The Burger Lab: Presenting the FLOOD BURGER

Posted by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, February 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM

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Clockwise from top left: A ready-to-sear Flood Burger, the best use for my citrus juicer, autopsy of the beast, excellent crust on a smashed burger [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Flood Burgers

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Here's the recipe for Flood Burgers! »

I have just cooked and consumed what may have been the single greatest burger to come out of my kitchen. And my kitchen averages about a dozen burgers a week. Want proof? Just smell my wife's hair. Eau de bouef. (sorry dear).

We'll get to that burger, but first, a little background:

A couple of weeks ago, I asked Vogue food writer Jeffrey Steingarten about his thoughts on the Shake Shack's burger. His reply? "it's 4 ounces. That's too small to ever be a great burger."

Then, a couple nights ago, I asked The Hamburger: A History author Josh Ozersky what his last burger on earth would be. His response? "White Diamond, Bill's, maybe Rub's. Not sure, but It would definitely have to be something 4 ounces or less."

These two equally valid opinions represent what I consider to be one of the great dichotomies of the burger world. Those who prefer the small, thin, 4-ounce or less, smashed-style of burger (à la Shake Shack or Bill's), and those who prefer thick, medium-rare, 6 to 8 ounce pub-style behemoths (à la Corner Bistro or Minetta Tavern).

The crux of the matter is this:

Crust vs. Juice

A smashed burger, like the one here, places emphasis on the all-important sear. As long as you get a flavorful, well-browned, salty crust on the meat, who cares if you give up a bit of juiciness—that's what oozy fatty American cheese is for, right?

In the other camp, however, are those people that prefer the mouthfeel and satisfying heft of a burger that's thick enough to retain a medium rare center. The problem is, there's a reason why steak tartare comes served with chopped pickles, shallots and capers: Rare ground beef doesn't have all that much flavor. For the people who fall in this camp, it's not worth it to try and up the ratio of flavorful crust if it means losing some of the juicy, medium rare center. Besides, flavor is what bacon is for, right?

Being a die-hard member of the thin, crusty, but-maybe-not-too-juicy camp, my goal this week was to analyze the technique of burger smashing, and come up with a method that optimizes juice retention without losing any of the flavorful crust. To that end, I made a couple dozen smashed burgers, changing the strength and timing of the smashing each time.

Time to Squeeze Some Burgers

In order to gauge the amount of juices being lost I placed each patty in a citrus juicer and squeezed every last drop of juice (a combination of rendered fat and intramuscular liquid) out of them.**

**Full disclosure: you need to get in there with your hands a bit to get the last few drop of juice out.

Alton Brown is adamant about throwing out any tool that does not have more than one use, so I'm glad I get to keep my juicer.

The problem? My results were pretty boring. Turns out that as long as your temperature and cooking time are the same (2 minutes at 600 degrees for mine), and you don't touch the burger after the initial smash (which can take place at any time up to 45 seconds after you've placed your burger on the hot surface), the amount of juice it retains is pretty much the same no matter what you do—about a tablespoon for every two ounces of 85/15 ground beef.

On the other hand, I now had in my hands a pretty exciting new product: seared burger juice. Composed of about 25% fat and 75% liquid, the juice had all of the flavor of a perfectly seared, crusty brown burger. Close your eyes and hold it under your nose, and you wouldn't know the difference.

The only question that remained was, what could I do with it?

How to Make Juice-Filled Burgers

Since all the flavor of a great seared burger was trapped in this bowl of liquid, what if I were somehow able to incorporate that flavor into a thicker, juicier, pub-style burger to get the best of both worlds?

Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

Remember that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Gene Wilder, in reference to his Wonkavision says, "if they can do it with a photograph, why can't I do it with a bar of chocolate?" Replace "a photograph" with "liquid-center bubble gum" and "bar of chocolate" with "hamburger," and you have a pretty good idea of what was going through my head.

