If you are not out there grilling in the winter, perhaps this will make you rethink your cooking choices. The Weber gets less use in the winter months, but there are still plenty of good reasons to fire it up even if you have to chip a bit of ice off the cover.
Summer grilling is often more about adding extra heat to the house and heck, I’m sipping a cold malt beverage on the patio anyway. But in the winter those smoky flavored meals can be even sweeter. While often it’s a low and slow or light it and leave it approach in the winter, I do want to share a BBQ burger recipe that we use year around.
Meal prep in this house involves cooking cook large and freezing small. This makes it easy to have a dinner entree on the table regardless of how busy the day has been. This approach brought about smoky grilled burgers, which are a bit more stand-in-the-cold cooking but still pretty quick and easy.
For the meat it is always a fifty-fifty beef and pork mix. It tastes better and yes, it is worth getting the leaner beef. In making the patties.
It helps to use a scale because you want to keep them all the same size. The thickness is even more critical. I use a metal ring that is two and a half inches across, which helps maintain consistent thickness in the patties.
Oiling the grill isn’t critical but it makes it easier to flip and these burgers will get packed closely together. You can spray on cooking oil but I find that if you roll up an old dish towel and soak up some vegetable oil on one side then grab that with your cooking tongs it does a great job of prepping the grill.
Cooking is simple. You just work from a clock. Three minutes a side and then move them off the heat. You may need to shift patties that are on the outside edge of your coal bed to insure they all get a good searing. However, don’t try to “cook” the burgers at this point because they get smoked for 5 to 10 minutes and you don’t want them too dry.
Usually after smoking, I put all but the two we are going to eat for dinner, back into the pan as they are on the rare side at this point. We then chill, freeze and finally package in ziplock bags to be thawed and microwaved later.
Smoky grilled burgers
Barbeque beef burgers
Prep Time10 minutes mins
Cook Time20 minutes mins
Total Time30 minutes mins
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: BBQ, burger, Smoked
Servings: 10 patties
- 1 lb ground beef lean
- 1 lb ground pork lean
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 oz hardwood smoking chips mesquite or choice
Light a 'chimney' full of briquettes.
By hand, mix the ground meat together. Measure out 4 ounce portions and form into balls. Press meat into a patty shape no less than one inch thick.
Arrange patties in layers in a foil lined cake pan or baking dish. Lightly season with salt and pepper and cover with foil.
When the briquettes are covered in a layer of white ash, spread evenly over one half of the grill (indirect cooking method). Place grill over coals and cover, leaving air vents open. After the internal temp is 250 to 300 degrees (about 2 min) open BBQ and oil grill.
Arrange burger patties over the hot coals, close lid and sear for 3 minutes. Turn and repeat for another three minutes.
When burgers have been seared on both sides, move to cool side of grill. Spread hardwood chips over hot coal bed and close cover. Turning the air vents to half open, smoke meat for about 5 minutes or until the smoke stops coming out of the vent tubes.
Check internal temperature for well done (that should be 160 degrees). You can shift burgers back onto the hot side of the grill to adjust how you want them cooked. A slice of cheese can be added at this point, as well. Note: if you close the lid flare ups will be less likely.
Usually when we are on the Crooked River, we’re on the other side of the road, rod in tow and knee deep in the stream. However, today it was a scramble up one of the many dry gullies to the east for a look out over the Crooked River canyon south of Prineville.
Chimney Rock is a distant cousin to the more famous Crooked River basalt formation Smith Rock.
With an outlook for sun and no snow storms, we headed northeast to take a couple of days and do some birding along the Columbia River flyway. There have been a lot of day trips to nearby hiking sites, but a bit of cabin fever and the prospect of seeing a wide variety of migratory birds drew us to Boardman and the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. Fifteen hundred of the 23 thousand acre reserve is irrigated crop lands providing cover and food for the waterfowl and raptors.
Highway 97, north of Grass Valley and almost to Biggs, was covered in freezing fog that left a beautiful covering of rime frost on everything. The ODOT trucks had been through with de-icer so roads were drivable and we enjoyed the photo ops the eerie scenery offered.
