My very dear friend Dustin invited me down to Charlotte to visit him this past weekend. His original hook was that he was moving into a new place on Friday and having a cookout on Sunday. I was basically sold. He then told me he was going to Charlotte 49ers Baseball Saturday and tailgating before. DING DING, We have a winner!
The tailgating grilling was extremely basic, and nothing really worthy of writing about (though in the future, I intend to do a full writeup on grilling at a tailgate) but the real lesson was learned on Sunday.
The situation with Dustin was that he had moved into a house with a guy Jeff who was looking for a roommate. Jeff owns his home and had been there for some time. Jeff seemed to like to cook, but I noticed just a simple Weber kettle grill on the back deck - nothing fancy. I didn't think much of it, since many people cook charcoal on a regular basis, and well, I used to as well for things like burgers and hotdogs.
While Jeff was preparing the burgers, I was ready to be impressed by his skills. He had 73% lean ground beef, had mixed in chopped onion, garlic, jalapeños, some spices, and hand tossed it all to a good consistency. The prospect of eating what would presumably become most tasty burgers, and throwing back a couple cold ones on a warm-ish (55*) winter day had me excited. After the burgers were pattied, and brought outside, the grill was lit. Jeff, like many backyard chefs used Matchlight (not my favorite) and the charcoal was going.
What happened next however was a pretty big shock to me, since I had only met Jeff two days before. He asked me if I would cook the burgers! I personally consider a grill a man's sacred outdoor place, and declined. When he insisted I cook the burgers, I thought it an honor, and decided to give it a go.
Let me interject just a couple of things before I continue the story. Despite what people say - I never make burgers that are under 85% lean, I think too much of the burger melts away. Also, I cook things like burgers on gas grills unless I am at a tailgate, because it's cleaner - cooking on a big charcoal kettle is not something I have done with fatty burgers in QUITE some time.
So I spread the coals around the bottom of the kettle grill and began to put the burgers on. Right about the time I got the last burger on of this first batch, the flaming began. It was to be expected with fatty burgers on a charcoal grill, but I wasn't prepared for the extent to which it was going to attempt to thwart my cooking efforts. Once I realized the situation was only getting worse, not better, I asked Jeff for a spatula. My host only had a short pair of metal tongs outside (not great for flipping burgers) and to my chagrin, when he emerged from the kitchen, he had a short (read: dangerous) metal flipper for this large, flaming kettle grill.
Well, I put on some oven mits, and used this short flipper to get the burgers off the grill. In the meantime, a large flame up singed literally all the hair off a section of my right arm. The time from when we put the burgers on, until the time I got them off - no flipping involved - was probably 3-4 minutes, just long enough to get the spatula and get the patties off while fighting the flames.
The outsides were pretty charred, but not burnt to the point of being ruined. I knew however the other sides had experienced no heat and the burgers weren't cooked in the middle. I had to think fast, as we had no more charcoal, and about 10 more burgers to cook after these were finished.
I decided to do what I know best, and that was setup the kettle grill for indirect heat, and cook the burgers slow and low. I moved all the coals into one "corner" of the kettle, taking up probably 10% of the grill area. I placed the rest of the first round of burgers on the grill and quickly closed the cover.
Probably five minutes later, the burgers were done, slightly charred on one side, but done to perfection on the other - just beyond the point of having any pink in the middle. Without a meat thermometer, it's hard to tell exactly where they sat, but they looked - and tasted good.
While everyone started in on the first round of burgers, I began getting the second round on. Same thing this time - in the indirect heat configuration. These burgers took probably 45 minutes to cook, which is not ideal for burgers, especially if you are making a lot. Also, I will add that cooking burgers with the cover on a grill is so counterintuitive to me it's crazy, but that day I had to do what I had to do to make good burgers.
The surprise of the day - the burgers that had been cooked in the indirect heat the whole time! Their color was phenomenal, there were no burned spots, but the burgers were done to perfection. Their juice had been largely retained where during normal quick grilling it would have been lost. They looked like mini-beef roasts that had been slow cooked!
I'll close with these thoughts, for all you backyard burger enthusiasts.
1) Make your burgers with 85% lean meat - despite what your meat man tells you, anything more fatty just burns away, and flames up your coals.
2) If you are cooking for a [new] friend and they have really fatty meat, think about cooking on indirect coals to begin with. I know this is counterintuitive, but it's better than ruining a good set of burgers because they burn up.
3) EVERY backyard chef, whether you cook once a year, or every weekend needs a decent grilling set. You don't have to spend $100 at Williams Sonoma, but head down to Wal-Mart or Target or Big Lots, and get a) a long handled spatula, b) a long handled fork, c) a long handled set of tongs, and d) a nice grill scrubber / brush. All of that can be had for around $10-20 and is worth every penny.
That's all for now - I'd like to thank Dustin for inviting us down, Jeff for his hospitality, and Charlotte for a great weekend! That includes you too Jeff's Bucket Shop! I'll be back soon with my latest smoke!
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