How Big Is Your Burger?

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
1

I use a kitchen scale . . . it does grams and ounces (by weight)

time comes, “burgers” become in demand.
I’ll buy a big package of ground beef - for burgers I look for 80/20 fat - tried 85/15, found that to be a bit on the dry side.

made 4 ounce patties . . . bit skimpy so,
once upon a day I cut out 6 ounces of ground beef and, using a ring mold, made a ‘burger patty’ - it was immense on the plate/bun, soooo big.

thence later made 5 ounce beef patties, using (same) ring mold.

munching away, , , came to “compare” these rather generous burgers to stuff fast food joints sell as “quarter pound” aka four ounces…
no flipping comparison.

what do the fast food joint do to shrink 4 ounces of ground beef into a thin ~2 ounce ‘looking’ patty?

now, indeed . . . not everyone ‘scales’ their ground beef to make a home burger - but any “it is how big?” experience with known/proven/actual 4 or 5 or 6 ounces by weight burgers vs. the common resto/fast food “claims?”

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A local burger stand advertises it’s 1/3 pound char-broiled burgers. They also have 1/6 pound “baby burgers”. I’ve been getting the smaller ones, and after a while I found the larger ones to be too much. Another joint seems to have 1/6 pound as the standard, but they seem bigger. At home, I’ve started making the 1/3 pound brisket patties from Trader Joe’s, and for some reason they’re about the right size.

I don’t understand the competition for size in burgers and steaks. What would I do with a 12 ounce ribeye, except take a large part of it home and dry it out while reheating?

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3

My favorite place of old used an ice cream scoop.
When we’d hit it after the bars closed the cook would be scooping balls and placing a sheet of wax paper between each.
Smashed down when he threw them on the grill.
I miss those.

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4

I most often mix ground sirloin (usually 90-10 ish) and chuck (more like 83/17-ish or fatter) in equal amounts.

The burgers I make from this are usually 5.33 ounces (151 grams).

Works for us quite well.

And contrary to Kenji’s advice at Serious Eats, I salt (and add garlic & onion powder) as I separate the two meats onto a sheet pan before I make the patties.

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