a freshly cut steak).

I believe I had an email exchange with you getting your advice on this subject. Came to the conclusion that (with time as the limiting factor) you can cook anything that used to fly run or swim, at a temperature slightly above where you want it to finish, then sear the outside. Hence the "magic" of sous vide. Then again I'm not sure everyone wants to quadruple the amount of time it takes to make a burger.
Although I do.

i, for one, am NOT tired of hearing about your wife. i think it's cute how often you mention her :)

I've started to do something similar when I do burgers on the grill. My lovely wife - a Texas redhead - makes big think hamburger patties. I like them to be cooked evenly throughout. As you pointed out, to get the center where it needs to be, the outside will be overcooked and dry. To avoid this, I've been doing two minutes a side directly over the coals at a grill temp of about 450 degrees, then moving the burgers to the other side of the grill, where there are no coals, putting the lid on my Weber and letting the burgers finish to my desired temperature. I get a nice sear on both sides of the burgers but practically no dried out meat and the inside of the burger is evenly cooked throughout.

I think you arrived to a conclusion on the flip experiment too soon for various reasons:

1- The height of the drop. The higher an object is lifted, the greater the impact.
2- The weight of the patty. The heavier the patty the more force it will have on impact.
3- The cooking surface. Outdoor grills have way lesser surface area than a skillet. This makes a big difference on impact. Force over area will be far greater than a skillet. Patty rupture under grill marks ?

I'm sure if you ask your facebook fans to answer the above, you will be surprised why most are in the camp of single flip.

@bubasla, are you an unemployed engineer? you've officially taken this to a ridiculous point, and i officially hope you shut up.

I've always been a single flipper, and I am surprised at the results mentioned here. Great article! It would be nice to see the same test done on a charcoal grill for good measure.

On a side note, I'm with sally599. I am not a fan of icky pink centers myself(No offense, but that last picture looks disgusting). I've mastered the art of making a medium well burger that still remains juicy and delicious. It's all about timing, knowing your grill/skillet, and practice. Of course for those that like pink centers, I've also mastered that method as well. My dislike of pink centers isn't a health issue as much as it's a texture thing with me. Even if I ground my own meet, I would still want my burger cooked medium well.

I do have a question as well. Does this site have a reviewer/writer that prefers medium well burgers? It would be nice to read reviews from someone who eats their burgers the way the majority of America does. No offense meant towards the writers of this site, or those who like rare burgers. It's just that it would be nice to read reviews by someone that resides on a more common ground with the everyday burger eater.

...and again. Great article.

@Kenji

What I am suggesting is that the drop height is a very important factor you cannot ignore. Can you survive jumping from a two story building ? The heavier you are the lesser you are likely to survive. The same principles apply here albeit on a smaller scale, in this case squeezing the juices out of patties with various weights.There are many occassions such as a busy family BBQ where patty drop heights are higher especially at the back of a huge grill. The handling is definitely different than that of a home skillet. Add to that the smaller surface of the grill which exacerbates the issue by adding pressure points to the patty particularly heavier patties. Now I would love to do an experiment myself to verify my theory, but I think you would have more concrete results with your various testing methods.

@tmj529
For the sake of burger science, I wont :)

@bubasla - I also fail to see your point. I can't imagine anyone, short of a know-nothing show off, will throw the burger in the air while flipping gaining serious height. For me, and I'd imagine Kenji and most people, the flip is merely turning or rolling the burger over, especially in a skillet where if one side of the burger wasn't touching the pan while "flipping", the hot fat would fly all over the place.

Awww...explaining "standard oral mastication assay" right after saying it takes all the nerdy goodness out of it. Anyway, when I griddle a burger, I usually do multiple flips (definitely not every 15 seconds, but definitely more than one flip). However, on a grill, it's harder to do so because the patty sticks to the grill and gets destroyed if you try to manipulate it too early. I think that might be where the one flip thing comes from. By the time each side is done enough to flip easily, the burger is done cooking. Also possible is just that professional cooks are often dealing with many items at a time, so it's easier for them to just flip once. And since restaurant cooks are doing it that way, people started thinking that's the way you're supposed to do it.

