Thinking Of Grinding Your Own Burger Meat? Don't Skip This Chilling Hack

When it comes to building the absolute best burger, different people want different things. Maybe you prefer a seeded bun while someone else wants a pretzel bun, or you're certain pickles belong on a burger when another person disagrees. But one thing that absolutely matters is the quality of beef. You can purchase ground meat at your local grocery store — which does save you time — but if you want to control the burger's flavor, fat content, and quality, then you're better off grinding your own meat. But before putting your meat in the grinder, make sure everything — including the equipment — is nice and cold.

Grinding your own meat means you can use multiple varieties of protein to create your perfect burger. You can use just chuck steak, which lets you easily turn ground beef into tender burgers, or mix chuck with a few other cuts, such as round and sirloin to adjust the marbling and texture. But before you grind the meat, stick it in the refrigerator to make sure it hasn't had time to soften up prior to grinding, or you could risk what's known as smearing the fat.

When you grind beef, every part of the cut gets combined together. If the meat is too warm, that means the fat has a chance to get soft, which causes it to "smear" into the other parts of the beef rather than maintaining its own shape throughout the grinding process. Allowing the fat to smear will then impact how your burger turns out because if that fat loses shape, it will leak more as the burger cooks. Since so much of the burger's flavor lies in the fat (and you likely want the juiciest burger), you don't want it all to escape when the meat is cooked.

It's best to make sure that both the meat and the grinder are cold when you make the meat mixture. Place the head of the meat grinder in the freezer for about 25 minutes prior to grinding the meat. Cut the cold meat down into chunks before grinding it — and if the meat takes a while to cut and has a chance to get warm, stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes prior to running it through the grinder.