Grilled Brisket Burgers

Don’t throw away your brisket trimmings – make these brisket burgers with them!

The trimmed meat is ideal for making homemade burgers. It’s the perfect combination of that deep, beefy brisket flavor with a significant fat content that yields tender, juicy, and flavorful burgers every time.

If you don’t have any brisket trimming, I’ll share the best way to get your hands on some.

Why you should use brisket for burgers

Ground brisket is a perfect cut to use for burgers. Brisket has a big, bold beefy flavor and when grinding a whole brisket, the ratio comes out to about 80:20 learn to fat, which is perfect for burgers.

If you’re like me and smoke a lot of brisket, you’ll inevitably end up with a large quantity of brisket trimmings.

When you trim a brisket, there is always some meat that doesn’t make the cut.

Whether it be a portion of the flat that’s just a little too thin or an uneven portion of the brisket point, it’s not hard to accumulate a pound or more of trimmings on a full-packer brisket.

Having said that, if you don’t have leftover brisket trimmings, you could always buy a small brisket and grind that up.

If you don’t have a grinder, you can also ask your butcher to grind it for you.

Ingredients you’ll need

• Brisket trimmings – can be fresh or defrosted. You want around one pound of meat for two burger patties.
• Beef rub – you can use a simple blend of salt and pepper or grab your favorite beef rub. For this recipe, I used our Smoke Kitchen Beef rub.

Tools you’ll need

• Meat grinder – you’ll need a meat grinder to break down the brisket into ground beef. I used the meat grinder attachment on my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

How to make homemade brisket burgers

1. Grind your trimmings

Chop your brisket trimmings into cubes about 1” thick. You can leave a little fat on them for flavor, but you want to shoot for about an 80/20 ratio of fat to meat.

Once you’ve chopped them up, store them in the fridge until just before you’re ready to start grinding the meat.

Before you start grinding your trimmings, I recommend placing the grinder in the freezer for about 30 minutes. The colder the metal is, the easier the meat will be to grind.

For the grind setting, I recommend using the coarse, secondary plate.

Place your meat in the grinder and catch the ground beef in a bowl.

Once the meat is ground, give it a good mix with your hand to ensure the fat and the meat are evenly incorporated.

Form your beef into patties. I like to shoot for half-pound patties for this recipe. One tip I like is to press into the middle of the burger with your thumb. This helps prevent the

2. Season your burgers

For this recipe, I used the Smoke Kitchen Beef Rub. It’s a coarse blend of salt, pepper, garlic, and onion with a hint of truffle. I find that it makes the perfect seasoning for any burger, but especially these homemade brisket burgers.

Just add 1 tbsp of beef rub per pound of meat prior to grinding and the flavor will incorporate throughout the burger.

If you prefer to season your patties after grinding, that is fine too. Both methods will work great!

3. Grill your burgers

You can grill these brisket burgers like you would grill any burger. A charcoal grill, griddle, or gas grill all work great.

I used my Grilla Grills Primate – it’s a combination gas grill and griddle, so it’s a super versatile grill to add to your collection.

If you’re using a griddle, set the temperature to medium heat and let the griddle fully preheat.

Once the grill is preheated, simply cook the burgers to your liking:

• Medium Rare – 3-4 minutes per side
• Medium – 5-6 minutes per side
• Medium Well – 7-8 minutes per side

While your burgers are cooking, you can also toast your buns on the grill as well.

If you like cheese on your burger, simply add it on top of the burger during the last minute of cooking time and shut the lid to let the cheese melt.

Build your burgers

You can use whatever toppings and condiments takes your fancy. I’ve kept it simple with tomato, lettuce, and mustard, but feel free to get creative!

A sweet and smoky barbecue sauce and a little bacon are another great way to pack more flavor into these burgers and really lean into the brisket theme.

Got a hankering for more burgers, try these recipes:

• Smash burger
• Reverse-seared smoked hamburger
• Grilled lamb burger
• Grilled bison burger