Stations Burger Challenge

Stations is my labor company in the office furniture business. When their people go ninety days without an injury at work, they throw a BBQ. The theme of the most recent BBQ was a burger challenge. Andrew and Brian, the owners, decided to see who could cook the best burger and they asked me to be the judge.

When I arrived at Stations, two grills were hot and smoking in the back. One grill, a smoker, puffed smoke out its back chimney. Andrew cooked up his burgers on this one. He decided to let me try two different burgers.

Burger #1, sat on a beautiful sesame bun, that looked vaguely familiar. Andrew placed a large patty, estimated at about a half pound, on top of the toasted bun slathered with “secret sauce”. Grilled onion, tomato and crisp, honey-tasting bacon sat on top of a patty whose juices flowed despite the burger being cooked medium well. With no cheese on the burger, I noticed the unique taste of the patty resulted from bleu cheese in the burger.


Burger #2, also Andrew’s, had the same bun, sauce, vegetables, but added jack cheese to an even juicier patty. The flavor of this burger was exquisite. I could taste a little garlic an Andrew confirmed he added garlic salt, pepper and a little Worcestershire sauce to the meat. He had cooked it a perfect medium to my enjoyment. I preferred the cheese outside the patty.

Next came Brian on the gas grill. As Brian unwrapped his patties, I was astounded at the size. Some pushed close to a full pound. He cooked them up along with slices of thick bacon on the grill right beside them. He finished grilling and had me grab a whole-wheat bun, laying the massive patty of Burger #3 on the bun and topping it off with the bacon. Left to choose from the many condiments Brian had provided, I picked them all, putting a little mayo, mustard and Brian’s special BBQ sauce on top. I also added some lettuce.

The burger was very smoky and flavorful. Like nothing I have tasted before. I wished I had not put the BBQ sauce on. It masked the burger flavor a bit. I took some of the meat by itself and could not figure out what I tasted. Brian confided that he had purchased really low-fat ground beef and then added bacon fat to the mix to bring the fat up to 20 percent. The bacon was a little undercooked for my taste and that may be what pushed me to giving Andrew’s number two burger a slight edge in the contest.

As the guys pounded down their burgers, a little secret came out. I had been played. Andrew sandbagged me by reading my blog and cooking his burger to my taste. He purchased the déjà vu buns from the Palo Alto Creamery, my current favorite. The crisp bacon was cooked just like I describe in several of my blogs. He kept the meat seasoning to a minimum and relied on the meat to provide the flavor. The "Secret Sauce" was Thousand Island.

Then again, after thinking it over, maybe I hadn’t been played. Maybe I had unwittingly schooled Andrew on how to cook a fine hamburger through the blog and my search to Master the Hamburger.

Grind Your Own Beef

I always wanted to try grinding my own beef for my hamburgers. I had read how to do it and finally got around to it. It was quite satisfying to understand how the process works and what the benefits are.

I started off by getting a meat grinder - a hand crank model by Porkert from the Czech Republic. (A good friend of mine who happens to be Czech claims that everything great in civilization came from the Czechs: robots, revolvers, beer and now awesome meat grinders.) My Porkert cost me $46.95 at Sur le Table.

A trip to Schaubs at the local Stanford mall garnered two pounds of boneless chuck roast ($9). I asked the butcher if the beef had the requisite 20 percent fat. He didn’t know. He said their ground beef had 20 percent, but that was because they added the right amount of fat. Not to be deterred, I took it anyway, fat percent be damned. By the way, Schaubs has a local delicacy called Fred’s Steak. It is a marinated tri-tip that is about as good as any meat you will taste.

Once home, I washed the Porkert (love that name) to remove the any residual oils from the manufacturer. It was easy to assemble. I inserted the quarter inch grind plate. I clamped it to my wife’s breadboard, much to her chagrin, to started grinding.

I cut the chuck into short strips and ran it through the grinder. The grinding took a little longer than I thought it would. To make sure the fat was all broken up I ran it through again. (Always ask for your hamburger to be ground twice when you are having it ground fresh at the butcher.)

Next I added salt and fresh ground pepper to the mix. I formed it into 4 half-pound patties. I noticed the beef seemed airy and light compared to the ground beef I usually get.


I cooked the patties on my Weber Summit gas grill for about 5 minutes per side on 400 degrees. I like to rotate the patty 90 degrees on each side to get cross pattern from the grill bars. But you only turn the patties once, to lock in the juices. Also, don’t smash them down and force out the juices.

A minute before taking them off I melted a slice of Gruyere cheese on the patty. I had mine on a fresh bun. Pat had hers on a bed of greens. I also added my favorite HoosierBurgerBoy sauce to mine.

The burger was very tasty. It was a little drier than I expected. Next time I will cook it a little less and try to add a little more fat. But overall it a lighter and fresher than other hamburger I had bought.