A burger is more than a processed meat patty with processed American cheese slapped together between two bland white bread buns, or at least it should be.  Here are some of the best grilling tips I have assembled over the last year for you.

1. Pick the right burger for grilling.  You want between fifteen and twenty percent fat in your burger.  This means eighty-twenty chuck as a base.  Anything combination with less than fifteen percent fat in the precooked  weight will end up being very dry.
2. You want a clean hot grill grate.   See our post on that from last year
3. Avoid lighter fluid unless you like the taste of food cooked in the tailpipe  of your car.  A charcoal chimney and some junk mail is all you need.  If you find you must use lighter fluid for one reason or another try and start your fire two hours early so you’ll have everything cooked down to cinders and have added plenty of unpolluted fuel since starting it.
4. Choose your fuel wisely.  Cheap discount charcoal will give you cheap discount charcoal flavor.  I prefer good chunk charcoal for more delicate things, but for quick burgers you can get by with burning the hardwood sticks in your backyard.  Avoid the dog crap, lawn clippings, and anything with lots of insects in it. Flying termite assassins are never pleased when you toss their holiday resort into the flames.
5. Treat your meat gently.  If you have a lot of ingredients going into the burger you need to make sure it is well mixed, but that doesn’t mean over mixed.
6. Start with a dry burger.  Before putting it on your clean, hot, and freshly oiled grates pat them dry and you have less chance of them sticking.
7. Don’t press your burger.  If your burger isn’t well formed or still very raw, you’ll just shove it through the grates.
8. If your burgers tend to bunch up in little grease bomb meatballs then your fire is way too hot.  To avoid meatballs and maintain the patty shape you can add a little bit of filler to help them hold their shape.  See our previous post on this.
9. Use a good bun.  White bread buns are just as boring as white bread.  Furthermore toast your buns.  See the discussion on sandwiches for why.
10. Don’t over load on toppings.  Toppings are the area where most burgers go wrong.  This is a burger, not a salad between a freaking bun with a little meat in there somewhere.  If you want a burger with a gazillion toppings make several burgers and space it out over them.  Alternately make a salsa or chutney from the ingredients and use it sparingly.
11. Be safe, a burger never tastes so bad as the one that caused you to self immolate.   Remember you are an everyday Joe, not a Evil Knievel  or the Human Torch.