browning While it’s true that given enough time you can brown even a nonsmashed burger, there are a couple problems: If the heat is too high, the browning will be uneven—at worst, the bits of meat directly in contact with the skillet or griddle will burn before the bits elevated above it can even begin to brown With lower heat, you can get more even browning, but it takes longer—long enough that your burger will end up overcooking in the middle (and overcooking is the real path to dry burgers) Smashing allows you to get a deep brown crust before the interior overcooks, even with a relatively small patty The Juice Is Loose So, when is it not a good idea to smash? We all have a pretty good idea of this, but I cooked through a couple dozen burgers, smashing them at various stages in order to make sure The results? If you don’t want to lose juices, you must smash within the first 30 seconds of cooking When ground beef is cold, its fat is still solid and its juices are still held firmly in place inside small chopped-up segments of muscle fibers That’s the reason why you can push and press on raw ground meat without squeezing out too much liquid, and the reason why you can smash a burger during the initial phase of cooking without fear of losing moisture But what happens as the meat warms up? When you look at a burger under a microscope, you see what basically amounts to an interconnected network of proteins interspersed with fat and water-based liquids Like all meats, as a burger cooks, this protein network tightens, squeezing out liquids Simultaneously, the fat begins to render and liquefy, allowing it to be squeezed out right along with the juices In a properly formed burger—one that is made with meat that’s been ground right, kept chilled, and minimally handled while shaping—the protein matrix is relatively loose Even once fat has been liquefied and juices have been squeezed out of the protein network, they can remain trapped in the patty, only getting released when you bite into the burger, in much the same way that liquids can be trapped in a sponge and only released when it is squeezed But press down on a burger during this phase, and the juices come gushing out into the skillet or onto your coals You’re left with what amounts to a meat patty with the texture of a sponge that’s been run through a wringer All burgers will lose weight as you cook them—it’s not possible to hold on to all the liquefied fat and exuded juices In my testing, 4-ounce burgers that started as round pucks and were smashed down to ½-inch thickness any time before 30 seconds still lost a little over 20 percent of their weight during cooking But this is comparable to burgers of th e same weight and thickness that were cooked with no smashing at all Both burgers tasted quite juicy, while the smashed burger (obviously) had better flavor SMASH TIME VERSUS FINAL WEIGHT ... handled while shaping? ?the protein matrix is relatively loose Even once fat has been liquefied and juices have been squeezed out of the protein network, they can remain trapped in the patty, only getting... come gushing out into the skillet or onto your coals You’re left with what amounts to a meat patty with the texture of a sponge that’s been run through a wringer All burgers will lose weight as you cook them—it’s... when you bite into the burger, in much the same way that liquids can be trapped in a sponge and only released when it is squeezed But press down on a burger during this phase, and the juices come gushing out into the skillet or onto your coals