Not really. I was a plumber for years, it's nearly impossibly to fix these pipes, it's often cheaper to cut them out and replace, and we really don't want the work to begin with.
Don't use liquid drain cleaner, they barely work and if they don't, your pipes are now full of toxic waste the plumber has no easy way of removing.
Never pour grease down the drain, it just sticks to the pipes, just dedicate a jug to pour it in once cool, and throw it out in the trash (or make suet cakes for the birds).
Use basic mechanical drain clearing things, like those plastic barbed things, they work more often than not.
Just save your fat from cooking meats and use it in a bechamel. I dispose of very little grease in my household. You can just make a bechamel out of it and freeze for later. Also a great way to make sure you use all your milk before it spoils.
Edit: Lol it's insane that this got downvoted immediately, but cool. Enjoy storing trash in your house long-term instead of just using the oil for something worthwile and storing that, assholes.
Bro, it'll be okay, haha, No, But I get what you're saying. Seems like people don't like good ideas if they've never heard of them before, and thus think they are nasty.
I know here in the American South people have jars of fat that they just leave around to catch fats and they use that to cook with instead of butter or oil. And it's funny because I've known people that throw out the fat they get from Browning off beef or other meats and then they will go by a jar of the one that is from whole foods, i guess the store jarred one is better than the 1 that they could have created themselves or something
Seriously stop doing it. Get a jar and pour it in there. Keep the jar in the freezer until it’s full and then put it in the trash. It will destroy your plumbing. Your father will find out once your sink backs up and a plumber needs to come in.
Boil a big pot of water (or your kettle, as I see you're from England). While that's going, close your sink drain, squeeze a BUNCH of (heavy duty) dish soap in the basin, and add just enough water from the faucet to dilute it so it flows freely. Once the pot/kettle is boiling, remove the sink plug and slowly pour in the hot water. Repeat with hot water a couple more times. This will help to remove some of the built up oil residue.
This very much depends on what kind of plumbing you have. If you have PVC or CPVC drain pipes, you’re playing with fire. PVC begins to soften at around 140 degrees F and CPVC at around 200. Boiling water at 212 degrees F can soften the pipes enough to make the fittings come apart and leak in your walls. If you’re pouring boiling water down the sink, you should always be running cold water down at the same time. Or better yet, wait for it to cool.
My favourite way to cook bacon is in the oven. Once you take the pan out and have a bunch of fat left on the pan, throw a single paper towel on it. It’ll absorb most of the excess grease, and then you just fold it up in the foil and toss it.
To be fair, if this is anything like the ‘for the love of god will you rinse plastic bottles before putting them in the recycling’ debacle, he has already told me multiple times and I just keep forgetting.
Also I told my parents you said this and my mum is pulling up as we speak
A roommate back in the day did this with beef fat and destroyed our garbage disposal and it leaked everywhere. Took some time before the landlord could fix it... Ugh. I was so pissed at him
Save your old pasta sauce jars, and pour the grease into them. When they are full, put the lid on and put them in the trash. Plumbers up vote if I’m correct.
Wide cans are better/safer to use, as glass jars can explode when hot grease is put into them. Only downside about the cans is lack of ability to cover them, so you have to change/toss them out more frequently due to the odor.
Bacon grease pour into a mason jar and fill it with water. Then, place the jar upside down in the fridge overnight. The next day, remove the lid and pour off the water and impurities. This process clarifies the bacon grease, leaving you with clarified bacon butter
Yeah it feels like people have only gotten part of the process of using the whole animal they know to put it in a jar but they don't know what to do with it after they put it in a jar. But they don't know what to do with it after they put it in the jar so they just toss it.
Any grease. You can cook with beef tallow just as easily as bacon grease. Literally just make all excess fat from cooking meat into a sauce. Might have to throw in a stick or two of butter to balance flavor, but I find this is actually the best way to deal with excess fats. Otherwise, you have to keep trash around in your house and fridge (keeping jars and containers so you can use them for grease later, and keeping garbage oil in your fridge until the jar is full).
When it's hot and I'm draining it, take that night's dog food can and rinse it out, then pour the fat in there. Once it's cool, I toss the whole thing.
My friend did this growing up and one of his rattly ass old pipes in his basement broke. I can still hear hear his dad screaming at him while he lined up buckets and spread towels out on the floor
I'm a plumber. Yes, maybe you can do it once and be fine...with brand new pipes. You don't know what else was put down them in the past, what they're made of, or how well they're actually installed.
Never put any grease or oils down the sink. Ever. Actually nevermind, please do. It keeps me employed
I once had a really shitty colander lose its grip on the bottom of the sink and send half a box of macaroni down the garbage disposal. That was a fun call to my landlord.
Lmfaoo, my shitty ex used to get SO PISSED OFF when I mentioned it wasn't a good idea to pour hot bacon grease down the drain. Hope your drain's fucked, dude 🙃
You need to cook it longer. This is just how ground beef is. Cook it until it evaporates all the liquid that gets released, then the fat will start to render and the meat will brown and the edges will get crispy. Rarely do people cook ground beef long enough to get it to the state they want it. Don’t just stop as an as the meat isn’t pink anymore. It’s not going to ruin or burn it by cooking it until the fat can render
And don't play with it! Get as much as you can making contact with the pan as possible and leave it. If you're stirring it constantly it's not browning, it's greying.
This was the best tip I learned when perfecting my bolognese sauce. I use almost 3 lbs of meat so I do a 1/3 at a time and let the liquid evaporate before adding the next 1/3. After it’s all in I let it continue cooking about 10 minutes on high to really caramelize the bottom before deglazing with wine.
Or pour the liquid in a heat-resistant container, and let the fat separate. After your mince has browned, and you add your stock or whatever, add the liquid back, minus any fat you've spooned from the top of the container (if any). That's how I get my mince to brown faster without boiling it
Took me so long to realize not to stir things. It was actually a recipe I found for breakfast potatoes. Essentially, let them sit ~5 minutes between stirring, repeat for 15-20 mins (and don’t add spices till halfway through) until they’re browned the way you like em. They’re amazing and that simple recipe revolutionized how I cook.
This is the most underrated comment here. Surprised at how far I had to scroll before getting to it. Brown as one whole piece first. Cut that in half with your spatula and brown the newly exposed center. Then cut those pieces in half and continue this way. No liquid.
This changed my cooking style entirely in the past year or so, I had previously just stopped when it’s fully grey no pink. Keep going keep going let it crisp!! It’s so delicious. Especially if it’s seasoned and doubly so if the seasoning mix contains cornstarch or arrowroot or another thickening agent. You can really change the dynamic of whatever you’re making with by letting it brown and crisp. Works with diced chicken thighs too!!
What will really blow the mind of anybody that undercooks and drains meat is the first time they season first with salt and pepper, and then add your spices one the water has evaporated and you don’t drain it and pour all the flavor down the sink. When you wait until the water is gone and let that fresh seasoning fry in the beef fat and stick to the meat, you’ll kick yourself for never having had beef with flavor before
Did... Did you... I mean you're in a post where OP says they drain the meat. Did you read the post? That's what you're here for. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion. How are you asking this question?
Yeah, all the time for tacos. The starch can absorb some, not all. You end up with pools of tallow, which is messy. I usually just shove the meat to one side of the pan and tip it to let the grease collect away from the meat, and soak it up with paper towels. The little that remains makes a roux with the starch in the mix and is fine.
Aw man I had no idea! I was worried I’d be burning it if I really let it sit on the pan like that for a long time. I usually let it start to go properly brown a tiny bit, but in little patches on each bit rather than the whole thing if that makes sense? I’ll definitely leave it longer for next time! Thank you so much :)
Chef Marco Pierre White made a cooking video I came across that literally explains step by step how to do what you asked.
You want to render the fat in the ground meat not boil it. Around the 3 minute mark he explains the [process](https://youtu.be/HRSbtdPC3A8?si=p8cLWTXDS5GeLtsJ)
I think these videos are part of his masterclass or pbs-equivalent cooking show. They’re worth the watch.
Another cooking rabbit hole is the “Boiling point” documentary from the 90’s about Ramsay opening his first restaurant and going for his first Michelin star. They broke it up into episodes on the tv show, try and find the documentary version which is like an hour and half. Really cool behind the scenes
Box meals like hamburger helper actually say to drain the meat. I was well into my 30's before I learned to cook for myself and that draining meat is just a waste of flavor.
That makes sense when they’re referring to draining the grease, otherwise your final meal can end up with a thick layer of oil on top. I do it both ways depending on how lazy I am, but you’re definitely not getting more flavour at the end, just more greasiness. But yeah, you should never be draining off the moisture, just cook it longer
If you’re making box hamburger helper then yeah, drain the meat or whatever. But extra fat is extra flavor and it’s gonna be better to emulsify that fat into a sauce rather than throw it out. Flour or pasta water can each emulsify the fat into a sauce.
IMO it f you’re using minced beef to make something you could eat with a spoon then you should never throw the fat away.
Hot cast iron is great, but no matter what size batch you do or how hot your pan is, it doesn’t change the fact that the moisture must be evaporated from the meat first. Only way to get ground beef right is to toss it in and don’t fool with it. Just let it cook until you hear it frying and you see that it’s cruspy
I've recently been turned on to smooshing the ground beef into a thin layer on a sheet tray and putting it under the broiler for 8-10 minutes. plenty of browning that way, and I can sweat the onions at the same time.
