Portioning Hamburger

[NancyH]

I need to make about 120 3oz burgers this weekend. What size disher should I get to scoop approximately 3oz (weight) of burger mixture per scoop?

[weinoo]

Hi NancyH,

I believe scoopers are sized by how many scoops you get from a quart...so a #10 scoop would give you 10 3 oz. scoops (for a total of 30 oz. or about a quart)...

You can see it here...click

[HKDave]

weinoo, I think you're confusing fluid ounces (volume) with ounces (weight). Portion scoops measure volume. Here's a chart:

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/portionscoopequivalent.htm

Nancy is asking about 3oz weight. Because burger is less dense than water (or at least it should be!) it'll take a bigger scoop to get 3oz weight that it takes to get 3 fluid oz volume. Not sure exactly what size, though.

[Shalmanese]

weinoo, I think you're confusing fluid ounces (volume) with ounces (weight). Portion scoops measure volume. Here's a chart:

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/portionscoopequivalent.htm

Nancy is asking about 3oz weight. Because burger is less dense than water (or at least it should be!) it'll take a bigger scoop to get 3oz weight that it takes to get 3 fluid oz volume. Not sure exactly what size, though.

←

Packets of frozen meat and mince sink in water and raw mince, added to water sinks so I'm pretty sure your burger mix will be denser than water. Do you have a kitchen scale? Try the #10 disher, it should be the closest to what you need.

[weinoo]

weinoo, I think you're confusing fluid ounces (volume) with ounces (weight). Portion scoops measure volume. Here's a chart:

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/portionscoopequivalent.htm

Nancy is asking about 3oz weight. Because burger is less dense than water (or at least it should be!) it'll take a bigger scoop to get 3oz weight that it takes to get 3 fluid oz volume. Not sure exactly what size, though.

←

Great find, HKDave! Thanks for the correction - and thanks, too, for that chart !

But now I'm confused, so I'll say I think the best way to get a 3 oz. portion of hamburger would be to use a scale to see what a #8, #10 or #12 scoop will actually portion out in burger meat.

[HKDave]

Because burger is less dense than water (or at least it should be!) it'll take a bigger scoop to get 3oz weight that it takes to get 3 fluid oz volume. Not sure exactly what size, though.

←

Packets of frozen meat and mince sink in water and raw mince, added to water sinks so I'm pretty sure your burger mix will be denser than water.

←

Just tried it with some vac-bagged frozen ground chuck here, and you're right, it sinks. Hmmm. That stuff was 15% fat, which floats; and frozen water certainly floats, so I guess the protein component of meat is so dense that it compensates for that.

I learn something new every day.

[NancyH]

Well, 115 Turkey-Peanut Butter Burgers later (recipe based, BTW, on our own Marlene's "Peanut Butter Burgers" recipe in Recipe Gullet), I can report that I was very limited in my disher choices, because I didn't want to go downtown to restaurant supply. I would up in Sur La Table, and took their #12 (2.5") disher. The scoops came to about 3 oz of my meat mixture, so I was happy with it. A little sore in the muscles under my left thumb on Sunday morning, but happy.

Thank you all for your input!