I like hamburgers. Easy to fix and store frozen, ready to throw into a pan or on the grill in no time. So many ways to prepare them with and without buns, including with gravy and sauteed onions and no bun at all. I've found from experience 90% - 93% hamburger makes lousy hamburgers on the grill, generally speaking. (Fine for baby meatloafs with gravy and onions though.) The lack of any usable fat in the lean burger makes a boring and pretty dry piece of meat, unless one mixes in a bunch of spices and what-not into the mix, then makes the patties. LOTS of extra work that way and dirty bowls needing washing, etc. Even then, still not a great hamburger though better than just sprinkling a bunch of spices on the outside of the 90% - 93% beef. I've even done some experimenting with marinating burgers in various concoctions. The best grade for juicy hamburgers on the grill is 84% - 86% burger, but the drawback is that it will shrink about 20% in size and get fatter (taller) as it cooks. Neither is a big deal. I used to look for the big fat round tubes of 84% burger, get them really cold in the freezer for an hour, then cut the burgers into slices with a good sharp knife, put into individual cheap sandwich bags, then seal in the seal a meal vacuum thing. Those wide tubes of burger are hard to find and rarely go on sale, making me search for another option. Soooooooo ---- the next best option is to make your own pre-formed burgers for use later, when you run across a good hamburger sale. With burger getting north of $3 a pound, one wants to stock up when it's on sale. I thought it would be iffy, but I got a hamburger press to make my own preformed burger patties. It showed up and was built nicer than I thought it would be, and was easily adjustable for thickness. I chose the 1/2 pound setting on the threaded bolt. It was perfect. After grilling with just the tinniest bit of pink down the middle, the width of the now finished burger fit a normal size bun perfectly! Right to the edge all around. Little bit tall but no taller than some of the premium burgers I have had at store bought places like Ruby Tuesday or Burgers In Paradise, or wherever they sell those $7 hamburgers. So now, I can catch loose 84% burger commonly on sale in the big loose packages and make my own perfectly formed, ready to freeze and thus use hamburgers. By my third burger using the press, I had it down, and the making of a burger took me 15 seconds or so each from then on. By all means USE the special hamburger paper to both make cleanup easier, and two burgers will not stick together if you vacuum seal two or more of them to a pkg for the family. Quick hint..... you will quickly learn to eyeball the loose burger as to about what will fit into the press for the size you have selected. Then cut the burger into squares with a butter knife, erring on making them TOO BIG rather than too small. This way when going to the next burger, just scoop up the chunk you sectioned and place it onto the paper in the press. Place another piece of the treated paper on to the top of the burger and close the press tight. I leaned on it pretty good, but it was easy. The press showed no signs of wanting to break. No coatings flaked off during my use and subsequent cleanup. If there is too much burger in the press, it simply squishes out around the press where you can easily run your finger around it and place the excess back in the bulk pack of burger to use with the next patty. IDEALLY you want just a bit of burger to squish out letting you know you got the press full, so it can do it's job correctly. I put the press on a paper plate to eliminate table clean-up, and that worked perfectly. The whole thing is easy and fast, and it truly does make a excellent formed and cohesive burger in NO time. Be sure the burger is at cold refrigerator temp before making them, as the directions tell you to do. Do not let the burger warm up on the counter first, which you shouldn't do anyway. Cold hamburger makes a better patty. My finished patties stuck together VERY well into a cogent burger with no signs of wanting to crack in two when picked up. If yours do want to come apart, then I think you are not pressing on the press with enough pressure and did not load enough burger in the first place. I did not really intentionally use the little "handle" on the press, but rather pushed on the left and right sides of the top half of the press itself to exert more pressure and not break the little handle off, if they were prone to that happening. You will get the knack of this very quickly, so no worries!! One reviewer thought the press should be a bit heavier and thus less prone to break, and this is probably true. But I am a large strong guy, and pressed HARD, and so far, nothing broke.