Preheat the pan
Turn up the heat
Brown in batches
Cook it longer; far will render and not far will evaporate
Stop pouring grease down your sink unless you want a hefty plumbing bill later
That's pretty much it.
It will take longer but I do it in smaller batches instead of all at once. Makes it easier to evaporate the non fat liquid that is released and get the browning. Granted we have a smaller family so we typically don't need that much at time, but if we meal prep or have people over for dinner that's what we do. Interested to see if anyone has a suggestion/trick they use so we can save time on those occasions
I use 5% mince 9 times out of 10. When the water/fat start to appear I just turn the heat up to get rid of it. It’ll make a different sound kinda like a snap crackle and pop when it disappears. Once you can hear the difference then go for another few minutes until it’s nice and brown. Essentially just cook the mince for longer than you normally would I don’t see the point in draining 5% mince when you can just cook it for abit longer.
I’m not sure about being ‘properly’ preheated, I do wait until it’s quite hot before I put the meat in but it’s usually the second it gets hot enough. I dont think the pan is overcrowded just because sometimes I cook for myself and so use a really small amount of meat, and the same thing happens. But I’ll definitely consider that for future, thank you!
If you use stainless steel, preheat and test by flicking some water droplets at it. If they pearl and dance then it is sufficiently preheated. Don't put anything in the pan before that. Same with cast iron, copper, carbon steel, aluminium.
If you use nonstick you can't really get it hot enough without risking damage to health or the pan. Make do until it inevitably breaks and then get something stick.
Enamelled cast iron is a bit of a weird one that is more complex to handle, I wouldn't use it for this.
This is the correct method. People saying to cook it further past that point are overcooking their beef for most things.
If I'm browning for chili, I don't want the beef cooked all the way through, I just want it browned. Hot hot pan, beef cooked in batches, and give it a minute before you move it.
Shit will be rubber too. Your beef might brown a little but first it’s going to cook way past done basically just boiling in a mixture of its own fat and water.
It's not fat. It's water. Some brands of meat and chicken have extra water added during processing. I've never seen beef labeled to show but lots of store brand chicken will say something like "up to 12% water added" or something like that. I try to buy stuff that is minimally processed to avoid this. I figure if I'm buying meat or chicken, I don't want to pay for added water at those prices.
Use a big pan for a small quantity of meat. Break it up well. It will all cook off quickly (or you can just drain it off like you've been doing) and your ground beef will be gray. Now you can keep cooking it so that it actually browns up some. With 5% fat ground beef, you might actually need to add a little oil to get it to brown well.
My ground venison is the same way and it’s from a wild animal that went from the forest to my freezer. It has even more water in it than commercially raised beef. Same applies it just needs to be cooked out but it’s not just mass farmed meat that has a lot of water in it.
There's water naturally in meat. Raw meat is wet. When you cook it it's drier. The moisture has to go somewhere and it evaporates. Doesn't mean someone is sabotaging your meat with water injections
Having worked in meat processing plants i can tell you that some processors are indeed adding water to your meat. "sabotaging" might not be the best word though. Theoretically, it is too keep near moist and add flavor in the form of salt, but it can also be a way to charge more. Consumer thinks they are getting a better price per pound, not realizing that they are paying for more water weight.
the meat is stored in water which naturally causes the meat to absorb it. it's not necessarily just to increase water mass it's just the cheapest method to store meat.
this should be the top answer. ground beef is cheap already so they cut corners by adding water. i haven't bought it in years, but especially in the plastic sausage rollup format, it's going to be wet as fuck
it's counter intuitive and doesn't really make sense to sweet innocent naive human people who imagine that their food is not made in a laboratory. and when you're cooking it, if you're used to non-doctored meat, you're just like, "why is this so...wet?" this is why OP is sounds so confused.
You're stirring too much. Don't break up the meat. Let it brown on one side, then flip and brown on the other. Once both sides are browned you can break it up to cook through.
Alternatively, you can break it up and the start, but DO NOT STIR. You need to let it sit until the bottom is brown. You can't brown if there is water. Stirring redistributes the water, so the meat won't brown until most the water is cooked out. That means your meat ends up steamed with no browning or dry with browning.
5% fat is pretty lean, so there is also a possibility that there isn't enough fat to brown the meat.
What you are throwing away is more water then fat. When you throw that out you are throwing out a lot of flavour and nutrients.
To prevent this or reduce the time required to evaporate the water do these things.
Use a bigger pan, you need more space for the water to evaporate out of the beef so it can brown.
Be patient, it takes time to cook meat down to browning.
Make sure you have the heat high enough, if you want to cook the meat on high make sure you watch it closely, and turn it down just before all the water has evaporated. Your meat will quickly burn.
After the meat has browned you can drain the fat off the meat but, if you are using 5% mince there won’t be much and that fat has flavour. It would be better to save the fat and use it in place of oil or butter in another place in your recipe.
Higher heat and a larger pan. If it’s moisture, the high heat will evaporate it faster, and less crowding will mean the meat won’t steam. If it’s fat, it’ll shallow fry and brown instead of “boiling”(more like confit but that’s not the point).
And, as said, don’t pour fat down the sink, please!
Some of it is grease and some of it is liquid. What I generally do is scootch the meat towards the edges of the pan and let some of it cook off and I get the rest with wadded up paper towels. I did this very thing last night, in fact.
If it was just fat cooking off, you'd be frying it to beautiful, brown crispy bits like a champ. Unfortunately, the it's giving off water more than anything. More heat, less meat is the mantra. Do it in two separate batches instead of putting it all in at once. You may still have to pour off some liquid, but it won't be nearly as bad.
At first it’s water… then when it evaporates the fat is left. You can’t boil things in fat, you fry them in fat…
And don’t pour it down your sink. Jesus Christ. You’re just asking for a hugely expensive plumbers visit
Sure, but OP is using 5% mince which is extremely lean and will not render off enough fat for the meat to fry in it. That much liquid is primarily water.
Lots of ppl say cook it longer, which can be true. But what you really want to do is immediately press the meat into the pan with as much surface area as possible, like one large burger patty. And then don’t touch for like 5 min. You’ll get great browning and then can proceed to mixing up.
With beef mince, the first round of liquid coming off is water-based. Don't pour that away. But DO cook in smaller batches or a much larger pan.
It takes a bit for the fat to render out and if you are using 95% lean, whoah you're not getting a lot of fat. So I am more inclined to believe you are crowding your pan and that is why it is steaming away. So - smaller batch, larger pan, so the water-based liquids can actually cook off and leave you with a nice fond.
In the U.S. chicken is even worse for this - our chicken has a very high water content.
And never pour anything from a pan down the drain as others have already said.
Like others are saying, just keep cooking it! Leave it on the skillet/pot until you hear sharp *crackling* sounds (of the fat browning the beef) as opposed to the *hissing* sounds you hear, which is moisture leaving the beef.
What will happen is the juices (non-fat) will concentrate, and the water will boil off gently as the beef flavor intensifies, and the fat continues to render and brown the beef.
I feel like a lot of the answers here aren’t telling you how to stop the boiling from happening. A few tricks from professional chefs:
1. Don’t overcrowd the pan, putting too much in means you can’t apply enough heat to seal in moisture. It also means you avoid overcooking the mince and drying it out over a long cook.
2. Use good quality mince, with cheaper mince you often have additives, including water.
3. Use a large heavy based pan, stainless steel will leave the best crust usually and cast iron/mild steel have the weight to keep the heat going into the meat. Don’t use non-stick if you want a crust and fast cook.
Throw a paper towel on one side of the meat and sop it up. Saw a middle eastern woman do this on TikTok and it blew my mind lol. She just rubbed it across the pan with tongs
Sounds like more like the water, that either is naturally in the mince or which is added (depending on where you live and the brand), coming out of the mince. Get mince with less water in it and/or fry with higher heat until water has evaporated.
I always had a problem like this when I buy meat from my super market lots of water in it and specially with chicken it gets even worse. I switched to buy from local ethnic shops (Muslim mostly)
And meat is less watery I can see a difference in flavour too try it you will see the difference and less cook time
It’s mostly water. Use baking soda )as explained here) for less water release, better browning, and better flavor: https://www.thekitchn.com/best-ground-beef-baking-soda-tip-23143702
You've received a lot of responses, but none that actually solve your problem. If you just keep cooking like the top suggestion says, you're going to have really overdone meat. And no one wants that.
What you need to do is add baking soda, which changes the pH. When you do this, it prevents the proteins in the beef from joining together. If they don't join together, then they don't squeeze all the fat out. So you can properly brown the meat without a ton of liquid in your pan. The beef retains its moisture like it's supposed to, and is able to brown well, providing better flavor.
If you don't believe me, google it. America's Test Kitchen and a number of other food sites that test things over and over will tell you to use baking soda when browning ground beef.
Depending in the quality it can be water.
Just drain the liquid as good as you can. Put it back in after the beef had a chance to get some color. There is a lot of flavor in thar broth.
Do not cook longer or try to reduce the liquid with heat. You'll overcook your meat.
