Ah yes, the ever important question of how long to cook burgers on the grill. It’s an age old question that’s been around for as long as people have been cooking meat on fire. So is there an ideal time to cook your burgers? It might be a bit more complicated than you think. Fortunately for you, we have plenty of advice on the subject.

You see, at Mighty Flame, we’ve been grilling burgers for quite some time and we have a few valuable tips to share with our readers. We know that whether you’ve been an avid griller for decades or you just brought home your first grill and you’re looking for beginner’s grilling tips, there’s always something to learn. Keep reading to learn more!

3 Tips For Grilling a Great Burger

So how long should you cook your burgers on the grill? The simple answer, of course, is that it depends. Not only does it depend on how you like your burger, but it also depends on how thick your burger is, whether or not your meat was frozen, and so much more. Luckily we have a few things to keep in mind in order to make sure that your burger is grilled to perfection, so head out and buy propane tank, grab some ground beef, and fire up your grill, because you’re about to grill up a perfectly cooked burger.

Preference is Key

Do you prefer your burger to be medium-rare? It’s going to need less time on the grill. Can’t stand the thought of a burger with any amount of pink in it? Longer grill times are in your future, friend. While other websites advocate for eating your burger on the rarer side of things, we have no interest in telling you what your preferences should be. It’s your food after all!

The thing to keep in mind is that if you like your burger a certain way, that’s the way you should make it. Don’t worry about the advice telling you that the only way to eat a burger is with 80/20 ground beef cooked to a particular temperature. (Of course you should aim for a rare burger to be at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit in order to be sure that it’s safe enough to eat.) Which brings us to our next point…

Temperature is King

One of the best things you could ever invest in as a person who enjoys outdoor grilling is a digital thermometer. No matter how you like your burgers cooked, a thermometer allows you to know exactly what’s going on with your food.

Some of the best advice we can give you is to quickly memorize what temperatures equate to the done-ness of the burger. 120 to 125 is rare, 130 to 135 is medium rare, 140 to 145 is medium, 150 to 155 is medium well, and 160 to 165 is well done. Keeping these temperatures in mind means you can make a burger for pretty much anyone using only your grill, the meat, and your thermometer. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Experimentation is Your Friend

Here’s another thing that newer grillers know and experienced grillers have learned over time–you’re going to mess up what you’re making sometimes. On some occasions you’ll be able to tell exactly what went wrong and what you should do differently next time. On others, you will have absolutely no clue why your meal didn’t turn out quite right. The kicker though is that experimentation is the key to creating burgers that you’ll love.

What we mean by that is simply by grilling often enough and trying different things you’ll stumble upon a method that you love and swear by. The more you cook, the better you’ll get and the easier it will be to make sure that your burgers turn out the way you want them to.

A Bonus Tip

You may be familiar with this tip and you may not, but whatever temperature you’re aiming for, be sure to pull your burgers off the grill a few degrees shy of it because your meat will continue cooking for a few minutes after you remove it from the grill.

Until next time, we hope you’ve enjoyed these tips and find them to be very useful!