The execution was simple. I froze two tablespoon of seared burger juice in a small bowls while I measured out two 3-ounce balls of ground beef which I formed into thin patties. One of them, I gave cupped edges. Then, Jucy Lucy-style, I placed the frozen disk of burger juice inside the cup of one patty, placed the other patty on top, crimped the edges, and carefully sealed, and re-formed the burger into one large patty.

Things are looking good.

To cook the patty, I heated up oil in a high-carbon-steel crepe pan (my favorite pan for cooking small batches of burgers—they hold even heat like cast iron, but heat up much faster than the thick skillets) until it was smoking hot, then added the patty. Everything was going well until I flipped it, whereupon the patty split open, juice gushed out, hot fat spattered, the skillet caught fire, and I dumped the whole thing into the sink.

I fired up one more burger, this time remembering to prick is with a toothpick as soon as I flipped it over in order to provide a channel for some of the steam to escape and prevent premature eruption. For good measure, I added a slice of cheddar. The bun was a toasted Arnold's (which, as you can tell by its relative lack of freshness, had been in my fridge for a week).

Despite knowing what was inside, I was totally unprepared for the torrent of flavorful juice that gushed into my mouth as I bit into it. It literally had the juice of two burgers inside it, which sprung on me like a soup dumpling on an unsuspecting dim-sum newbie.

Though I was expecting it to have a hollow center filled with juice, the results were actually far better: the juices melted and soaked into the meat as the patty cooked, resulting in a burger that doesn't really seem different from a normal burger, other than the fact that burger is just as flavorful in its medium rare center as it is on its crusty exterior, and that it is ridiculously juicy.

If Snooki were a bun, she'd be all over this juicehead of a burger.

Now to come up with a name. I asked the Burger Lab's Facebook community for input and got quite a few good responses. Lava burger, Slurpy Joe, Truffle Shuffle, Goo-Burger, etc. For now, I'm going with "Flood Burger," but if you've got better ideas, I'd love to hear them!

I figure naming this burger will be good practice for when Adri and I eventually have to name our kids, who will only be slightly less important than ground beef.

Continue here for Flood Burgers »

About the author: After graduating from MIT, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt spent many years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor in Boston. He now lives in New York with his wife, where he runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and co-writes the blog GoodEater.org about sustainable food enjoyment.

63 Comments Favorite this! (8)

Tags: Flood Burger, recommended, The Burger Lab

63 Comments:

Awesome column, and even better with this hilarious quote: "If Snooki were a bun, she'd be all over this juicehead of a burger." LMAO!!!

IHeartMeatt at 9:12AM on 02/12/10

Reminiscent of a Chinese soup dumpling.

Lorenzo at 9:17AM on 02/12/10

that is insane! frozen burger juice. does your ice cream taste like burgers now?

travpard at 9:19AM on 02/12/10

Frozen burger juice! Sorry, but that's just silly. Why not do what Paula Dean does and mix cubes frozen butter into your raw hamburger meat? Still silly but less fussy.

Trilby at 9:22AM on 02/12/10

I'm thinking twins- Trip "Tri-Tip" Lopez-Alt, and Brian "Chateaubriand" Lopez-Alt.

Ohhhh, you wanted names for the burger? Stay with your own theme and call it "The Situation."

dashofginger at 9:23AM on 02/12/10

Kenji, your columns are always amazing, but the most amazing part of this one is that you needed a creative use for a bowl of salty seared beef juice. I never would've gotten past the sheer pleasure of tossing that little umami shot down my gullet in the privacy of my own kitchen.

Oh, and the part when you had the grease fire was pretty amazing, too.

Carolyn Cope at 9:32AM on 02/12/10

Alton Brown is useless compared to Kenji
First time I saw Alton he was smoking BBQ in junked gym lockers. That was funny and enlightening. But all downhill from there

gaffer at 9:45AM on 02/12/10

I'm with trilby I'd rather put another fat(butter, cheese, bacon) in the middle of my burger. I do admire your testing process however.

bobbob at 9:48AM on 02/12/10

this article had me in convulsions
kenji, you compete with chichi for my heart-lol
"seared burger juice" priceless.
i think your wife is pretty lucky-beef hair or not.
i'm gonna be craving a flood burger all day now.
you should copyright that.

gastronomeg at 9:52AM on 02/12/10

Mad Food Science at it's finest! A much more inventive approach here than your other Food Lab posts. This idea is original, convincing, clear and replicable.