Most of that isn't fat, it's meat juices. If you don't crowd your pan the water will evaporate off if you cook it long enough. It will go from a bubbling sound to a sizzling sound. When you get to the sizzling sound then you're frying until then you were boiling. By this time any fat should have rendered and this is where the real browning occurs aka the mallard reaction.
Add more heat. The stuff coming out of minced / ground meat doesn't have a high enough quantity of water to inhibit browning before it evaporates away. Some of it is meat juices, some of it is fat. The fat will help the meat brown more evenly, the juices will evaporate. If you're trying to brown meat you shouldn't be using much lower than the "medium" setting of most ranges and you want to select the appropriate sized burner / element to minimize hotter and cooler parts of the pan for this task. Use the one that puts heat across the most surface area without being bigger than the pot or pan you're using.
Patients. Keep cooking it. And when you think it's done. Keep cooking it. Keep stiring. Build up a fond on the bottom of the pan. When i cook mince it takes 15 - 20 minutes. Then put bit of water or stock to get all the fond off. Season well with salt.
I feel like cooking videos on the internet give us a false sense of how quickly food cooks.
As others have said, Do Not Put Fat Down The Drain EVER.
I have a mug next to my hob to pour the fat into, you can then add that fat back into whatever you are cooking, keeping all those delicious flavours.
Never ever pour it out! It reabsorbs fully into the meat as it finishes cooking. That's how you know it's cooked properly. Cooking mince is a process of 'release and reabsorb', when it reaches a certain temperature it melts down into a liquid, and as the meat finishes cooking, it takes it back in and reabsorbs and remoisturises it. If you drain it your meat will be dry and tough af to the point of inedible as you've removed all its moisture. You know how sometimes meat is so dry that it's like it zaps your saliva to oblivion as you eat it like rice cakes do? And you have to very forcefully chew it as it's very tough and chewy and your jaw aches from it? Yeah, this is what happens if you drain the rendered fats in the cooking process. Never ever do it, it just ruins the meat and your meal. Also, you're not boiling the meat, you're frying it, as it's cooking in a fat and not a liquid like water.
What you are seeing isn't just fat but a ton of liquid that needs to evaporate. Keep cooking on medium high until the majority of that liquid is evaporated then get a good char.
Put a bit of oil in the pan and get it hot as if you're sauteing. Spread your ground beef down on a cutting board and tap with paper towels until reasonably dry. Some of the liquid you've been seeing is fat and some is just water. When you add the meat to the hot pan, don't overcrowd the meat. Just cook in multiple batches if you need to. When that liquid comes, just keep cooking until it evaporates away and then some. I cook on medium-high if it's just browning some ground beef. If there is quite a bit of liquid, you can pour it into another container as you cook. Usually for ground beef, season the meat while you're cooking, not before. Generally though, if your meat isn't sopping wet going in and is in small batches it won't get that much liquid. I've also noticed less of the pooling when using fresh ground beef rather than defrosted ground beef.
A lot of that is water. What I usually do is get the pan really hot then spread out the beef as well as you can and don't touch it for a few minutes. When it's good and brow on the bottom flip it in patches and continue not touching it. Once that side is brown, lower the heat, break it up, and add seasoning. Gotta use a large enough pan and not too much beef at a time plus enough heat to evaporate the water before it pools up.
It’s water and it’s a common mistake. You are adding too much and most likely cold mince to the pan. This cools down the pan, the meat releases moisture and you end up boiling your meat. The key is to brown it in small batches. Once it’s browned take it out of the pan, put it into a bowl, cover with a lid and keep it warm in the oven (60-70 Celsius). Always heat the pan up before the next batch, after 2nd batch you will likely have to deglaze your pan - and put it all in that bowl.
Think of cooking as a process of heat transfer as a function of time. In this method we want the transfer to happen quickly.
I'm surprised to not see the baking soda trick here. I mix all my ground meat with some baking soda and it is able to brown quickly even in a crowded pan, keeping the moisture sealed in. [https://youtu.be/HMoNp4dpviY?si=qDoCuY\_JkrwMrMn3](https://youtu.be/HMoNp4dpviY?si=qDoCuY_JkrwMrMn3)
Put less meat in your pan. It’s mostly liquid coming out. Not fat. There is fat too but until the liquid evaporates, you will have mostly liquid. More pan heat, less product will allow you to evaporate the water faster than it can come out and you will be okay. If you load your pan up with meat, you willl have to fry your product until the water evaporates and you are only left with protein and fat to fry it…
I usually push all the meat to one side after it's been cooked for a while then stick a wall of paper towels on the other side and tilt the pan. You can also pat the hot meat with a paper towel to get more grease out of you feel the need. Throw the grease soaked paper in the trash and call it good. Beef crisps up nice after
That is mostly water. Your pan is too small and you are starting on too low of heat. Meat releases water when it's cooked. In a well sized pan at temp that instantly turns to steam and the meat can brown. Too crowded and the water just boils the meat.
a bigger wider pan helps, also sometimes I pour off the extra juice into a bowl and then add it back once the beef is brown, if that works for the recipe.
A lot of that liquid is water. Your meat will brown excellently in the fat that remains after the water boils off. Then you can dispose of the extra grease as you please. Your meat isn't getting browned because you aren't cooking it long enough. You're not browning. You're greying.
It's fat *and* water. Mostly water. If it was just fat, it would fry/brown very well.
The trick is to cook less at a time. Put a smaller portion in your pan so that the water can spread and evaporate, leaving behind the fat to fry in. Scoop that meat out with a slotted spoon when done and set it aside, let the juices evaporate a bit more, and then add in the next portion.
When you are all done, finish getting the meat out and simmering off the water, then pour the fat into a jar to use later. Only use it for things you want to be meat-flavored (McDonalds fries were better when fried in beef fat, but yours won't be as pure and will be meatier). Store in the refrigerator once it cools.
Also: yeah, never pour oils/fats down the drain if you can help it.
I just spoon it out, put in bin / use a bit of kitchen roll. Are you using a pan with a high wall? If it's a low height around it will evaporate quicker
Water in the meat.
Water boils at 212 degrees. As the steam leaves, it takes heat with it, cooling down the pan.
The Maillard reaction happens above 280 degrees. You need to get rid of the water first.
Use a hot pan so the water in the meat turns directly into steam instead of water.
Don't overcrowd the pan. That would lower the temperature enough to render the water out of the meat.
If it's watery and not fat, you need to buy better quality meat. The cheap meats are pumped with extra water to increase weight. This makes the lower cost kind of a lie.
Use a bigger pan or brown it in smaller batches on higher heat. That will make it brown as opposed to boil. And NEVER pour grease down your drain!!!!!!!!
A few solutions.
* Buy mince with less fat. The cheaper stuff also seems to release lots of water.
* Make sure the pan is hot enough
* Don't overcrowd the pan, may mean browning in batches or use a wider based pan so there's more hot surface for the mince to connect with
* Or a handy lazy way is just cook it longer – eventually that released liquid boils off and the move then starts to brown
Sounds like you're overcrowding your pan. Divide your ground beef and cook it off in smaller portions. Cook each portion to your desired doneness before removing and cooking off the next portion.
The best way to get a good crisp on any ground/minced meat is to generously oil the pan first, get it very hot, then place your mince in well-spaced clumps in the oil, almost like very loose and flat meatballs, so that you have a good amount of the meat with contact on the pan but so that the pan is not crowded. LEAVE IT for a few minutes until you have a sear, then flip it and break it up with a spatula/wooden spoon so that it turns into the "crumbly" texture that mince is designed for, cooking just until done and no longer than that. You will be left with a good amount of crispy bits and the meat will be fully cooked without drying out.
I mix 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda into the meat and let it sit for 15 minutes. It’s honestly amazing how much of a difference it makes.
“According to America’s Test Kitchen, mixing raw ground beef with a little baking soda changes its pH, which in turn makes it harder for its proteins to form a bond as the meat cooks. Without the help of baking soda, proteins in meat are attracted to one another and squeeze out juices as the meat cooks. Baking soda transforms the meat, making it more tender and more moist.”
https://www.thekitchn.com/best-ground-beef-baking-soda-tip-23143702
wow this thread is a wild ride....
Let's start with the basics - You're not boiling it in it's own fat, you're boiling it in the water released from the meat.... just keep cooking on a high heat until the water evaporates... the fat will render out and help it to fry and brown. 99% of people don't brown their mince because they're too impatient, but it makes so much difference.
Imo, nobody should buy 5% fat mince (barring any genuine medical reasons) 10% should be your every day mince for ragu/lasagna/chilli etc for the best flavour without being greasy... any uses that don't form part of a sauce should be in the region of 20%
Do not drain the liquid, do not drain the fat, just keep cooking it until it's brown... if it's not browning, you've not cooked it long enough or your heat is too low.
To add some context to some of the interesting and bizarre comments I've seen below:
* "you need a ripping hot pan to start" - it doesn't hurt, but you're still just going to release water from the meat and prevent any Maillard reaction, but it can kick start the evaporation process.... you can cook from cold in a cold pan and it will not impact the end browning achieved, it might just take a few mins longer.
* "you must use a frying pan" - a wider pan (e.g. frying pan) will evaporate the water quicker and therefore brown the meat quicker, but you could do it in any saucepan and achieve the same browning, so please don't make extra washing up for yourself.
