The LIPAVI kitchenBeef

Sous Vide Cheeseburgers in the Pellet Grill!

In our first burger recipe installment, we showed how ground beef patties cooked sous vide made perfection easily achievable. Determination of safety becomes a foregone conclusion. The patty comes out of the tank cooked to a precise appearance of doneness.
This subsequent treatment demonstrates how to introduce natural smoke into the equation.

Let’s cook

Precision in the kitchen. Possibility on the plate.

Sous Vide Cheeseburgers in the Pellet Grill!
From the LIPAVI recipe collection

Gather & prepare

Ingredients

Check off each item as you go.

  • Ground beef patties; assorted sizes ranging from 90g-270g.
  • I used 80/20, lean to fat.
  • Hamburger buns, as needed
  • Iceberg lettuce, 1 oz./30g/burger.
  • Sliced tomatoes, as needed by preference
  • Cheese, Cheddar, 2 oz./55g.
  • Mayonnaise, 1 oz./28g.
  • Bacon.
  • S+P, as needed.
  • Butter, to spread on the buns.

Make something good

The method

Serves 2-3 people/lb of ground beef (450 g)

Level of difficulty 2.25

It's hard to believe that this....
is going to end up looking like a good old fashioned Burger. There is no reason to tinker with the way burgers look. Either they really look great, or we are so used to them looking the way they do that it doesn't matter, Burgers need to look like burgers. Wrapped in wax paper in a cheapo plastic basket, stuffed in a bag, it's all good as long as it looks the way it has always looked when we get to it. Big. Messy. Even sinful. It is what it is.
And we're going to have the best of both worlds. Wholesome, easily prepped ahead of time, with a flavor that brings honor to deciduous trees everywhere. Here's how:

Preparation:

Forming of the patties and other key elements are discussed in detail in the original root article, linked HERE The patties were first individually processed: @129 F/54 C for 4 hours. Remove the burgers from the bath, and shock them to 70 F/21 C in iced water (in the bag), and refrigerate at 40 F/4 C. Why? Because if they enter the smoker @40 F/4 C, their journey to mouth hot will take much longer than if they enter the smoker @129 F. This allows for the maximum contribution of smoky goodness to the finished product. And that's what we want, right? Now you have a fully pasteurized and preserved patty. Larger patties will usually appear pale on the outside. Smaller ones may appear more gray. Inside, the meat will appear red and raw, but the texture is firm like a cooked patty,

Smoking the patties"¦

Sous vide enthusiasts enjoy telling each other just how amazingly hot they got their BBQ before they sear their burgers. This does create a sensational aroma in the vicinity, along with a lot of smoke and coughing. As long as your device is hotter than you would ordinarily want it, you will have desirable results. Rather than maxing out the temperature controls on your pellet grill, this method calls for a setting of: 180 F/82 C for approximately 3 hours. Coming out of the pellet grill: Pavlovian, the surface has the amazing color that only comes from natural wood smoking. It's easy to forget that these burgers were already "cooked" before they entered the smoker. Like I said, I don't blame you for being skeptical. All I can do is tell you what happened! At this low and slow temperature setting, you would expect three hours to take the meat beyond well done. I admit, the first time I did it, I had reconciled myself to well done burgers that were pleasantly smoky. And even now, I don't expect you to take my word for it, because we still don't have scratch and sniff internet--not to mention scratch and bite. Someday, maybe! In the meantime, pictures are still worth 1K words (even if we don't write "a thousand" like we used to!).

Wait! What? There's MORE?

Sear the burgers in a pan heated to 350 F/176 C Sure! That looks great. What's not to love? Got the bacon that we cured right here in the trailer, and smoked in the pellet grill--watch for that article soon! August heirlooms, iceberg is still king on a burger around here. The all too stylish smoked scallion. You know there's mayonnaise and a toasted bun, and that cheddar is melting while I shoot the pic. But what's going on in the inside? Sorry, I can't help myself, Nikon, I love you! Okay, where was I? Oh, wow. Well, would you take a look at this. The money shot! Hey. I was as surprised as you must be. Let's take another look: I'm shaking my head. Those of you who know me, or at least are familiar with my outlook, are only too familiar with my disdain for romantic notions and my converse commitment to the science of it all. Sous vide TEACHES us science, even if we didn't care about it before. I admit, I do not yet understand how you can put a Medium Rare burger in a 180F/82C oven for THREE HOURS and still show pink. So, I did it again. I had refrigerated some of the burgers from earlier in the day. As the day wore into evening, glory be, I got a little hungry. At least hungry enough to continue the investigation! In to the pan, and you can tell, that burger is 40 F/4 C. I mention that because this batch of 80/20 went from frozen when I bought it, to 40 F/4 C, then up to 129 F/54 C, back down to 40 F/4 C, up to 145 F/63 C (in the 180 F smoker), BACK down to 40 F/4 C, and then up to 135 F/57 C in the pan. That's a lot of trips up and down through 70 F-100 F, the heart of the temperature danger zone. Care must be taken to rush the protein through those ranges. The best way is to vacuum or Ziploc bag it every time, and shock it down in ice water. Fortunately, we don't do this very often. That's a lot of bags, just to make a point! Okay, no tricks now, we have 350 F/176 C in the pan at least. Why cheat? A "pre-cooked" burger takes just as long to go from fridge to hot as a raw one does. Heat is heat. There is a little less moisture in this than raw, so it may take even LONGER to hit the 135 F target. Patience, Grasshopper. Sizzle, but no pop. Flipped back to the original "up," heated through and through. Keep an eye on it, I worked for a chef who took great pleasure in reciting this Mantra: When it's brown, it's done.

Still sweating, and what a great color. I mean, really. I didn't do that. Smoke did that. Man, oh man. The moment of truth!

Finally!

I was starting to think I was going crazy. Really, if this thing had been medium rare, I would have had to start over. But, yes, it's medium well, even though some people would still say there's too much pink. There's no shame in well done, I think of done burgers as just different from rare ones. It's all good. This is an honest thing. Eventually, it has to go well. There must be order in the universe. But look what we had to do to get there? I ate it. It was good. Moist, right, very right. Smoky, good Lord, smoky like a forest of Alder. People ask me "but, Norm, do you really think that a burger needs to be sous vide processed?" I tell them this: Nothing really needs to be processed sous vide, and that is not the question. The question is "Does a burger benefit from being processed sous vide?" For me, the answer is yes. Combine that with some natural smoke, it's golden.

Norm King