Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef 80/20
- 4 slices American cheese
- 2 hamburger buns
- 2 tbsp burger sauce
- 2 tbsp pickles slices
- 1 tbsp beef tallow sub butter
- 1 tbsp seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat your smoker to 225F degrees.
- Form your ground beef into hamburger pucks. For this cook, I did each patty at 6 ounces.
- Season your meat with salt and pepper, or burger seasoning.
- Place your burgers on the smoker, and insert a digital meat thermometer to monitor the internal temperature. You want to cook the burgers on the smoker to 10 degrees less than your ideal temperature, because you're going to sear them later on. So if you want a medium rare burger (135F internal), smoke it to 125F.
- When the temperature of the meat hits about 110F, it's time prepare your buns. Fire up a cast iron skillet, or a griddle on top of a gas grill. Lay down your beef tallow, and let it melt. Then toast your buns until they're nice and golden brown, about 1 minute.
- When your burger comes to an internal temperature 10 degrees lower than your desired temperature, move it over to the hot skillet, and sear on each side for about one minute to develop a nice crust. Remember to immediately add your cheese when you flip to the second side.
- Pull your burger off the griddle and allow it to rest for five minutes. Assemble your burger and bun with your favorite toppings and burger sauce, serve, and ENJOY!
Notes
- Cook to temperature here, not time. For a medium rare burger, that means a finished temperature of 135F. Which means you need to pull the burger off the smoker at 125F before searing it on the griddle.
- Be warned: even if you cook your meat to medium-rare, or warmer, your meat is still going to look pink. Here's why: "In meat patties, the reduced thickness and fragmented texture frequently allows smoke to penetrate deeper, even to the point of penetrating all the way through the patty, creating pink colored lean throughout the meat." [source]
- Use a stronger pellet flavor, like mesquite, oak or hickory. I made the mistake of using cherry pellets, which are not as strong. And because the burger is ont on the smoker that long, you'll want to use a stronger flavor that penetrates the meat better.
- Ground beef selection. For this cook, I picked up a pound of 80/20 dry-aged beef from my local butcher. If you don't have a butcher, or just want to go to the grocery store, then be sure to get an 80/20 blend of ground chuck or ground beef.
Nutrition
Calories: 877kcalCarbohydrates: 29gProtein: 52gFat: 61gSaturated Fat: 25gPolyunsaturated Fat: 3gMonounsaturated Fat: 24gTrans Fat: 3gCholesterol: 203mgSodium: 1188mgPotassium: 845mgFiber: 4gSugar: 5gVitamin A: 550IUVitamin C: 2mgCalcium: 670mgIron: 9mg
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