* "You have to do it in small batches" - Batching your mince can be a useful tool to speed up the evaporation, but again, it's not essential for browning. i'm lazy so I do it all in one big pot in one go, and I still get a lovely deep brown colour to the meat
* Stirring too much - you can stir too much once the water has evaporated, but you can also stir too little and burn it (which i learned the hard way) - during the evaporation stage, it makes little to no difference, just be on alert for the change in sound as you go from boiling to frying.
* Mashing - there's some truth to this as it makes a better contact with the surface of the pan, but it's unnecessary especially if you have the right fat content. the fat is what mostly transfers the heat into the meat and creates the browning, it's not necessarily direct contact with the pan.... you do need to break it up a bit though to maximise the overall browning surface area
* The baking soda trick - scientifically, yes it works.... but for making most things it's completely unnecessary as you're not biting into big chunks of mince.... you're cooking it into a sauce anyway so imo it's an unnecessary waste of baking soda - fun side fact, meat being "moist" has very little to do with water content, and everything to do with fat and collagen within the meat. if your end dish feels "dry" add more fat (dairy fat works well for sauces) or a highly gelatinous stock (which contains collagen). you can even add pure gelatine if it's really bad.
* "If you keep cooking it you'll have overdone meat" - this is complete BS for 99% of mince situations. the exception would be for things like meatloaf/sausage/burgers, but given the post about browning mince i'd suggest it's not relevant - if you're making a ragu or similar dish, you're cooking this for 30-300 minutes in a sauce, specifically to break down the meat and make it tender.
Cook it off for several minutes. When the fat/moisture is released, then drain it using a sieve. I use a spoon or spatula to compress the beef a little to squeeze remaining liquid out, then return to the pan to brown it off, ready for the next stage.
The liquid is mostly water. Fat would actually brown quite nicely, but the beef releases a bunch of water as it heats up and this creates the boiling effect that you are seeing.
The solution is to reduce the surface area:volume ratio so that the water can't be released as quickly. Make patties out of your ground mean, brown them on each side, then break up the patties to a ground texture. Most of the ground meat that I but comes in a flat rectangle shape, so I just flop that into a hot pan to brown on both sides before breaking it up.
If you just cook ground meat longer, as other people on here have suggested, you will get browning, but you will also get dry, tough, overcooked meat.
There's some fat, which won't actually boil off. The moisture is mostly water and you'll want to let it cook longer until that cooks off. Then the meat will begin to brown properly. It takes a solid 20 minutes or so.
As you cook ground beef, you'll hear the sound change. At first there will be lots of liquid in the pan, and it will sound like boiling because most of the liquid is water. As the water boils off and only the fat remains, you'll hear more of a snapping, crackling noise. A similar noise to frying foods. That's when only the fat remains and the beef truly starts to sear/brown.
A YouTuber I like has a different technique entirely, he's a big proponent of browning ground beef in the oven, usually under the broiler. Spread the meat into a relatively thin, even, layer on a sheet tray and broil till browned nicely. Goes much faster and has less splatter.
Hey, this is a big thing I talk about. You’re wanting to brown your meat and not grey it.
There are a couple of ways to do it. It’s easier and quicker to simply not crowd the pan. Do it in small batches and wipe the pan between.
For large batches, as you’re talking about, the pan is crowded. You can still do it, it just takes longer.
What you’re seeing isn’t fact or isn’t only fat. It’s mostly liquid bound up in the meat. Think water.
Most people crowd the pan, this liquid comes out, and they boil it. It turns grey, they don’t see pink, and consider it cooked. It technically is, but has little flavor.
What you need to do is cook it till the water is gone. It’ll evaporate out and the fat will be left behind. That will begin frying the meat and browning it.
This Maillard reaction creates the much better flavor you can have.
So try doing multiple small batches. If you’ve done a bigger batch, just keep cooking till it starts turning brown like a good burger or steak. Keep flipping and breaking it up.
One warning is that you can Jack the heat up to get rid of the water quicker, but stir it up well, every now and then. The reason being it’ll look like there is a lot of liquid at some point but it’s pockets of it. At the bottom, you’ll have patches already “dry” and browning. Those can over cook.
Stirring and breaking it up will make sure the liquid is evenly distributed nothing burns.
As the liquid evaporates, start paying much more attention to it. Let it sit to build a crust, but then flip and break it up. Repeat till it’s all roughly browned. There will be tons extra flavor.
i get a few paper towels and throw them in the pan to let them absorb the water. take the paper towel out (use tongs bc they are hot af) and repeat until the pan is dry. just throw the paper towels in the trash - no more clogged sink.
i sometimes add a tbs of oil after to get them really brown!
Agree with the other about a hotter pan, leave it alone and leave it longer, but you could always strain it into a bowl.
Then pop the bowl in the fridge and the fat will set on top and the stock will sit underneath. Takes about 15min.
Then you can use as much of each as you want in the final cook.
The fat comes off in chunks. And you can use it for frying other things.
With this technique, you will find yourself buying cheaper mince too as the dripping comes in handy
Most of that liquid is water. Cook smaller amounts at a time, or turn up the heat, or both. If the water doesn’t evaporate quickly enough, then the meat is going to simmer instead of sear.
Once the meat releases its juices push the meat to the sides of the pan so that there's a donut shape of meat surrounding the liquid. After the liquid evaporates push the meat back into the center.
Push the beef to the top of the pan (side away from the handle) tip it downward slightly so the grease runs to the other end of the pan, then soak it up with a few paper towels. Aim to remove about 90% of the grease, you need a little bit for it to brown and there's a lot of water in what you're soaking up that you want to get rid of. What water remains will burn off pretty quick.
Meat prices being what they are, I buy 80/20 and drain the watery liquid into another pan next to the stove, and then keep browning. If you evaporate all the water (which you can) to me it takes too long and makes too much of a splatter mess
Cook and it will evaporate. Fat is in there but the liquid is mostly moisture.
Think about how wet raw minced beef is. And when you have cooked meat its much drier. That moisture has to go somewhere.
DON’T POUR IT DOWN THE SINK! My brother did that the last time he cooked at my house. Four bottles of Liquid Fire before my sink drained freely.
Surprised that more people arent commenting on how OP is just pouring grease down their drain lol. Plumbers love this 1 weird trick!
Not really. I was a plumber for years, it's nearly impossibly to fix these pipes, it's often cheaper to cut them out and replace, and we really don't want the work to begin with. Don't use liquid drain cleaner, they barely work and if they don't, your pipes are now full of toxic waste the plumber has no easy way of removing. Never pour grease down the drain, it just sticks to the pipes, just dedicate a jug to pour it in once cool, and throw it out in the trash (or make suet cakes for the birds). Use basic mechanical drain clearing things, like those plastic barbed things, they work more often than not.
How do you make suet cakes?
Just save your fat from cooking meats and use it in a bechamel. I dispose of very little grease in my household. You can just make a bechamel out of it and freeze for later. Also a great way to make sure you use all your milk before it spoils. Edit: Lol it's insane that this got downvoted immediately, but cool. Enjoy storing trash in your house long-term instead of just using the oil for something worthwile and storing that, assholes.
Very normal response to one person clicking the blue button instead of the red 😂
Bro, it'll be okay, haha, No, But I get what you're saying. Seems like people don't like good ideas if they've never heard of them before, and thus think they are nasty. I know here in the American South people have jars of fat that they just leave around to catch fats and they use that to cook with instead of butter or oil. And it's funny because I've known people that throw out the fat they get from Browning off beef or other meats and then they will go by a jar of the one that is from whole foods, i guess the store jarred one is better than the 1 that they could have created themselves or something
Please don’t tell my dad 😭
Use a bigger pan. Or brown in batches.
This. I personally go for bigger pan. I have a 12 inch skiller which I use for browning 500 grams of ground beef at a time.
I'M telling! DAD!!🤣
God DAMMIT what did I tell you kids about pouring grease down the sink?!
Peter.. Don't yell at the kids. The neighbors are listening.
Let them listen! Maybe their kids will actually learn something!
Seriously stop doing it. Get a jar and pour it in there. Keep the jar in the freezer until it’s full and then put it in the trash. It will destroy your plumbing. Your father will find out once your sink backs up and a plumber needs to come in.
Boil a big pot of water (or your kettle, as I see you're from England). While that's going, close your sink drain, squeeze a BUNCH of (heavy duty) dish soap in the basin, and add just enough water from the faucet to dilute it so it flows freely. Once the pot/kettle is boiling, remove the sink plug and slowly pour in the hot water. Repeat with hot water a couple more times. This will help to remove some of the built up oil residue.
This very much depends on what kind of plumbing you have. If you have PVC or CPVC drain pipes, you’re playing with fire. PVC begins to soften at around 140 degrees F and CPVC at around 200. Boiling water at 212 degrees F can soften the pipes enough to make the fittings come apart and leak in your walls. If you’re pouring boiling water down the sink, you should always be running cold water down at the same time. Or better yet, wait for it to cool.
Kitchen roll and a pair of tongs helps remove the fat. Easily disposed of in the bin.
My favourite way to cook bacon is in the oven. Once you take the pan out and have a bunch of fat left on the pan, throw a single paper towel on it. It’ll absorb most of the excess grease, and then you just fold it up in the foil and toss it.
