The homemade hamburger is a completely different beast to the frozen store bought versions you can pick up in your local store, in fact a good homemade burger should bear very little resemblance to the ready made packaged burgers!

As you can see if you've looked at some of the other pages on this site, a strong theme running through everything, is making it yourself, whether that's your Oil Drum Pig Roaster, 55-Gallon Drum BBQ Grill, or your Brick BBQ, if you can, make it yourself, and that goes for your burgers too!!

Making your own hamburgers is pretty easy, (especially in comparison to making your own grill!) it's all about the seasoning, and that is what makes the homemade burger so great, you have so much freedom when it comes to flavours. I'll describe a simple little recipe I like to use, nothing too fancy, it's only a burger after all, but mouth wateringly good all the same!

It's a good idea to make a few burgers in one go, grill what you want to eat, and freeze the rest for next time. A good size burger consists of about a quarter pound of mince, hence the 'quarter pounder' so you can work out how much mince to start off with by allowing a quarter pound per burger.

I like to grind my own mince, just to make doubly sure what has gone into it is good quality beef. Your mince mix should be about 80% lean beef and 20% fat, you need the fat to add flavour, so get it in there! Once the mince is ground, (for about 2 pounds of mince - 8 burgers) add an egg and a handful of bread crumbs to bind the mix together.

Now the interesting part, adding the flavours! This is a personal choice thing, so if my recipe is not quite hitting your spot, tweak and change it so it's just right for you. My recipe is only a starting point for you! Add one and a half tablespoons of salt, and the same quantity of ground black pepper, chop and add two golf ball sized onions into the mix. Finally for a little bit of bite, add half a tablespoon of chilli powder, this is probably the most sensitive of the ingredients and may require tweaking for your tastes.

Lightly mix the contents of the bowl with your hands until the ingredients are consistently mixed together, then portion out into eight patties on a greased baking tray and leave for three or four hours in the fridge, then you're good to go!!

When you have your 'standard' burger mix just the way you like it, why not broaden your approach and start adding ground bacon or sausage meat into the mix. If you have an idea, or maybe are just curious what something added to your burger mix would taste like, go ahead and add it, it might be just what you've been missing!