The key to success is to do something so different, yet so well that people be willing to pay you extraordinary amounts of money for it. Hence, you should open up a burger shop. I guarentee no one else is doing this.

resolutejc at 10:10AM on 02/12/10

Also, I wonder how a little onion juice would taste mixed in with the burger juice? White Diamond uses onion juice for their burgers and their delish.

resolutejc at 10:11AM on 02/12/10

sad that 2 burgers had to sacrifice their lives for 1 flood burger...

Lilla at 10:16AM on 02/12/10

Kenji - couldn't you use a little gelatin to set the juice, instead of freezing?

simon at 10:17AM on 02/12/10

So, you have to "sacrifice" a 4 ounce burger in order to make the 6 ounce flood burger? I mean, the idea is cool and all, but I'm not too keen on sacrificing the first burger.

Instead, why not just save some Au Jus from the next time you make pot roast or braised short ribs? You can take some of that juice (that will be more than flavorful, even if it doesn't taste like a seared burger), freeze it, and then place that in between two 3-oz patties like you did in this write up.

Fernando at 10:23AM on 02/12/10

An easier way to accomplish essentially the same thing is just to wrap the patty around a pat of butter...

RagingRio at 10:24AM on 02/12/10

I think the point of retaining the burger juice is to keep the burger au natural. Most people don't like anything else on their burger (pre-cooking) other than salt and pepper. Kenji is adhering to this rule. Adding braised jus, butter, gelatin, cheese or bacon to the center would not help to maintain that pure burger flavor. The only luxury addition that I would allow here would be to add a bit of onion juice to the mix because most smash-burgers are cooked with lard and onion juice.

resolutejc at 10:32AM on 02/12/10

A tad off topic, Kenji, but you mentioned that you took your bun out of the fridge -- keeping bread in the fridge actually makes it go stale faster than leaving it out at room temperature. And for my fellow Big Bang Theory fans, yes, I learned that tidbit via a joke on that show, but some quick online research confirmed that it is indeed true.

MichaelN at 10:47AM on 02/12/10

Although butter-filled patty would be good, I feel like some people are overlooking that the Flood Burger was born from another experiment. Kenji didn't set out to make a seared burger juice-filled patty, or just any burger filled with a fatty liquid, like the more commonly used butter; he had leftover burger juice. The novelty and fun lies in this burger being filled with burger-derived juices for 100% burger deliciousness, like resolutejc mentioned. Certainly not the most practical recipe, but it's awesome. :D

Robyn Lee at 11:15AM on 02/12/10

I'm sorry, that patty of fat looked digusting! Grease is grease and sometimes not that tasty.

jkdrummer at 11:26AM on 02/12/10

This reminds me of a passage from Marco Pierre White's book where he indicated at one of his Michelin starred restaurants, each plate of chicken had the juice of 1 1/2 extra chickens which were cooked (actually overcooked) to specifically ring out all the juice which was used on completely different dishes. The overcooked, squished juiceless carcasses and meat were then served as part of the staff meal. Congrats, you just created a michelin'esque burger.

ESNY1077 at 11:27AM on 02/12/10

@ESNY1077 - yeah, I read about that too. Pretty amazingly decadent way of making chicken stock. It's basically the same idea as the duck press, taken to a higher, more extravagant level.

simon at 11:40AM on 02/12/10

Another amazing experiment and recipe from Kenji. It's just too bad that the recipe is way too impractical for most people to actually make. As intrigued as I am, I would only consider making it if I had a predetermined use for the throw away burgers.

yamatosoul at 11:48AM on 02/12/10

That looks amazing. But pretty sure that Snooki would be all over that juicehead of a burger, bun or not....oh snap

lollie at 12:22PM on 02/12/10

@all

checkbout the link to the recipe. It uses 8 ounces of beef total to form a six ounce burger. The extra searedand juiced beef works well in simmere pasta sauces, so really, there's now waste.

