Camp Cooking – Campfire Burgers

4th of July camping weekend at Hayes State Park was our first attempt at cooking burgers over the fire with my new cast iron double hamburger griller. The initial steps in using the hamburger griller for the first time was to melt off the coating of wax it came with from the factory. Easy enough, hold it in the fire a while and wipe it off with paper towel. Then coat it with vegetable oil and heat it in the fire for 15 minute intervals, twice. Wipe it out, coat with oil, heat in the fire.

Let it cool, season up your burgers and form into patties.

It was at this moment that this godforsaken THING decided to buzz in and attach itself to the front of my shorts. I did what any middle aged, bug squeamish woman would do, I took off running, ball of hamburger meat in my hands. Bill stopped me and had to knock the thing off. Gah. It landed on the mat and he set one of his rings next to it to illustrate its horrificness.

Back to the burgers, once he deported the thing into the woods on a stick.

Grilling wasn’t the easiest. I didn’t want to set it down in the ash, so we held it down over the coals. It got heavy after a while.

So Bill tied a rope to it and tried to weight it down using some firewood. Didn’t work too well.

Also, if the two rods were horizontal instead of vertical, it would have been easier to balance. This way, it tended to tip.  I may try using rocks next time, they way you cook with a cast iron skillet or dutch oven. Put rocks down in the coals and set the cast iron on the rocks. About 6 to 9 minutes, flipping occasionally, and dinner was ready.

Perfect! If you like burgers well done.

Smacking lips!

Once cooled, I soaked the griller in hot soapy water in the sink (put towels down to avoid scratching your sink) and scrubbed them. Tried to cook off most of the residue in the fire, and scrubbed with a wire brush, but it still required washing, drying and then seasoning. I suppose you could use foil, but then the grease wouldn’t drip out like it’s designed to. No biggie, we’ll do this one again.

Hope you had a great 4th of July!