Cooking a great burger on the Big Green Egg isn’t that hard, but I must do a bit of prep to do it right. Here’s how we make a great custom burger:
Prep is key to me for great cooking on the Big Green Egg. I do my prep before I heat the BGE, mixing the hamburger meat together quickly then adding finely chopped onion and cilantro to the mix. I don’t add spices at this point because I believe in putting them on the burgers while they cook. After meat prep and making the patties I leave them on a cookie sheet while I get the Big Green Egg fired up.
Firing the Big Green Egg up and getting it to a temperature of 300′ to 350′ usually takes about 20 minutes here on the boat, often depending on the quality of charcoal I’m using at any one time.* Once heated, the HelmMistress insists I toast the buns and then the burgers go on.
I try to let food cook on the Egg without checking it too much, so the burgers will cook until I flip them once. When I open the Egg to flip the burgers, I season them with garlic, salt and pepper. Once flipped, I give that next side about 6 minutes then get some cheese on the meat to melt. But with the high temperatures I can achieve on the Big Green Egg, I have to be careful NOT to cook the burgers for too long, it’s easier to do than it looks, especially if I have flareups due to the fat melting off. Once done, it’s time to eat-
Cooking on the Big Green Egg is easy, but getting quality charcoal isn’t always easy out here. I’m surprised that more folks on boats don’t have Big Green Eggs but I admit there might be some barriers for use: they are a challenge to properly mount on a boat, you have to keep real charcoal onboard and you create flames to get the Egg going. Despite these barriers, I LOVE cooking on the Big Green Egg. And, I finally found another sailboat with a BGE onboard, they love cooking on it as well. Have a great day-
Got questions about cooking on a Big Green Egg? I have had two different size Big Green Eggs…a Large and a Small and have been cooking on them since 2013. I’d love to answer any questions you have-
*If you know anyone at Big Green Egg Headquarters in Atlanta who might want to send us some great charcoal, we’ll take it!