I do like to think of it as akin to making a sauce for a dish at a high end restaurant. You use a bunch of vegetables to make stock, and the bulk of the solids get discarded, but the flavorful liquid is used to make the dish better. I think as long as you are extracying as much flavor as possible, it's not wasteful. Unless you define wasteful in terms of wasting calories. But in that case, you shouldn't be eating meat in the first place.

It's a different concept from adding butter to a burger-I don't want my burger to taste like butter. I want it to taste like the juiciest, most intense burger possible. That's the goal here.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 12:26PM on 02/12/10

Ps sorry for typos. iPhone keyboard.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 12:28PM on 02/12/10

My bad. I just read that seared burger juice was being used here. But Kenji is right, you can use it for many other applications. However, I wonder if there is another way to extract the same amount of liquid from an uncooked patty.

resolutejc at 12:39PM on 02/12/10

Kenji, you are a meat mad scientist. I'll never try any of your recipes, but boy do they look fun!

chiffonte at 12:55PM on 02/12/10

Keep up the food lab - great posts

burgerluver at 12:58PM on 02/12/10

Sorry, that's disgusting.

jkdrummer at 1:16PM on 02/12/10

I don't know when, I don't know where...but I am definitely going to be making this. For novelty and ultimate juicy-burger one-upmanship!

sar_t at 1:27PM on 02/12/10

Oh man! Something about this experiment is simultaneously a little revolting, and oh-so-appetizing. I suppose it's just the slightly sadistic-seeming burger-squishing process that threw me off. But for that burger......it's worth squeezing the heck out of some sacrificial patties.

teenagefoodie at 2:07PM on 02/12/10

@michaeln

I'm going to requote you so that people don't have to scroll back through all the backlog of comments:

"A tad off topic, Kenji, but you mentioned that you took your bun out of the fridge -- keeping bread in the fridge actually makes it go stale faster than leaving it out at room temperature. And for my fellow Big Bang Theory fans, yes, I learned that tidbit via a joke on that show, but some quick online research confirmed that it is indeed true."

Right you are - refrigeration causes starch retrogradation faster than room temperature. Except! With bread that's has fat and is full of dough conditioners like a burger bun, I've found that at room temperature, the bun ends up going moldy long before it goes stale.

Basically, a burger bun:

at room temp, lasts about a week (goes moldy).
at refrigerator temp, lasts about three weeks (gets successively staler, and eventually too stale to eat).

So in general, I do keep my fresh breads either at room temp, or wrapped in foil in the freezer (ready to pop in the oven), but enriched and conditioned breads (like sandwich bread and burger buns), I keep in the fridge to stave off the mold.

Perhaps this warrants a post on its own!

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:32PM on 02/12/10

Agree with the bread discussion. I have an old-fashioned metal bread box built into a kitchen drawer and found that during most of the year I get about 3 days until mold. During the winter cold spells, I get about 4-5 days if i am lucky in SO FL.

Years ago we cooked burgers in searingly hot pans that had been sprinkled with a light layer of salt. No oil, butter, etc. You might want to give that a try next time you are experimenting.

Thanks for doing the work and helping keep my kitchen clean!

richopp at 4:41PM on 02/12/10

I like the photos.

chinolam at 4:46PM on 02/12/10

@J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
To quote yourself:
"Rare ground beef doesn't have all that much flavor."

Not to stir up any Serious Eats writer war, but with this nugget of information are you meaning to suggest that Nick Solares's crusade for rare burgers is misguided? Would an 8 ounce burger that was cooked to medium or medium-rare actually have more flavor than one that was only cooked to rare? Or are you trading flavor for juiciness with a rare burger?

Like you, I've always preferred the smash burgers over huge monster burgers, but I've never really analyzed why. I sensing a flaw in the large rare burger facade, and I'd like to completely crack it open.

thoughts?

Nick Kindelsperger at 5:08PM on 02/12/10

Wow I have to try this sometime. And it's spelled "boeuf" btw.