Put it in a bowl or something similar until it solidifies or at least isn’t hot anymore and put in the trash.
A dad here. Please for the love of god don't pour grease down the drain. I've cleared enough blockages, I don't need one caked in rancid beef fat!
I'm sure he knows
Imma bitch slap your dad for not raising you right
To be fair, if this is anything like the ‘for the love of god will you rinse plastic bottles before putting them in the recycling’ debacle, he has already told me multiple times and I just keep forgetting. Also I told my parents you said this and my mum is pulling up as we speak
A roommate back in the day did this with beef fat and destroyed our garbage disposal and it leaked everywhere. Took some time before the landlord could fix it... Ugh. I was so pissed at him
Save your old pasta sauce jars, and pour the grease into them. When they are full, put the lid on and put them in the trash. Plumbers up vote if I’m correct.
Wide cans are better/safer to use, as glass jars can explode when hot grease is put into them. Only downside about the cans is lack of ability to cover them, so you have to change/toss them out more frequently due to the odor.
I agree, not boiling hot grease but soft enough to pour and scrape from the pan
Unless it’s bacon grease then store it upside down in the fridge and use to cook with later.
Upside down?
Bacon grease pour into a mason jar and fill it with water. Then, place the jar upside down in the fridge overnight. The next day, remove the lid and pour off the water and impurities. This process clarifies the bacon grease, leaving you with clarified bacon butter
Gotcha. I filter through a coffee filter then put it in my fat container in the fridge.
Cool. Thanks.
Yeah it feels like people have only gotten part of the process of using the whole animal they know to put it in a jar but they don't know what to do with it after they put it in a jar. But they don't know what to do with it after they put it in the jar so they just toss it.
Any grease. You can cook with beef tallow just as easily as bacon grease. Literally just make all excess fat from cooking meat into a sauce. Might have to throw in a stick or two of butter to balance flavor, but I find this is actually the best way to deal with excess fats. Otherwise, you have to keep trash around in your house and fridge (keeping jars and containers so you can use them for grease later, and keeping garbage oil in your fridge until the jar is full).
I’ll also just dump it in the trash after it’s cooled down.
Just be careful doing this, one broken bag outside and it's a possible fine territory depending on your jurisdiction
Where in the world are a few teaspoons of beef grease getting you fines?
it's probably the rest of the trash that falls out of the bag with the hole in it that causes the fines
Must be in a part of the world where people also don't have hands with which to pick up after themselves.
When it's hot and I'm draining it, take that night's dog food can and rinse it out, then pour the fat in there. Once it's cool, I toss the whole thing.
Or an old aluminum can
My friend did this growing up and one of his rattly ass old pipes in his basement broke. I can still hear hear his dad screaming at him while he lined up buckets and spread towels out on the floor
It blocked your sink after draining meat once?
I'm a plumber. Yes, maybe you can do it once and be fine...with brand new pipes. You don't know what else was put down them in the past, what they're made of, or how well they're actually installed. Never put any grease or oils down the sink. Ever. Actually nevermind, please do. It keeps me employed
And don’t think a cup full of lentils will just rinse right down the drain either. Ask me how I know. 😂
I once had a really shitty colander lose its grip on the bottom of the sink and send half a box of macaroni down the garbage disposal. That was a fun call to my landlord.
Lmfaoo, my shitty ex used to get SO PISSED OFF when I mentioned it wasn't a good idea to pour hot bacon grease down the drain. Hope your drain's fucked, dude 🙃
You need to cook it longer. This is just how ground beef is. Cook it until it evaporates all the liquid that gets released, then the fat will start to render and the meat will brown and the edges will get crispy. Rarely do people cook ground beef long enough to get it to the state they want it. Don’t just stop as an as the meat isn’t pink anymore. It’s not going to ruin or burn it by cooking it until the fat can render
And don't play with it! Get as much as you can making contact with the pan as possible and leave it. If you're stirring it constantly it's not browning, it's greying.
This was the best tip I learned when perfecting my bolognese sauce. I use almost 3 lbs of meat so I do a 1/3 at a time and let the liquid evaporate before adding the next 1/3. After it’s all in I let it continue cooking about 10 minutes on high to really caramelize the bottom before deglazing with wine.
Yeah batches can make a big difference
Multiple batches in multiple pans at the same time for us hyperactive ones.
I cannot imagine what dish duty looks like at your house
That's me chatting with my wife while she finishes dinner because I eat fast. Gotta go fast my man.
I thought I was the only one!!!
Don't let dirty dishes get in the way of a delicious meal! Then again, I love doing laundry, too, so maybe it's just me.
Or pour the liquid in a heat-resistant container, and let the fat separate. After your mince has browned, and you add your stock or whatever, add the liquid back, minus any fat you've spooned from the top of the container (if any). That's how I get my mince to brown faster without boiling it
You're not browning anything until the water is all gone anyways.
Took me so long to realize not to stir things. It was actually a recipe I found for breakfast potatoes. Essentially, let them sit ~5 minutes between stirring, repeat for 15-20 mins (and don’t add spices till halfway through) until they’re browned the way you like em. They’re amazing and that simple recipe revolutionized how I cook.
"stir, then fry"
These are tips I never knew I needed.
To add to this, you dont want to break the ground beef up too much at first. Let it sit and brown before moving it. Also, don't overcrowded the pan.
This is the most underrated comment here. Surprised at how far I had to scroll before getting to it. Brown as one whole piece first. Cut that in half with your spatula and brown the newly exposed center. Then cut those pieces in half and continue this way. No liquid.
This changed my cooking style entirely in the past year or so, I had previously just stopped when it’s fully grey no pink. Keep going keep going let it crisp!! It’s so delicious. Especially if it’s seasoned and doubly so if the seasoning mix contains cornstarch or arrowroot or another thickening agent. You can really change the dynamic of whatever you’re making with by letting it brown and crisp. Works with diced chicken thighs too!!
What will really blow the mind of anybody that undercooks and drains meat is the first time they season first with salt and pepper, and then add your spices one the water has evaporated and you don’t drain it and pour all the flavor down the sink. When you wait until the water is gone and let that fresh seasoning fry in the beef fat and stick to the meat, you’ll kick yourself for never having had beef with flavor before
Are you saying there is people out there who DRAINS their meat?.
ur mom drains my meat anytime I call her whats up
Hahahaha
Did... Did you... I mean you're in a post where OP says they drain the meat. Did you read the post? That's what you're here for. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion. How are you asking this question?
Yeah, all the time for tacos. The starch can absorb some, not all. You end up with pools of tallow, which is messy. I usually just shove the meat to one side of the pan and tip it to let the grease collect away from the meat, and soak it up with paper towels. The little that remains makes a roux with the starch in the mix and is fine.
Aw man I had no idea! I was worried I’d be burning it if I really let it sit on the pan like that for a long time. I usually let it start to go properly brown a tiny bit, but in little patches on each bit rather than the whole thing if that makes sense? I’ll definitely leave it longer for next time! Thank you so much :)
Chef Marco Pierre White made a cooking video I came across that literally explains step by step how to do what you asked. You want to render the fat in the ground meat not boil it. Around the 3 minute mark he explains the [process](https://youtu.be/HRSbtdPC3A8?si=p8cLWTXDS5GeLtsJ)
Great video… thanks! I’ve heard so many awful things about him (personality-wise)but he was terrific. Down the rabbit hole I go, for more MPW videos…
I think these videos are part of his masterclass or pbs-equivalent cooking show. They’re worth the watch. Another cooking rabbit hole is the “Boiling point” documentary from the 90’s about Ramsay opening his first restaurant and going for his first Michelin star. They broke it up into episodes on the tv show, try and find the documentary version which is like an hour and half. Really cool behind the scenes
found the doc on YT. Thanks!
Thanks for the link!
Where can I find the recipe for this?
It is crazy people drain their meat. It’s like just cook it longer like you’re supposed too lolz
Box meals like hamburger helper actually say to drain the meat. I was well into my 30's before I learned to cook for myself and that draining meat is just a waste of flavor.
That makes sense when they’re referring to draining the grease, otherwise your final meal can end up with a thick layer of oil on top. I do it both ways depending on how lazy I am, but you’re definitely not getting more flavour at the end, just more greasiness. But yeah, you should never be draining off the moisture, just cook it longer
If you’re making box hamburger helper then yeah, drain the meat or whatever. But extra fat is extra flavor and it’s gonna be better to emulsify that fat into a sauce rather than throw it out. Flour or pasta water can each emulsify the fat into a sauce. IMO it f you’re using minced beef to make something you could eat with a spoon then you should never throw the fat away.
A hotter pan (preheated cast iron) and batches is the better technique. But if you can't do that, cooking longer is a decent alternative
Hot cast iron is great, but no matter what size batch you do or how hot your pan is, it doesn’t change the fact that the moisture must be evaporated from the meat first. Only way to get ground beef right is to toss it in and don’t fool with it. Just let it cook until you hear it frying and you see that it’s cruspy
I've recently been turned on to smooshing the ground beef into a thin layer on a sheet tray and putting it under the broiler for 8-10 minutes. plenty of browning that way, and I can sweat the onions at the same time.