@bubasla: Yeah...when there's a flair up on a grill, I just hold the patty in the spatula for a second and let flames die down. Then gently set the other side of the burger down. No dropping. It seems weird to attempt dropping the patty at height while there's a flair up. But I guess it a possible research topic: Is there a statistically significant moisture loss due to impact from dropping patties from height to keep hands out of range of possible flair ups compared to flipping burgers at grill level. Ig Nobels, here we come.

...or you could just buy a splatter screen.

Can you honestly say that this oven baked, post pan-seared burger tastes significantly better than the best grilled burger you have ever had in your entire life?

@ Kenji -

Buy your meat from a trusted butcher who grinds their meat on-site (many supermarkets do this), or grind it yourself, and you'll greatly minimize that risk!

I like a medium rare burger as much as the next guy, but I don't eat them anymore because of the E. coli risk. Did you know the USDA allows meat companies to knowingly ship solid cuts of beef with E. coli on their exterior? The justification is that solid cuts get seared on the outside before eating, eliminating the risk. But when a local butcher or supermarket grinds their own hamburger onsite, the bacteria are distributed throughout the interior. Exterior searing no longer kills all the pathogens. There has been more than one E. coli outbreak due to locally-ground beef.

One thing that might work: a quick par-boil of the solid cut, maybe 30-seconds or so, followed by a home-grind on a sanitized machine. You'd end up with little cooked bits throughout an otherwise rare burger, but all the wee beasties would be dead.

When I cook roast I sear first then roast at a low temp. Why have you reversed that process for burgers? I certainly appreciate your research
and will give this process a West Coast try, (with my home ground chuck).

does this technique apply to steak as well? i would assume so, since i'd assume the thermal properties of a mass of ground meat = the thermal properties of a mass of normal meat.

While I can't say that my recall is perfect, considering I was about 12-14 at the time, I can remember a fellow who lived in our area who was the real 'burger king'. He would grind a mix of cuts and meats - beef & moose/deer/etc. - and season his meat a day or two before. I don't remember if we made the patties before or after refrigeration, but I did get my hand smacked once while making the patties because I was making them too tight, and 'tight is tough'. First thing in the morning, he would put a stack of flat bricks in the oven to heat up. When they were at temperature (probably about 250), we would start putting the patties in these deep cookie sheets, with another one inverted on top. Next, he would make a layer of bricks on the rack, and put the first covered sheet on top, followed by another layer of brick, the second set of sheets, the third layer of bricks, the third set of sheets, and the final layer of brick. Then he would drop the temperature down to just above 150, set a couple of cast iron dutch ovens beside the stack, and just let the whole thing cook. As each batch of burgers was done, they were stacked in the dutch ovens, and a new batch put on. When time to serve was near, he'd start taking the dutch ovens out to the BBQ's, where each burger was seared, then placed in a pan of half & half BBQ sauce (his own) and water. The last thing that happened before the burger was placed in a bun was to come out onto the grill just long enough to dry off. I seem to remember that for one celebration, he served more than 300 burgers, and the last one would have been just as good as the first. To this day, I've never tasted a more juicy, perfectly cooked burger.

A sous vide burger is definitely the way to go. If you like yours medium rare, as I do, cook them for two to four hours at 131F/55C. The extended time will pasteurize the beef, killing all of the nasty e-coli bugs. That way you can sip your martini and talk to your guests, without having to worry whether the grill or griddle was too hot or too cool, and without having to hover over them all of the time.

Then sear them briefly in a very hot pan, or use a butane torch. They'll come out perfectly cooked throughout, and with just a thin layer of char for flavor and crunch.

For $159 for a Sous Vide Magic plus an old CrockPot (or preferably a large rice cooker), you can't go wrong!

@Craig

No, RobertJueneman is quite right.

Pathogen growth will halt at around 125 degree F, and above 130 degrees, pathogens are being actively destroyed. Beef held at 130 degrees for 112 minutes is considered sterile (pasteurized). This time gets lower as the temperature goes higher. So beef at 140 degrees will be sterile in just 12 minutes, while at 165 degrees, pathogens are destroyed almost instantaneously.

Provided the beef is held long enough at 131 degrees as he recommends, bacteria will be completely destroyed.

