Food - Drink
Here's What Happens When You Overmix Burger Meat
By STEPHANIE FRIEDMAN
When making burgers, you want to make sure the patty mixture is properly combined before washing your hands and moving on, but there is such a thing as overmixing your burger meat. If you feel inclined to mix your beef until it's a paste, resist the temptation, as too much handling can backfire when your burgers are fully cooked.
Just like with bread dough or pancake batter, overmixed burger meat runs the risk of a chewy, tough end result rather than a tender one. In meat, this is due to a protein called myosin, which causes muscle contractions as it's released through physical manipulation, and overmixing burger meat allows too much myosin to escape.
To keep your burgers moist and tender, stop mixing as soon as the patty mixture is combined, and don't salt it until just before cooking to prevent the premature release of myosin. It also helps to buy meat with a good amount of fat (up to 25%), since a lack of fat will cause the myosin to bind to itself, which can result in a dry burger.