Grilling burgers - lid open or closed?


 
John_NJ said:
Right?

I never thought about it until you started this thread.

I will be cooking burgers with the lid open when using the charcoal grill, and the lid closed using the gas grill.

Thanks Mark and the tvwbb crew.
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I’ve always done everything closed I’m not sure where you’re finding the difference, unless you’re just looking at the page that was inserted above. Two level fire, always closed.
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
I’ve always done everything closed I’m not sure where you’re finding the difference, unless you’re just looking at the page that was inserted above. Two level fire, always closed.
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Probably just the realization that growing up, charcoal grills were the norm and I don’t ever remember seeing one with a lid.

And there was a restaurant in our neighborhood that served hamburgers and such - “charcoal grill” was featured in the advertising. All the grilling was done in the open - I wish I could replicate those burgers- in my mind they were the best I have ever tasted.

I bought a gas grill in the early nineties, and lost touch with charcoal grilling. Alway has the lid of the gasser closed.

It’s funny how I just “assumed” the lid needed to be closed with the charcoal grill, despite my earlier experiences.

So open charcoal grilling for burgers it is.

And I don’t like cheeseburgers…don’t hate me, lol.
 
Brett-EDH said:
Pepper jack and bacon. But that’s a different kind of burger.
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Green hatch chili burger with pepperjack for the win... in the past I was usually doing the 1/3 lb patties but have been on the smash burger program lately so may have to go two 2.5 oz patties, 1 thick slice of pepper jack and one fire roasted hatch green chili...
 
John_NJ said:
View attachment 66162
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looks a lot like the big boy grill.... BUT no hand crank technology to raise and lower the grate... My wife's uncle still has one and has had it repaired/fixed up in the last couple of years so the hand crank works a bit better. The big boy is deceptively heavy - the charcoal bowl is probably 8 gauge steel, is probably 26" diameter and weighs 30 lbs or so.
 
Rich Dahl said:
Open Pit was a staple at our house when we lived in Franklin Park IL. when I was a kid. But my favorite BBQ sauce was one that Russell's BBQ in
Elmwood Park made, loved that stuff. When my aunt passed away and Barb and I went back to Chicago for the funeral I bought a case of it and brought it back to California. Didn't last too long.
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Russell's was good stuff for sure, Open Pit was one of the few choices we had when I was growing up and it was a regular offering at my house as well. I still buy a bottle of it once in awhile out of nostalgia but prefer Sweet Baby Ray's to most other sauce these days
 
John K BBQ said:
looks a lot like the big boy grill.... BUT no hand crank technology to raise and lower the grate... My wife's uncle still has one and has had it repaired/fixed up in the last couple of years so the hand crank works a bit better. The big boy is deceptively heavy - the charcoal bowl is probably 8 gauge steel, is probably 26" diameter and weighs 30 lbs or so.
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I remember my dads grill looked like that picture, but had a simple lever on the side and the round grill grate had a stem in the center that passed through the bottom of the bowl.

The lever would move the grate up or down, though not by much.

Very low tech, especially by today’s standards.
 
John K BBQ said:
looks a lot like the big boy grill.... BUT no hand crank technology to raise and lower the grate... My wife's uncle still has one and has had it repaired/fixed up in the last couple of years so the hand crank works a bit better.
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That was the first back-yard grill I saw, my Dad had one.
It had a wind-break surrounding about half the grill. No lid. You had to be careful when cranking the grate upwards. Go too far and the grate spindle would come out of the slot and dump the food in the coals....or onto the ground. (I have personally witnessed this, along with the air turning blue as my Dad tried to retrieve the disaster!).

Open to sear. Move to cool side. Closed to bring up to temp.
 
The correct answer, of course, is it depends.

Gas grills cook mainly by convection (i.e. hot air) with just a little radiation mixed in. The lack of radiation is why high end gas grills will have that separate IR burner as a feature. Keeping the lid down on your gasser lessens the huge amount of convection energy loss that you get with an open lid. You'd never cook with a kitchen oven with the door open, right?

An uncovered charcoal grill (like a hibachi) cooks almost entirely by radiation -- light energy like you get from the sun. To get the most radiation energy into the food, you'd want your food to be very close to the coals (like with a hibachi). Radiation is intense -- it is great for searing/browning. But also easy to overdo. Putting a lid (as with a Weber kettle) on a charcoal grill retains heat and adds a convection capability to a charcoal grill. If you want your charcoal grill to cook via convection, use an indirect zone and put a lid on it.

Now that we have the science down, how should you cook your burgers?

If using a gasser, always keep the lid down. Otherwise you are just wasting time, fuel and convection energy. A gasser with an open lid is just cooler than a gasser with the lid closed. To get more sear/browning, the lid makes little difference. But you'll need to do something extra. IR burner, maybe some flame kiss from dripping grease, or some hot metal (grates, griddle, cast iron pan). Since hot metal touching the food (cooking via conduction) is the most efficient browner of them all. On my gasser, flat side grillgrates are my searing tool of choice.

On a charcoal grill, putting the food close to the coals is what gets you the best browning. Lid does not matter, unless you want to cook faster by getting the convection going too.