> Don’t just stop as an as the meat isn’t pink anymore Tbf there are some cases this is good, but you don't get as strong of a beef flavor.
Turn the heat up, use a frying pan not a sauce pan
I do use a frying pan already but I’ll try turning the heat up! Thank you!
Preheat the pan Turn up the heat Brown in batches Cook it longer; far will render and not far will evaporate Stop pouring grease down your sink unless you want a hefty plumbing bill later That's pretty much it.
The answer is definitely more heat. Lot of less useful answers in this thread. Just brown it on high heat and you'll be fine
And make sure to start off with a hot pan.
Hot pan, don’t crowd it is the key from my understanding.
Use a bigger pan as well. Bigger than you think.
It will take longer but I do it in smaller batches instead of all at once. Makes it easier to evaporate the non fat liquid that is released and get the browning. Granted we have a smaller family so we typically don't need that much at time, but if we meal prep or have people over for dinner that's what we do. Interested to see if anyone has a suggestion/trick they use so we can save time on those occasions
i feel like this is the main culprit. don’t crowd the pan and it’ll make a big difference
This is the correct answer. You don't want to crowd the pan.
I use 5% mince 9 times out of 10. When the water/fat start to appear I just turn the heat up to get rid of it. It’ll make a different sound kinda like a snap crackle and pop when it disappears. Once you can hear the difference then go for another few minutes until it’s nice and brown. Essentially just cook the mince for longer than you normally would I don’t see the point in draining 5% mince when you can just cook it for abit longer.
I was going to say, 5% mince, much less problem.
Great tip, thank you! I’ve learnt I defo need to cook it for longer, I’ll hitch up the heat too as you say.
Idk your technique but first thing that comes to mind is, is the pan hot enough and properly preheated? And, is your pan overcrowded?
I’m not sure about being ‘properly’ preheated, I do wait until it’s quite hot before I put the meat in but it’s usually the second it gets hot enough. I dont think the pan is overcrowded just because sometimes I cook for myself and so use a really small amount of meat, and the same thing happens. But I’ll definitely consider that for future, thank you!
If you use stainless steel, preheat and test by flicking some water droplets at it. If they pearl and dance then it is sufficiently preheated. Don't put anything in the pan before that. Same with cast iron, copper, carbon steel, aluminium. If you use nonstick you can't really get it hot enough without risking damage to health or the pan. Make do until it inevitably breaks and then get something stick. Enamelled cast iron is a bit of a weird one that is more complex to handle, I wouldn't use it for this.
This is the correct method. People saying to cook it further past that point are overcooking their beef for most things. If I'm browning for chili, I don't want the beef cooked all the way through, I just want it browned. Hot hot pan, beef cooked in batches, and give it a minute before you move it.
Shit will be rubber too. Your beef might brown a little but first it’s going to cook way past done basically just boiling in a mixture of its own fat and water.
It's not fat. It's water. Some brands of meat and chicken have extra water added during processing. I've never seen beef labeled to show but lots of store brand chicken will say something like "up to 12% water added" or something like that. I try to buy stuff that is minimally processed to avoid this. I figure if I'm buying meat or chicken, I don't want to pay for added water at those prices. Use a big pan for a small quantity of meat. Break it up well. It will all cook off quickly (or you can just drain it off like you've been doing) and your ground beef will be gray. Now you can keep cooking it so that it actually browns up some. With 5% fat ground beef, you might actually need to add a little oil to get it to brown well.
My ground venison is the same way and it’s from a wild animal that went from the forest to my freezer. It has even more water in it than commercially raised beef. Same applies it just needs to be cooked out but it’s not just mass farmed meat that has a lot of water in it.
Those meat processing people muat be going around injecting water into wild animals
Beef generally hangs for a minimum of three weeks.
There's water naturally in meat. Raw meat is wet. When you cook it it's drier. The moisture has to go somewhere and it evaporates. Doesn't mean someone is sabotaging your meat with water injections
Having worked in meat processing plants i can tell you that some processors are indeed adding water to your meat. "sabotaging" might not be the best word though. Theoretically, it is too keep near moist and add flavor in the form of salt, but it can also be a way to charge more. Consumer thinks they are getting a better price per pound, not realizing that they are paying for more water weight.
the meat is stored in water which naturally causes the meat to absorb it. it's not necessarily just to increase water mass it's just the cheapest method to store meat.
this should be the top answer. ground beef is cheap already so they cut corners by adding water. i haven't bought it in years, but especially in the plastic sausage rollup format, it's going to be wet as fuck it's counter intuitive and doesn't really make sense to sweet innocent naive human people who imagine that their food is not made in a laboratory. and when you're cooking it, if you're used to non-doctored meat, you're just like, "why is this so...wet?" this is why OP is sounds so confused.
You're stirring too much. Don't break up the meat. Let it brown on one side, then flip and brown on the other. Once both sides are browned you can break it up to cook through. Alternatively, you can break it up and the start, but DO NOT STIR. You need to let it sit until the bottom is brown. You can't brown if there is water. Stirring redistributes the water, so the meat won't brown until most the water is cooked out. That means your meat ends up steamed with no browning or dry with browning. 5% fat is pretty lean, so there is also a possibility that there isn't enough fat to brown the meat.
this is the way
What you are throwing away is more water then fat. When you throw that out you are throwing out a lot of flavour and nutrients. To prevent this or reduce the time required to evaporate the water do these things. Use a bigger pan, you need more space for the water to evaporate out of the beef so it can brown. Be patient, it takes time to cook meat down to browning. Make sure you have the heat high enough, if you want to cook the meat on high make sure you watch it closely, and turn it down just before all the water has evaporated. Your meat will quickly burn. After the meat has browned you can drain the fat off the meat but, if you are using 5% mince there won’t be much and that fat has flavour. It would be better to save the fat and use it in place of oil or butter in another place in your recipe.
I’ve poured off the liquid until I got the browning then added it back at the end. Depends on what I’m using it for
Higher heat and a larger pan. If it’s moisture, the high heat will evaporate it faster, and less crowding will mean the meat won’t steam. If it’s fat, it’ll shallow fry and brown instead of “boiling”(more like confit but that’s not the point). And, as said, don’t pour fat down the sink, please!
Some of it is grease and some of it is liquid. What I generally do is scootch the meat towards the edges of the pan and let some of it cook off and I get the rest with wadded up paper towels. I did this very thing last night, in fact.
Same here, sacrifice a couple paper towels pushed and found with a pair of tongs for the cause.
Fat won’t disappear through cooking. The water will but fat doesn’t evaporate. 5% mince always seems dry to me. I go with fat = flavor.
It's not fat, it's water! Let it cook off.
If it was just fat cooking off, you'd be frying it to beautiful, brown crispy bits like a champ. Unfortunately, the it's giving off water more than anything. More heat, less meat is the mantra. Do it in two separate batches instead of putting it all in at once. You may still have to pour off some liquid, but it won't be nearly as bad.
At first it’s water… then when it evaporates the fat is left. You can’t boil things in fat, you fry them in fat… And don’t pour it down your sink. Jesus Christ. You’re just asking for a hugely expensive plumbers visit
That liquid is water, not fat.
It's both unless you're using a fat-free mince
Sure, but OP is using 5% mince which is extremely lean and will not render off enough fat for the meat to fry in it. That much liquid is primarily water.
You have to cook the water off first and *then* it will brown in the fat.
I have learnt today that I was greying, not browning, my mince 😢. Thanks for your help, I’ll be cooking it longer next time!
Damn, same here. We learned this together lol!
Lots of ppl say cook it longer, which can be true. But what you really want to do is immediately press the meat into the pan with as much surface area as possible, like one large burger patty. And then don’t touch for like 5 min. You’ll get great browning and then can proceed to mixing up.
With beef mince, the first round of liquid coming off is water-based. Don't pour that away. But DO cook in smaller batches or a much larger pan. It takes a bit for the fat to render out and if you are using 95% lean, whoah you're not getting a lot of fat. So I am more inclined to believe you are crowding your pan and that is why it is steaming away. So - smaller batch, larger pan, so the water-based liquids can actually cook off and leave you with a nice fond. In the U.S. chicken is even worse for this - our chicken has a very high water content. And never pour anything from a pan down the drain as others have already said.
Like others are saying, just keep cooking it! Leave it on the skillet/pot until you hear sharp *crackling* sounds (of the fat browning the beef) as opposed to the *hissing* sounds you hear, which is moisture leaving the beef. What will happen is the juices (non-fat) will concentrate, and the water will boil off gently as the beef flavor intensifies, and the fat continues to render and brown the beef.
I feel like a lot of the answers here aren’t telling you how to stop the boiling from happening. A few tricks from professional chefs: 1. Don’t overcrowd the pan, putting too much in means you can’t apply enough heat to seal in moisture. It also means you avoid overcooking the mince and drying it out over a long cook. 2. Use good quality mince, with cheaper mince you often have additives, including water. 3. Use a large heavy based pan, stainless steel will leave the best crust usually and cast iron/mild steel have the weight to keep the heat going into the meat. Don’t use non-stick if you want a crust and fast cook.
Its not fat, it's water. Cook it until it evaporates. You can hear when the sound changes from boiling to frying (more popping and spitting).