The whole "40 degree to 140 degree danger zone" thing that is impressed into workers in the food industry is intended as an easy-to-remember guideline that does not actually have a strict basis in reality. Similarly, the cooking temperature recommended by the FDA are designed to be completely safe. In other words, a burger cooked to 131 degrees will not be food safe, but holding the food there for 2 hours will render it sterile. The FDA guidelines obviously do not take into account people who will be cooking their food in a water bath. Just because the FDA doesn't consider it doesn't make it false, however.

Certainly.

Without question, the most authoritative, readily available source with regard to these questions is Douglas Baldwin's treatise, "A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking," http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html.

The Government times for a 7D (10^-7, or 10 million) reduction in salmonella are given in Appendix C, table c.10. 112 minutes at 131F is considered adequate for beef, lamb, and pork while the times for chicken and turkey depend on the amount of fat, and are shown in table C.11.

I can certainly agree that if your burger is laced with a particularly heavy concentration of e-coli, sous vide at 131F for two or more hours may not be enough to completely pasteurize it. But in that case, it is virtually certain that cooking it on the grill or griddle won't make it safe either, unless you cook it to the point of being grossly overdone, i.e., the rule of (overdone) thumb of 160F.

The issue of thermometer accuracy is certainly important as well, and having tested over a dozen different thermometers against a $350 NIST-certified reference thermometer, I can attest to the fact that many thermometers, especially (I'm sorry to say) Chinese digital ones, are rather suspect, to put it mildly.

My advice is to calibrate whatever thermometer you are using as your standard against a non-mercury liquid (non-digital) basal or ovulation thermometer, at 108 degrees F, and then hope that your thermometer is linear beyond that region. In my tests, the Geratherm basal thermometer from Germany was as accurate as I could read it -- certainly within 0.1F.

To the best of my knowledge, assuming the sous vide bag is completely submerged, the degree of vacuum has nothing to do with the final result. The thickness of the meat is somewhat more important. I am assuming something that is no more than say 1.5 inches thick -- I'm not cooking a baseball!

Thanks for the questions!

Thanks, Douglas.

I was thinking steak when I talked about 1.5 inches. That thick a hamburger would be quite a burger! Since (presumably) steak doesn't have the nasty bugs on the inside of the meat, and since I am going to sear the outside, I'm comfortable with 2 hours, but 2.5 hours would be better for a massively thick burger. I generally package up all of my meat in FoodSaver bags, already seasoned to taste, and then freeze them. Since I'm now working at home, I can warm up the sous vide cooker in the morning, throw the frozen bag in around noon, and eat anywhere from 5 to 9 o'clock. Even the most tender beef, lamb, and pork won't fall apart within 12 hours, and tougher cuts, like brisket (my favorite sous vide meal) and short ribs can profit from 48 to 72 hours. The same is NOT true of chicken, and especially fish. The natural enzymes in the meat will turn it into mush with extended cooking.

A couple of other points of clarification. I calibrate my thermometers, and my sous vide controller, using a NIST-certified reference thermometer, the Traceable 4000 (http://www.control3.com/4000p.htm). It is calibrated to plus or minus 0.05C, or about 0.1F. Because such thermometers are relatively expensive, I don't expect the ordinary home user to rush out and buy one -- that's why I recommend a non-digital ovulation thermometer for the initial calibration. If you check the calibration of your sous vide machine when you first receive it, and then recheck it periodically, you should be OK, even though you won't be cooking your burgers at arm-pit temperatures! The probes are sufficiently linear that any error caused calibrating them at the low end of the scale should be less than 0.5F.

One other piece of practical advice. The thermistor probes used in these sous vide controllers CAN fail very suddenly, and without any obvious signs, especially if they are crimped somehow. I have seen them suddenly be 5 degrees off. So in addition to the sous vide probe, buy and use an inexpensive oven thermometer with a visible display. Even if it isn't absolutely accurate, you will quickly learn to compensate for its error, and it might save you some unpleasantness if you think you are cooking something at 131F, but it's really 125F.

Mr. Baldwin's site looks very informative. I will run it, and the info above past my ecoli expert!

Awesome reading, until I got to this:

"I can come back to my apartment after a week long vacation and wonder whose opened up a burger shop inside—the odor lingers that long."

Whose? Did you mean "who's" as in short for "who has"?

Try a George Foreman grill an forget all this flipping an flopping lol