Chocolatesa at 5:23PM on 02/12/10

@Nick - I think the theory is this: the flavor comes from the crust (Maillard.) To get a lot of flavor, you need a lot of crust. To get a lot of crust, you need a lot of surface area touching the griddle (which, for the same amount of meat results in a thinner patty) and a lot of heat.

A lot of heat + thinner patty = medium (at best) innards.

So, to get a lot of crusty flavor, you have to (in theory) sacrifice a rare interior. Does this make sense?

I'm seeing a benefit to Kenji's frozen inner juices now, that I didn't see before: The cold interior keeps the meat closer to rare, while the outside is getting nicely crusted up...

How's my reasoning?

simon at 5:51PM on 02/12/10

Grease. It's what's for dinner. That sounds sinfully delicious!

leebo at 6:03PM on 02/12/10

Well, I guess I know what to do with extra liquids when I brown and drain ground beef for tacos! Who knew?--and my guys will be thrilled with this extra beefy juiciness. Name? Sloppy Pirate--crusty on the outside while sloppy drunk with juiciness on the inside.

dhorst at 10:20PM on 02/12/10

@Kenji: Have you experimented with using less of the frozen burger juice than the amount in the photo? It seems like a significant amount. Maybe you can cut it in half or thirds and still have a great outcome. It will certainly be more frugal to divide it up if making three or more 6 oz. burgers.

resolutejc at 2:23PM on 02/13/10

I would think that instead of sacrificing another burger for the juice, you could substitute some form of highly gelatinous beef stock. Soup Dumpling style burger!

joonjoon at 10:37AM on 02/14/10

Maybe the coolest thing I've ever read. If for nothing else than the idea of beef juice "ice cubes." While I love this application, what else can people think of as uses for these little nuggets of beefy goodness?

jtminnesota at 11:59AM on 02/15/10

don't like to be a "hater" b/c i almost always find kenji's "burger lab" postings to be remarkable and well worth replicating... this time, though... for me, this looks like a lot of work just to end up with an over-the-top, soggy mess. i'm sure it tastes okay (maybe), but is this offering really going to be better than a more traditional burger executed with proper technique and with meat that is properly and creatively sourced? frankly, i doubt it.... this one's a pass for me.

HerbyN at 8:41PM on 02/15/10

@Lila "sad that 2 burgers had to sacrifice their lives for 1 flood burger..."

not just "sad" but needlessly wasteful as well... the more i think about it, the more i'm saddened by this this "flood burger" post...

HerbyN at 8:45PM on 02/15/10

@HerbyN

Please read the actual recipe: You don't end up sacrificing 2 burgers for the sake of one, or wasting any food at all, in fact. I'm adamantly against waste, and hardly anything gets thrown out in my own kitchen.

I use 8 ounces of beef per burger, 2 ounces of which I sear and squeeze. The seared beef I then reserve so that I can use it for other things like an easy meat sauce. There's no need to throw it out - it's still perfectly good cooked beef—you just need to make sure to use it in an application that'll add back some liquid to it. The resulting burger you get does taste great, by the way.

@joonjoon and Nick and anyone else who had good ideas about stuffing other thigns into the burgers:

All of those things sound like good ideas, but I think maybe I didn't make the point of this clear in the article: The reason I think this burger is great is because it solves the problem of thick burgers, being that the center of the patties doesn't have much flavor. Even if you cook a thick burger all the way through, the meat won't get much above 160-180 degrees except on the very exterior, and flavorful browning reactions don't take place until well into the 300+ range. Thick burgers trade concentration of flavor in favor of softer, juicier texture.

So, by searing a separate batch of beef, extracting its flavor, and placing it in the center, you get a burger with the satisfying texture of a thick burger, but with the concentration of flavor that you'd get from a thin, smashed burger.

Make sense?

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 10:38PM on 02/15/10

New Rule...If you skim the article, don't leave a comment.

The author clearly states his reasons for each step and answers; the reason for the process, the use of the juice, the use for left over meat, etc.