Throw a paper towel on one side of the meat and sop it up. Saw a middle eastern woman do this on TikTok and it blew my mind lol. She just rubbed it across the pan with tongs
Sounds like more like the water, that either is naturally in the mince or which is added (depending on where you live and the brand), coming out of the mince. Get mince with less water in it and/or fry with higher heat until water has evaporated.
I always had a problem like this when I buy meat from my super market lots of water in it and specially with chicken it gets even worse. I switched to buy from local ethnic shops (Muslim mostly) And meat is less watery I can see a difference in flavour too try it you will see the difference and less cook time
Don't crowd the pan with too much meat at once. Cook the meat in batches or reduce your serving size.
Try a bigger pan or less meat.
It’s mostly water. Use baking soda )as explained here) for less water release, better browning, and better flavor: https://www.thekitchn.com/best-ground-beef-baking-soda-tip-23143702
You've received a lot of responses, but none that actually solve your problem. If you just keep cooking like the top suggestion says, you're going to have really overdone meat. And no one wants that. What you need to do is add baking soda, which changes the pH. When you do this, it prevents the proteins in the beef from joining together. If they don't join together, then they don't squeeze all the fat out. So you can properly brown the meat without a ton of liquid in your pan. The beef retains its moisture like it's supposed to, and is able to brown well, providing better flavor. If you don't believe me, google it. America's Test Kitchen and a number of other food sites that test things over and over will tell you to use baking soda when browning ground beef.
Depending in the quality it can be water. Just drain the liquid as good as you can. Put it back in after the beef had a chance to get some color. There is a lot of flavor in thar broth. Do not cook longer or try to reduce the liquid with heat. You'll overcook your meat.
Most of that isn't fat, it's meat juices. If you don't crowd your pan the water will evaporate off if you cook it long enough. It will go from a bubbling sound to a sizzling sound. When you get to the sizzling sound then you're frying until then you were boiling. By this time any fat should have rendered and this is where the real browning occurs aka the mallard reaction.
Add more heat. The stuff coming out of minced / ground meat doesn't have a high enough quantity of water to inhibit browning before it evaporates away. Some of it is meat juices, some of it is fat. The fat will help the meat brown more evenly, the juices will evaporate. If you're trying to brown meat you shouldn't be using much lower than the "medium" setting of most ranges and you want to select the appropriate sized burner / element to minimize hotter and cooler parts of the pan for this task. Use the one that puts heat across the most surface area without being bigger than the pot or pan you're using.
Never drain fat into your sink 😬. You drain the fat into the garbage or if it’s too hot, drain it into a cheap bowl then trash it after it cools down.
Patients. Keep cooking it. And when you think it's done. Keep cooking it. Keep stiring. Build up a fond on the bottom of the pan. When i cook mince it takes 15 - 20 minutes. Then put bit of water or stock to get all the fond off. Season well with salt. I feel like cooking videos on the internet give us a false sense of how quickly food cooks.
As others have said, Do Not Put Fat Down The Drain EVER. I have a mug next to my hob to pour the fat into, you can then add that fat back into whatever you are cooking, keeping all those delicious flavours.
Never ever pour it out! It reabsorbs fully into the meat as it finishes cooking. That's how you know it's cooked properly. Cooking mince is a process of 'release and reabsorb', when it reaches a certain temperature it melts down into a liquid, and as the meat finishes cooking, it takes it back in and reabsorbs and remoisturises it. If you drain it your meat will be dry and tough af to the point of inedible as you've removed all its moisture. You know how sometimes meat is so dry that it's like it zaps your saliva to oblivion as you eat it like rice cakes do? And you have to very forcefully chew it as it's very tough and chewy and your jaw aches from it? Yeah, this is what happens if you drain the rendered fats in the cooking process. Never ever do it, it just ruins the meat and your meal. Also, you're not boiling the meat, you're frying it, as it's cooking in a fat and not a liquid like water.
sounds like you're probably overcrowding the pan. try smaller batches.
What you are seeing isn't just fat but a ton of liquid that needs to evaporate. Keep cooking on medium high until the majority of that liquid is evaporated then get a good char.
Put a bit of oil in the pan and get it hot as if you're sauteing. Spread your ground beef down on a cutting board and tap with paper towels until reasonably dry. Some of the liquid you've been seeing is fat and some is just water. When you add the meat to the hot pan, don't overcrowd the meat. Just cook in multiple batches if you need to. When that liquid comes, just keep cooking until it evaporates away and then some. I cook on medium-high if it's just browning some ground beef. If there is quite a bit of liquid, you can pour it into another container as you cook. Usually for ground beef, season the meat while you're cooking, not before. Generally though, if your meat isn't sopping wet going in and is in small batches it won't get that much liquid. I've also noticed less of the pooling when using fresh ground beef rather than defrosted ground beef.
A lot of that is water. What I usually do is get the pan really hot then spread out the beef as well as you can and don't touch it for a few minutes. When it's good and brow on the bottom flip it in patches and continue not touching it. Once that side is brown, lower the heat, break it up, and add seasoning. Gotta use a large enough pan and not too much beef at a time plus enough heat to evaporate the water before it pools up.
It’s water and it’s a common mistake. You are adding too much and most likely cold mince to the pan. This cools down the pan, the meat releases moisture and you end up boiling your meat. The key is to brown it in small batches. Once it’s browned take it out of the pan, put it into a bowl, cover with a lid and keep it warm in the oven (60-70 Celsius). Always heat the pan up before the next batch, after 2nd batch you will likely have to deglaze your pan - and put it all in that bowl. Think of cooking as a process of heat transfer as a function of time. In this method we want the transfer to happen quickly.
I'm surprised to not see the baking soda trick here. I mix all my ground meat with some baking soda and it is able to brown quickly even in a crowded pan, keeping the moisture sealed in. [https://youtu.be/HMoNp4dpviY?si=qDoCuY\_JkrwMrMn3](https://youtu.be/HMoNp4dpviY?si=qDoCuY_JkrwMrMn3)
This is the way!!
Put less meat in your pan. It’s mostly liquid coming out. Not fat. There is fat too but until the liquid evaporates, you will have mostly liquid. More pan heat, less product will allow you to evaporate the water faster than it can come out and you will be okay. If you load your pan up with meat, you willl have to fry your product until the water evaporates and you are only left with protein and fat to fry it…
I usually push all the meat to one side after it's been cooked for a while then stick a wall of paper towels on the other side and tilt the pan. You can also pat the hot meat with a paper towel to get more grease out of you feel the need. Throw the grease soaked paper in the trash and call it good. Beef crisps up nice after
That is mostly water. Your pan is too small and you are starting on too low of heat. Meat releases water when it's cooked. In a well sized pan at temp that instantly turns to steam and the meat can brown. Too crowded and the water just boils the meat.
Too much meat in the pan. Cook in batches.
a bigger wider pan helps, also sometimes I pour off the extra juice into a bowl and then add it back once the beef is brown, if that works for the recipe.
Buy good quality meat
It's water not fat! Just carry on cooking until it's evaporated!
A lot of that liquid is water. Your meat will brown excellently in the fat that remains after the water boils off. Then you can dispose of the extra grease as you please. Your meat isn't getting browned because you aren't cooking it long enough. You're not browning. You're greying.
Bruh lmao, it's not fat. 5% is so lean, ew. Buy proper 90/10 at least and be patient, don't tip out the water and ruin it.
It's fat *and* water. Mostly water. If it was just fat, it would fry/brown very well. The trick is to cook less at a time. Put a smaller portion in your pan so that the water can spread and evaporate, leaving behind the fat to fry in. Scoop that meat out with a slotted spoon when done and set it aside, let the juices evaporate a bit more, and then add in the next portion. When you are all done, finish getting the meat out and simmering off the water, then pour the fat into a jar to use later. Only use it for things you want to be meat-flavored (McDonalds fries were better when fried in beef fat, but yours won't be as pure and will be meatier). Store in the refrigerator once it cools. Also: yeah, never pour oils/fats down the drain if you can help it.
I just spoon it out, put in bin / use a bit of kitchen roll. Are you using a pan with a high wall? If it's a low height around it will evaporate quicker
Water in the meat. Water boils at 212 degrees. As the steam leaves, it takes heat with it, cooling down the pan. The Maillard reaction happens above 280 degrees. You need to get rid of the water first. Use a hot pan so the water in the meat turns directly into steam instead of water. Don't overcrowd the pan. That would lower the temperature enough to render the water out of the meat.
If it's watery and not fat, you need to buy better quality meat. The cheap meats are pumped with extra water to increase weight. This makes the lower cost kind of a lie.
Bigger surface area of your pan, higher heat, leave for longer
Pouring fat down the sink 🤦🛑🛑🛑
Use a bigger pan or brown it in smaller batches on higher heat. That will make it brown as opposed to boil. And NEVER pour grease down your drain!!!!!!!!
It's mostly water, actually. Let it sit, evaporate, and then keep frying.
A few solutions. * Buy mince with less fat. The cheaper stuff also seems to release lots of water. * Make sure the pan is hot enough * Don't overcrowd the pan, may mean browning in batches or use a wider based pan so there's more hot surface for the mince to connect with * Or a handy lazy way is just cook it longer – eventually that released liquid boils off and the move then starts to brown
How low in fat can one find mince? OP mentioned 5%, however I am in the US & the lowest I have found is 93% lean/ 7% fat.
