Smoked And Grilled NY Strip Burgers

Got some very fine hamburger from a private butcher - 6 bucks a pound for NY Strip with Prime Rib fat tossed in. I put salt, mango/chipolte powder and pepper bourbon powder in the hamburger and let sit in the fridger for a few hours. I smoked the burgers on the Kettle at about 175-180f for an hour or so. This is after 20 minutes:



Sweet hickory smoke:



After flipping at about 40 minutes:



I elevate the chunks above the coals with a small grate balanced on firebricks:



I find I get a somewhat cleaner smoke. I did not come up with this myself....saw a post at a board...probably this one.....the fella had his wood on the cooking grate above the coals. I tried that but the coal bed had to be deep and that meant alot of coals and heat. For my purposes this is what I do:



If I want to add coals I can do so via the Kettle's hinged cooking grate. If I need to move the wood or add to it I can move the small grate the wood is on without having to remove the cooking grate.

As soon as the burgers started getting firm I removed them to the kitchen and the fridge after 10 minutes or so. I used the Akorn to grill but used the platter for the difusser to hold my charcoal. I use 2 charcoal grates from Kettles offset to hold the coals:



The burgers before hitting the grill:



After a few minutes flipped:



Fresh off the grill:



Dressed with chipolte mayonaise (1/2 cup mayo and 2 small chipolte peppers with adobo sauce) and fried oinions (olive oil, butter and a healthy dose of spice rub I made up for ribs cooked for about 45 minutes):



Took a couple burgers I made afterwards over to some friends at work. One of the guys said it was the best thing I ever made. They were pretty good. I have had these smoked steak hamburgers before and added nothing at all...they are beauty naked. I have also finished the process by grilling the burgers on an upside down cast iron frying pan put over charcoal. When doing the cast iron frying pan finsih the burgers are extremely juicy and have a even crust.

unzippy said:

What is a "private" butcher?

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Not a supermarket or chain store. In this case the fella is a Lebonese immigrant who has been a butcher for 30+ years and has his own one-off shop. His dry aging room has over 300 thousand dollars of beef in it....give me some warm clothes and I could live in that room.

hachi-roku_fan said:

Burgers look super moist and awesome. I wonder if that's from your smoking process or from the meat used for the burger

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The meat was nowhere near that lean or extra lean crap they push on us. It was regular ground beef - about 20% fat. I kept the temp down during the smoking phase and checked the meat every 8-10 minutes during the last half hour to make sure I did not overcook them. I pull the burgers when they start to get just a little firm in the centre.....you have to leave some rare meat in the core to allow for grilling later. If I have to refirdgerate the meat while heating up the grill I also leave time to bring it back to room temp.. Cold meat does not go on the grill....sometimes the smoker but never the grill. The grilling stage was done at about 550f. I go buy the lid temp on the Akorn. Steaks are done at 675f. Never done burgers that high as I believe flareups would happen too often to get an even cook.

I have had my temp get away from me during the smoking phase and not pulled the meat out of the chamber. This results in a dry burger. Temp should be kept under 200f in my experience.

bshm said:

Sounds like a good opportunity for a medium burger, I don't trust supermarket beef for that.

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If I am stuck into using supermarket beef that is too lean I will add some prime rib fat with the coarse grinder wheel. I keep chunk size pieces vacuum packed in the freezer for occasions like this. I have been grinding beef for a year and a half to varying success. I have done better than this Lebanese fella once and that was with t-bones. On average I do almost as good as this guy so now my go-to source for beauty burger meat is this fella....I be treatin' him real good. I have loved burgers for years before I discovered the wonders of smoking about a year ago and really rediscovered what charcoal can do meat during grilling just a few months ago. It being summer in Canada and me having gotten my 7th outdoor cooking device 2 days ago means "days of hamburgers" can happen at any time and will.

pmad said:

I don't mean to be rude, but are you actually suggesting there are grades of fat?
I'd let someone think I was their private butcher also if they were paying good money and buying into this nonsense.

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I think there are different grades of fat. The tougher beef fat is just that when it is cooked. Prime rib fat in my experience is softer and tastier. I could be wrong but I do not think so.

I was thinking I did not put any shot of the smokering on my burgers. So when I did up some more burgers today I took some pictures:



Picked up some oak for the first time yesterday. I do not count the bag of Jack Daniels chips I picked up a few months ago. I was walking through my mother's garage and noticed some pieces of trim from some moulding she had added above her kitchen cupbourds....they looked like good untreated wood so I smelled it. Haha..I thought it was oak and it was so now I have it all. I tested it before I put the food on and it smelled sweet so I used it. I know alot of you will scoff at the use of trim wood....but look at this:



or this:



The taste was not as strong as hickory but then again I gotta think much of the flavour is gone out of this wood. My smoke was clean most of the way through the smoke and the food tastes not at all like creasote. I am thinking I need to lay my hands on some white and red oak as these burgers are tasty and I am happy happy happy.