@jkdrummer "Really, REALLY!!" (tip of the hat to SNL for that one)

Travis.A at 1:30PM on 02/16/10

I enjoyed the column, but that burger is an E-coli factory waiting to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting victim. I'm not sure why you bothered to "cook" this burger--there's barely a hint of brown on all but the very outer edge. You could have kept the juice fresh (instead of freezing it) and just poured it over the raw meat. And don't get me started on the bun. It's clearly a ruined soggy mess. At this point, it's better off as a bunless, low-carb burger. A+ for the article, FAIL for the burger.

timhood at 2:44PM on 02/17/10

@timhood

Actually, the beef is home ground, and made from whole cuts, so there is just as much chance of getting e. coli from consuming it as there is from eating a medium-rare steak. Also, the only person who at the burger was me, so the only potential victim is fully expecting! (expecting deliciousness and deliciosity combined, that is).

When eating a thick burger, my goal is always to have only it browned on the very outer edge - that's the only place it ever will brown. You can't really brown a burger in the center. The best you can do is overcook it and "gray" it, not brown it, since browning reactions don't take place until well over 300 degrees (and burgers are well done at about half that temperature).

That said, because of the meat juices in the patty, it has all the flavor of a well-browned patty, even in the very center. You don't expect it to taste brown because it is nice a juicy pink, but the flavor is all there.

When I make this burger again, I'm definitely going to use a different bun. I just happened to have Arnold buns in the fridge, but they are clearly not a sturdy-enough match for this patty.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 2:55PM on 02/17/10

Those of you wondering what to do with the "juiced" burger meat must not be dog owners...

raisingruckus at 3:01PM on 02/17/10

I have heard that E-coli can be on the surface of a steak, but because the meat is seared at a high temperature, the E-coli is destroyed; whereas ground beef can be contaminated when the surface beef is ground into the rest. That is why it is recommended that we completely cook ground beef before consuming it.

JaM43 at 4:03PM on 02/17/10

@JaM43

You can briefly dunk meat into boiling water before grinding it if you are really worried about surface contamination. Anyhow, I'd rather run the slight (and easily manageable) risk or e.coli contamination than live a life devoid of medium-rare beef!

Honestly, you've got more of a chance of getting an e.coli infection from fresh produce and salad greens than you do from eating home-ground beef.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 4:13PM on 02/17/10

Looks delicious! I haven't had a burger in a while, and now my mouth's watering. If I try this burger, I might as well go all the way, and will add "the works!" A few bacon strips, and special sauce!

sassy at 4:51PM on 02/17/10

This sounds FANTASTIC to me! I love the idea of putting all the yummies in the middle (AND using the sacrificed meat to MAKE the yummies for other good stuff). Sort of reminds me of J. Beard's putting cold butter in the middle of the patty, but this is BETTER. I love this, and I'll use a better bun.

LynnieBNC at 6:57PM on 02/17/10

@JaM43
I absoLOOTLY agree with you.

LynnieBNC at 7:00PM on 02/17/10

Looks kinda gross but I'm sure I'll be making this burger and devouring it when I'm PMSing.

P.S. I personally prefer calling it the Lava Burger

KitchenVixxen at 9:39PM on 02/17/10

Here in Japan this technique is used with gyoza (potstickers), but we use kanten (agar-agar) to make the juices into a sort of gelatin that is solid at room temperature, but melts when cooked and, stays melted.

The advantage of using kanten is that you can dice it and mix it into the meat, rather than create a single pool of juice in the middle.

creana at 10:26PM on 02/17/10

Hey Kenji,

I totally get what you're saying about getting the browned beef flavor into the burger. What I'm suggesting is that a well-browned and concentrated dark beef stock might be 1. easier to prep and use for multiple burgers, and 2. perhaps even taste better.

At home I usually use dark beef stock using oxtail and short rib. If you boil it down enough, I'm sure it would taste just as good as the smashed burger juice, if not better. With this method, you can make a whole batch of "beef juice" to stuff into the burger without having to cook up multiple patties. I'm sure this burger is tasty but it seems impractical to go through this whole process when you're serving, say, 10 people at a BBQ.