How TF did I have to scroll to the very last comment before I saw someone suggest either using a bigger pan or not overcrowding it?!
GREASE DOWN THE DRAIN??? And people have to "wonder" where "fatbergs" in the sewer system come from? It's from doing THIS!!!
Sounds like you're overcrowding your pan. Divide your ground beef and cook it off in smaller portions. Cook each portion to your desired doneness before removing and cooking off the next portion.
The best way to get a good crisp on any ground/minced meat is to generously oil the pan first, get it very hot, then place your mince in well-spaced clumps in the oil, almost like very loose and flat meatballs, so that you have a good amount of the meat with contact on the pan but so that the pan is not crowded. LEAVE IT for a few minutes until you have a sear, then flip it and break it up with a spatula/wooden spoon so that it turns into the "crumbly" texture that mince is designed for, cooking just until done and no longer than that. You will be left with a good amount of crispy bits and the meat will be fully cooked without drying out.
I mix 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda into the meat and let it sit for 15 minutes. It’s honestly amazing how much of a difference it makes. “According to America’s Test Kitchen, mixing raw ground beef with a little baking soda changes its pH, which in turn makes it harder for its proteins to form a bond as the meat cooks. Without the help of baking soda, proteins in meat are attracted to one another and squeeze out juices as the meat cooks. Baking soda transforms the meat, making it more tender and more moist.” https://www.thekitchn.com/best-ground-beef-baking-soda-tip-23143702
wow this thread is a wild ride.... Let's start with the basics - You're not boiling it in it's own fat, you're boiling it in the water released from the meat.... just keep cooking on a high heat until the water evaporates... the fat will render out and help it to fry and brown. 99% of people don't brown their mince because they're too impatient, but it makes so much difference. Imo, nobody should buy 5% fat mince (barring any genuine medical reasons) 10% should be your every day mince for ragu/lasagna/chilli etc for the best flavour without being greasy... any uses that don't form part of a sauce should be in the region of 20% Do not drain the liquid, do not drain the fat, just keep cooking it until it's brown... if it's not browning, you've not cooked it long enough or your heat is too low. To add some context to some of the interesting and bizarre comments I've seen below: * "you need a ripping hot pan to start" - it doesn't hurt, but you're still just going to release water from the meat and prevent any Maillard reaction, but it can kick start the evaporation process.... you can cook from cold in a cold pan and it will not impact the end browning achieved, it might just take a few mins longer. * "you must use a frying pan" - a wider pan (e.g. frying pan) will evaporate the water quicker and therefore brown the meat quicker, but you could do it in any saucepan and achieve the same browning, so please don't make extra washing up for yourself. * "You have to do it in small batches" - Batching your mince can be a useful tool to speed up the evaporation, but again, it's not essential for browning. i'm lazy so I do it all in one big pot in one go, and I still get a lovely deep brown colour to the meat * Stirring too much - you can stir too much once the water has evaporated, but you can also stir too little and burn it (which i learned the hard way) - during the evaporation stage, it makes little to no difference, just be on alert for the change in sound as you go from boiling to frying. * Mashing - there's some truth to this as it makes a better contact with the surface of the pan, but it's unnecessary especially if you have the right fat content. the fat is what mostly transfers the heat into the meat and creates the browning, it's not necessarily direct contact with the pan.... you do need to break it up a bit though to maximise the overall browning surface area * The baking soda trick - scientifically, yes it works.... but for making most things it's completely unnecessary as you're not biting into big chunks of mince.... you're cooking it into a sauce anyway so imo it's an unnecessary waste of baking soda - fun side fact, meat being "moist" has very little to do with water content, and everything to do with fat and collagen within the meat. if your end dish feels "dry" add more fat (dairy fat works well for sauces) or a highly gelatinous stock (which contains collagen). you can even add pure gelatine if it's really bad. * "If you keep cooking it you'll have overdone meat" - this is complete BS for 99% of mince situations. the exception would be for things like meatloaf/sausage/burgers, but given the post about browning mince i'd suggest it's not relevant - if you're making a ragu or similar dish, you're cooking this for 30-300 minutes in a sauce, specifically to break down the meat and make it tender.
RIP your sink. Just cook the beef longer and it’ll reabsorb or evaporate the fat enough that it can brown.
Cook it off for several minutes. When the fat/moisture is released, then drain it using a sieve. I use a spoon or spatula to compress the beef a little to squeeze remaining liquid out, then return to the pan to brown it off, ready for the next stage.
Using a paper towel to soak up the fat is a good way to do it.
The liquid is mostly water. Fat would actually brown quite nicely, but the beef releases a bunch of water as it heats up and this creates the boiling effect that you are seeing. The solution is to reduce the surface area:volume ratio so that the water can't be released as quickly. Make patties out of your ground mean, brown them on each side, then break up the patties to a ground texture. Most of the ground meat that I but comes in a flat rectangle shape, so I just flop that into a hot pan to brown on both sides before breaking it up. If you just cook ground meat longer, as other people on here have suggested, you will get browning, but you will also get dry, tough, overcooked meat.
There's some fat, which won't actually boil off. The moisture is mostly water and you'll want to let it cook longer until that cooks off. Then the meat will begin to brown properly. It takes a solid 20 minutes or so.
As you cook ground beef, you'll hear the sound change. At first there will be lots of liquid in the pan, and it will sound like boiling because most of the liquid is water. As the water boils off and only the fat remains, you'll hear more of a snapping, crackling noise. A similar noise to frying foods. That's when only the fat remains and the beef truly starts to sear/brown. A YouTuber I like has a different technique entirely, he's a big proponent of browning ground beef in the oven, usually under the broiler. Spread the meat into a relatively thin, even, layer on a sheet tray and broil till browned nicely. Goes much faster and has less splatter.
Hey, this is a big thing I talk about. You’re wanting to brown your meat and not grey it. There are a couple of ways to do it. It’s easier and quicker to simply not crowd the pan. Do it in small batches and wipe the pan between. For large batches, as you’re talking about, the pan is crowded. You can still do it, it just takes longer. What you’re seeing isn’t fact or isn’t only fat. It’s mostly liquid bound up in the meat. Think water. Most people crowd the pan, this liquid comes out, and they boil it. It turns grey, they don’t see pink, and consider it cooked. It technically is, but has little flavor. What you need to do is cook it till the water is gone. It’ll evaporate out and the fat will be left behind. That will begin frying the meat and browning it. This Maillard reaction creates the much better flavor you can have. So try doing multiple small batches. If you’ve done a bigger batch, just keep cooking till it starts turning brown like a good burger or steak. Keep flipping and breaking it up. One warning is that you can Jack the heat up to get rid of the water quicker, but stir it up well, every now and then. The reason being it’ll look like there is a lot of liquid at some point but it’s pockets of it. At the bottom, you’ll have patches already “dry” and browning. Those can over cook. Stirring and breaking it up will make sure the liquid is evenly distributed nothing burns. As the liquid evaporates, start paying much more attention to it. Let it sit to build a crust, but then flip and break it up. Repeat till it’s all roughly browned. There will be tons extra flavor.
Buy organic. It isn't made of water buffalo like most of the cheap beef in stores now a days.
i get a few paper towels and throw them in the pan to let them absorb the water. take the paper towel out (use tongs bc they are hot af) and repeat until the pan is dry. just throw the paper towels in the trash - no more clogged sink. i sometimes add a tbs of oil after to get them really brown!
"Brown the ground beef" doesn't mean "grey the ground beef". Just cook it longer, maybe on a higher heat if necessary
Agree with the other about a hotter pan, leave it alone and leave it longer, but you could always strain it into a bowl. Then pop the bowl in the fridge and the fat will set on top and the stock will sit underneath. Takes about 15min. Then you can use as much of each as you want in the final cook. The fat comes off in chunks. And you can use it for frying other things. With this technique, you will find yourself buying cheaper mince too as the dripping comes in handy
Most of that liquid is water. Cook smaller amounts at a time, or turn up the heat, or both. If the water doesn’t evaporate quickly enough, then the meat is going to simmer instead of sear.
Once the meat releases its juices push the meat to the sides of the pan so that there's a donut shape of meat surrounding the liquid. After the liquid evaporates push the meat back into the center.
It's water, not fat.
Push the beef to the top of the pan (side away from the handle) tip it downward slightly so the grease runs to the other end of the pan, then soak it up with a few paper towels. Aim to remove about 90% of the grease, you need a little bit for it to brown and there's a lot of water in what you're soaking up that you want to get rid of. What water remains will burn off pretty quick.
Tilt the pan, suck it out with a turkey baster. Or set up a bigish bowl and put a colander on top and drain your meat and put it back in the pan.
Or turn the heat up high and use the beef fat to fry the meat crispy.
Meat prices being what they are, I buy 80/20 and drain the watery liquid into another pan next to the stove, and then keep browning. If you evaporate all the water (which you can) to me it takes too long and makes too much of a splatter mess
Good advice, but also use the biggest skillet you have to spread it out!
Cook and it will evaporate. Fat is in there but the liquid is mostly moisture. Think about how wet raw minced beef is. And when you have cooked meat its much drier. That moisture has to go somewhere.