Cedar Planked Burgers & Steak Fries

I've been wanting to do some more cedar planked meals since like forever. In less than a weeks time I saw two different recipes for cedar planked burgers, so I figured it was assign. I also figured if these were as good as they locked, I might just make them again for Memorial Day weekend. So this was a bit of a qualifying round for these burgers. The cedar planked hamburger recipe came from the Internet podcast called Cooking Everything Outdoors and the thing that really intrigued me is they also made cedar planked steak fries to go along with it. I will let the captions describe the rest of the cook other than to say that the burgers pass their audition and will be on the menu next Saturday.

**Let me also mention that my website as well as the folders that hold all the photos I've posted here on this site are being moved to a different server on Saturday. This means for about 24 to 48 hours the site will be off-line, so if you view this post on Saturday afternoon into Sunday all of the pictures maybe missing. My apologies, it will be a temporary thing.**




My wife's favorite coffee cup is filled with water and makes a perfect device to hold down the planks for soaking. The plank soaked for about six hours total.





Step one was to prepare the Russet potatoes. I cut them in half, then I quartered them and then I cut them into eighths.





Here's one of the potatoes cut into eight pieces. It is now time to head out to the grill.





While the first cedar plank is heating on the grill, I prepped the potato wedges. I added about 2 tablespoons of Olive oil to the bag and sprinkled in some Cajun seasoning. I tossed the potato wedges around until the olive oil & cajun seasoning were evenly distributed.





The first cedar plank is out of the grill. It is well charred and has been brushed with olive oil. The potato wedges were arranged on top of the plank, which then went back on the grill. You will notice in this picture, that due to the narrow plank width, some of the potato wedges were sticking out beyond the edge of the plank. More on this later. The potato wedges on the grill for approximately 45 minutes.





Next up were the burgers. The 85/15 ground beef was formed into two 1/2 pound patties. The patties were depressed slightly in the center to form a concave shape, which counters the rise of the burgers on the grill. They then get seasoned with a rub. In my case I used Montréal Steak seasoning. The second plank is off of the grill and has been brushed with olive oil prior to receiving the burgers. the burgers go back on the grill for approximately 20 minutes.





Here the burgers have been added to the grill, joining the steak fries which have been cooking for about 20 minutes now.





Here's a close-up of the burgers as they were placed on the grill. The 1/2 pound patties were thick enough that I was able to slide in the temperature probes for my remote read the thermometer. This proved to be handy, because the burger in the back was cooking faster than a burger in the front. Since I was able to keep track of the readings, I simply rotated the burgers 180° midway through their cooking time. This served to even out the cooking temperature.





Here the steak fries are done after approximately 45 minutes on the plank. One thing that happened is the pieces of potato that were sticking out beyond the edge of the plank were much farther along than the parts of the potatoes that were over the plank. Next time I will use a wider plank and make sure that the potatoes are completely over the plank before putting them on the grill. This is why I do dry runs like this to perfect things before I cook them for others.





The the burgers have hit 155°. I'm going to add cheese on them for two minutes and hopefully the burgers will rise to my target temperature of 160 before I pull them off the grill.





Here the burgers are cheesed and ready to come of the grill.





Time to eat!! From left to right, you see the two 1/2 pound cedar planked burgers, toasted Kaiser rolls and the cedar plank steak fries.





Here's a close-up of the burgers. They were very moist and had a great beef flavor. I will admit I didn't get too much of the cedar smoked flavor but my wife did. I think it was because I was outside standing in and getting cedar smoked myself the whole time. This may have desensitized me to smoke flavor. My wife said the cedar flavor was definitely there without being too pronounced.





Here are the finished cedar planked steak fries which were excellent too. Just be careful not to burn your mouth on these puppies. They are so meaty and the meaty pulp retains a lot of the heat. Once again I couldn't detect too much of the smoke flavor, but my wife could. For me the steak fries were great with or without the cedar smoked flavor. I do know I took in a lot of smoke because I'm still coughing three hours later.







The burgers got seasoned with some barbecue sauce and a ready to eat. The meat was juicy, tasty and beefy flavored. They have definitely made the cut for Memorial Day, and will be for supper Saturday night.


Jim

That's one tastilicious looking meal! Can I come over to your house for Memorial Day?

Dyal_SC wrote:

That's one tastilicious looking meal! Can I come over to your house for Memorial Day?

Sure! Just be sure to confirm, because if you're coming I'll have to buy another plank.

Jim

Very cool! How long did it take the burgers to reach 160?

I only wish I'd logged in last night because I'm making burgers tonight and would've loved to give this a try! If I soak the planks for 6 hours we'll be eating about 10pm, and that won't go over too well.

Brad

ScreamingChicken wrote:

Very cool! How long did it take the burgers to reach 160?

I only wish I'd logged in last night because I'm making burgers tonight and would've loved to give this a try! If I soak the planks for 6 hours we'll be eating about 10pm, and that won't go over too well.

Brad

Brad:
I have a plank grilling cookbook which I used for the soaking and plank prep information, and it says you can soak the planks anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours. The advantage to soaking for a longer time is you can get more smoke. You also don't have to worry as much about the plank catching on fire too. Always a good thing.

You also need to prep the planks before you put the food on. You put them out on the grill using medium-high heat until they begin to char. On my grill that took about five minutes. You'll hear them start snapping and popping. Now this is where recipes differ. Some recipes have you char one side, put the food on it, and return the plank to the grill. My plank grilling cookbook as you actually char both sides, then add the food to it and put it back on the grill. This is how I do my plank grilling.

The reason I chose six hours is I got up at 6 o'clock, and decided I wanted to do these yesterday and wanted to eat at noontime. Nothing magical about that number. If you've got the planks in stock, you could always toss them in now and let them soak all day, if anything that's better than my six hours.

As for the cooking time it was 20 minutes. The burgers were half pounders and I was using a cooking temperature somewhere between 375 and 400.

Jim

Fantabuous meal Jim!! (Dyal...I thought you were gonna quit making up words, but if you're going to, so am I) I was gonna ask how hot your grill was, but answered that in that last response.

Those burgers look most excellent---nice job.

Thanks for the comments, even the ones with the made up words Dyal & Griffin. They were definitely splendiferous.

I made a batch of four cedar planked burgers & double the steak fries yesterday (no pix) and they came out well despite one of the planks catching on fire. Word of caution to anyone plank grilling: Don't ever leave the grill and have a squirt bottle with some water at the ready. I had one long edge/side of a plank ignite, but I was able to get it put out early and without damaging my burgers. If I hadn't been right at the grill with water at the ready I would have had 4 blackened hockey pucks for my burgers. I really think I had maybe 5 seconds at the most before I would have been in deep trouble.

Jim