Ever wonder how restaurants make their burgers? This will cover how they do it step-by-step for making the base of their burgers to prepare them for cooking. It will cover the equipment they use, and how they create the perfect buns and patties for their burgers.
The information provided applies to all types of meats that can be made into burgers for restaurants. If you are interested in making your own burgers, or making them from scratch for a crowd, then this information is for you, revealing the basics of it on how it is done behind the restaurant counter.
How Restaurants Make Burger Buns
When restaurants use burger buns, most of them actually buy their burger buns from a supplier, or they make their own in a separate shop owned by them outside of the restaurants. This shop can be in an entirely different state, city, or region. For restaurants that have many restaurants all over the place, it isn’t unusual for them to have a bakery where all of their bread (hamburger buns in this case) come from.
It is made at their bakeries, then packaged in boxes and shipped off to that restaurant as needed. These buns are either kept frozen, refrigerated, or left out for usage later on that same day. It is thawed out in the refrigerator if it is frozen, or left to thaw at room temperature in a pinch.
Some restaurants will make their burger buns from scratch in the restaurant if they have the time, money, labor, and room for the equipment. For the restaurants that do make their hamburger buns from scratch in the establishment, it is done in a commercial mixer.
1. The ingredients for making the hamburger buns are placed in the commercial mixer and the dough is made.
Eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, butter, and other additional ingredients of the restaurant’s choice are all placed in the commercial mixer to make the bread for the hamburger buns.
A basic recipe for making a large batch of hamburger buns to feed a crowd in a restaurant would be:
- 5 cups of water.
- 5 cups of milk.
- Half a cup of sugar.
- 5 tablespoons of yeast.
- 10 large whole eggs.
- 3 cups of butter.
- 2 and a half cups of cooking oil can be substituted for the butter if not using butter. However, restaurants use butter, because it is a lot more flavorful.
- 1 and a half tablespoons of salt.
- 840 ounces of flour (105 cups).
- Restaurants usually have large bags of flour that are 5 to 10 times larger than the bags of flour at the grocery store. They can weigh up to 50 pounds.
2. The dough is formed into balls.
All of these ingredients are mixed in the commercial mixer to make the dough for the hamburger buns. After the commercial mixer makes the dough, the dough is taken out of the mixer and placed on a prep table to form and make balls out of the dough.
A dough cutter is used to make sections from the dough to make it easier to work with. Balls of dough are taken and formed out of the dough to make the bread, and each are weighed on a scale to the same amount. This is done to make sure that every hamburger bun is the same size after it is cooked. It takes about 120 grams or more of the dough to make each ball.
3. The dough goes through fermentation.
The dough is laid on parchment paper in a large sheet pan. Each ball is spread out on the pan and given enough room to expand. The entire sheet pan is covered with a layer of plastic food wrap then placed on a sheet pan rack. The rack is then placed in a walk-in commercial cooler to allow the dough to go through fermentation for 24 hours.
4. The dough is prepared for cooking.
The dough is removed after it has finished fermentation, and the plastic wrap is removed. Sesame seeds are sprinkled on top of each dough before it is cooked, which is how sesame hamburger buns are created.
Some restaurants will even take beaten eggs and cover the top of the dough buns with a layer of the eggs before sprinkling on the sesame seeds. This allows the hamburger buns to brown better into an appetizing golden brown color when cooking. Butter is also used by restaurants instead of eggs to get the same effects.
5. The convection oven is preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
A convection oven is preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit to place the trays of the dough buns into to cook. These ovens are large and made for baking bread for commercial use. They are cooked until they are golden brown, which can take 20 to 30 minutes to finish cooking.
6. Each bread bun is cut in half horizontally to make the hamburger buns.
A serrated knife is used to cut the buns in half to form what will be the bottom and top buns for burgers. Since, some restaurants make their own buns, then they have to cut their own bread.
How Restaurant Burger Patties Are Made
When restaurants make their burger patties, they will usually make the patties in-house with their own equipment. The equipment that they use to turn the meat into burger patties is a commercial meat grinder. It takes larger cuts of meat and makes them into grounded meat for hamburger patties. It looks just like the ground beef bought at local grocery stores after it goes through the machine.
Even though it looks similar to the grounded meat at grocery stores, restaurants have the advantage, because they can use any meat that they like to make their burgers. The restaurant can order large pieces of meat of any kind from a meat dealer, trim the large piece with a trimming knife to remove unwanted pieces, then cut it up into smaller pieces with a carving knife.
The pieces of meat are usually cut into long rectangles, which can then fit into the space provided in the meat grinder where the meat will be inserted and grinded. It comes out the other end grounded. A tray is placed at this end to catch the grounded meat.
From here, restaurants will use this grounded meat to form balls for the patties, which will be weighed to the same amount of ounces for each on a commercial food scale to ensure that all the patties come out the same size when they are cooked.
Furthermore, if the restaurant is aiming for perfectly rounded burger patties, then they can take the grounded meat balls after they are all weighed, and flatten them in a burger molding. Each molded burger patty can then be placed unto a small square waxed paper and stacked and stored in a container without each patty sticking to each other.
With the hamburger buns made and the hamburger patties made, the only thing left for restaurants to do is to cook the hamburger patties and make their hamburgers.
Restaurants will prepare their own specially made sauces and other additions to customize and make their burgers special and unique for their restaurant. They may even take their basic hamburger buns and burger patties and make them with extra ingredients in them to make them completely different from the basic burger.
Restaurants will usually chop their own vegetables for their burgers in house. They get majority if not all their vegetables from a farm that supplies them.
The basic order for making a restaurant quality burger after the restaurants cook their patties is the sauce (mayo, ketchup, or other special sauces), lettuce, then tomatoes, then onions, followed by the burger patty with the cheese on top. The restaurant places all of the on the bottom half the the burger bun in this order, then it is closed with the top bun on top.
You can also find out more by seeing how restaurants get their burgers to taste so good.