I'm definitely going to try playing with this juice-stuffed burger concept. Might also work well in a meat loaf!

joonjoon at 11:45AM on 02/18/10

Wouldn't you accomplish the same thing by starting with an 8oz patty of a fatter cut, say 75/25.

MrJPeoples at 4:24PM on 02/18/10

Sent this off to Kenji, thought I'd post it here in case anyone else is interested in some more pontificating on the "perfect burger"

You don't need to freeze the meat juice to get it into the burger meat. You can simply take your burger meat, mix in the liquid juice, then let it sit for 10-15 minutes, then salt the meat and let it sit for another 10-15 minutes before making patties. The juice you pour in won't seperate out at the bottom of the bowl or anything like that, it will evenly mix in and coat the muscle fibers. The subsequent salting pulls out myosin from the cells of the meat which helps bind the fibers naturally. The result is a mix of ground meat that still has a cohesive structure capable of holding together during handling but with more juice than the meat would naturally have. This will always avoid the issue you had where the juice melted in the middle and the flipping of the patty halfway through caused the juice to leak out before it could distribute through the meat. So, I'm using a generally similar concept to what you did, but when done in the order I'm suggesting, the juice has time to distribute evenly and get bound in place before the stress of heating starts forcing juice out.

A second difference in how I cook my burger patties vs. the norm is that I don't follow the sacred law that you flip a burger just once. I cook my patties over low heat, flipping many times to get the heat into the burger as evenly and gently as possible. By heating gently and evenly, less of the meat overcooks and thus more of the juices are held in. My cooking process explicitly avoids the maillard reaction characteristic of most burger cooking. The reason this is ok is because of the juice added prior to the cooking which already contains the maillard products. The one sacrifice I make in this regard is that, as noted, there is absolutely no crispy crust on the burger. Should this be a real issue for someone, they can always pull out the kitchen blow torch (no joke) and sear off the outside of the meat as fast as possible right at the end of cooking.

The juice I use to mix into my meat is different from what you use. I've never cooked meat and then juiced it, though I certainly see the merit. Its far easier than making a stock and makes a less refined but likely more flavorful product that works fine in a burger. In any case, what I generally do in making burgers is grind my own meat, which consists of seam-boned chuck and short ribs. I take the short rib bones and trimmings and roast them at high heat them make a stock from them and generally reduce that down to a demiglace, then pour the cooled demiglace into the freshly ground meat.

In regards to the meat, I'd highly suggest grinding it oneself to a fat content slightly higher than 15%, I shoot for 17-20%. I also seam bone the meat and seperate meat from fat before grinding, giving the fat a finer grind than the meat so it can disperse itself more evenly. The specific cuts I use can vary but short rib is always in the mix for its unique flavor and high concentration of connective tissue which helps hold the burgers together when you add lots of extra liquid.

So just a bit of food for though on the perfect burger. I thought I had it, but had never considered using burger juice which seems pretty promising. Kudos and I'll have to give that a shot.

IlTavoloBambini at 7:35PM on 02/18/10

Thanks for naming this the FLOOD burger. Does that mean I get a royalty for each??
Gerry FLOOD

ggf1938 at 12:16PM on 02/19/10

brilliant post as always. I bought the pan!

jerkfaceirl at 5:11PM on 02/22/10

Hence, Kenji loves the Gush/Flood Burger (aka perfected lighter weight Pub-Style Burger) vice the smash burger--after all??? Witty (Willy Wonka reference), thoughtful piece. Thanks.

Kenji, as far as simple, well-executed burgers go--most of us all enjoy a Shake Shack or Burger Joint product. The Burger Joint's burger is very straight forward beefy bliss while the Shake Shack burger has crumble in your mouth juiciness with a better bun--but there is an ever so lightly undetectible flavor profile that eludes me in the Shake Shack product. Do you know what it is?

TheBC at 7:34PM on 05/26/10

@TheBC

As Marge Simpson says: "You might say the secret ingredient is salt."

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 8:44PM on 05/26/10

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