But if your burgers or steaks are thick, you will not want to cook only by direct radiation. Which leads to incineration. Which is why you'll go convection at some point -- indirect zone, a lid, or moving the food further away from the coals (i.e. the height adjuster on a hibachi or a Santa Maria grill).

This is how all of us cook on our grills (direct/indirect; if you are looking you aint cooking, etc.) even if the science isn't consciously guiding our methods.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
The correct answer, of course, is it depends.

Gas grills cook mainly by convection (i.e. hot air) with just a little radiation mixed in. The lack of radiation is why high end gas grills will have that separate IR burner as a feature. Keeping the lid down on your gasser lessens the huge amount of convection energy loss that you get with an open lid. You'd never cook with a kitchen oven with the door open, right?

An uncovered charcoal grill (like a hibachi) cooks almost entirely by radiation -- light energy like you get from the sun. To get the most radiation energy into the food, you'd want your food to be very close to the coals (like with a hibachi). Radiation is intense -- it is great for searing/browning. But also easy to overdo. Putting a lid (as with a Weber kettle) on a charcoal grill retains heat and adds a convection capability to a charcoal grill. If you want your charcoal grill to cook via convection, use an indirect zone and put a lid on it.

Now that we have the science down, how should you cook your burgers?

If using a gasser, always keep the lid down. Otherwise you are just wasting time, fuel and convection energy. To get more sear/browning, the lid makes little difference. But you'll need to do something extra. IR burner, maybe some flame kiss from dripping grease, or some hot metal (grates, griddle, cast iron pan). Since hot metal touching the food (cooking via conduction) is the most efficient browner of them all. On my gasser, flat side grillgrates are my searing tool of choice.

On a charcoal grill, putting the food close to the coals is what gets you the best browning. Lid does not matter, unless you want to cook faster by getting the convection going too.

But if your burgers or steaks are thick, you will not want to cook only by direct radiation. Which leads to incineration. Which is why you'll go convection at some point -- indirect zone, a lid, or moving the food further away from the coals (i.e. the height adjuster on a hibachi or a Santa Maria grill).

This is how all of us cook on our grills (direct/indirect; if you are looking you aint cooking, etc.) even if the science isn't consciously guiding our methods.
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@Chris Allingham , this above reply should be pinned so any future griller can understand easily how grills work.

@Jim C in Denver expert expert reply there. And so eloquently stated.
 
Honestly for me (whether gas or charcoal) it depends on the flavor profile I am going for. A high heat lid off/up gives a less smoky more flame kissed taste. There is no right or wrong way. Only what you want on the day you cook them
 
Brett -- what should be pinned is Meathead's exegesis on grill thermodynamics.

That really turned the grilling lights on for me. Our typical cooking methods are not only about adjusting heat/temp higher or lower. We are also adjusting the mechanism of energy transfer to fit the particular cook.

For example, if you are making thin smash burgers, you are going to cook primarily via conduction -- flat hot metal, quick cook, no lid. If you are making thick steak burgers over charcoal, you're gonna go quick direct (radiation, sear) and then lid on indirect (slow convection cooking).

amazingribs.com

The Thermodynamics of Cooking and How Different Cooking Methods Work

Learn about thermodynamics: the basis of all cooking! Find out how heat transference works by conduction, convection, radiation, induction, and infrared heat in your grill, bbq, and smoker.
amazingribs.com
 
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LMichaels said:
Honestly for me (whether gas or charcoal) it depends on the flavor profile I am going for. A high heat lid off/up gives a less smoky more flame kissed taste. There is no right or wrong way. Only what you want on the day you cook them
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depends on the charcoal used, lump or briqs. I’d say lump is less smoky and more sweet (JD lump). Briqs produce a light smoke flavor from the sawdust used to make them. Flavor is kinda ashen to me so I don’t use them for grilling, just smoking.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
Brett -- what should be pinned is Meathead's exegesis on grill thermodynamics.

That really turned the grilling lights on for me. Our typical cooking methods are not only about adjusting heat/temp higher or lower. We are also adjusting the mechanism of energy transfer.

amazingribs.com

The Thermodynamics of Cooking and How Different Cooking Methods Work

Learn about thermodynamics: the basis of all cooking! Find out how heat transference works by conduction, convection, radiation, induction, and infrared heat in your grill, bbq, and smoker.
amazingribs.com
Click to expand...
When anyone asks me about learning to smoke, I send them to amazingribs to just read and absorb . It’s a one stop shop on how meat cooks and great first steps for anyone seeking to understand the science in cooking. And their recipes are really good too.
 
I grill normal ground beef burgers and my personal favorite from my local butcher, bacon burgers where he grinds bacon with the beef. They are 8oz patties that are 1. AMAZING! and 2. don't shrink. They cook faster than the 100% beef patties so I set up my kettle for a hot and cold zone, as I pull my burgers over to the cool side while the others fininsh on the hot side. I always use the lid. The bacon burgers will flare up. I cook my brats with the lid off as they cook pretty fast and the brats I get here don't flare up to bad, so the l only occasionally have to cover them.
 
A correctly cooked burger with a good bun might be the most satisfying food on the planet. Even Gordon Ramsey scoffed at them before he actually had one. He changed his mind real quick. I could eat a good burger every day for the rest of my short life and be perfectly happy. :)
 
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