Last tip: If you're cooking the burger and what looks like blood beads up on the surface, that's hemoglobin, and it means your burger is definitely past the medium mark. There are other tricks (you could braise the burgers in the oven with a lid on the pan to keep moisture intact and the temperature will go up to safe levels without being able to so quickly surpass 212 F, but you might not love the result. Obviously that won't work on a grill grate. I have no idea why this works better than placing it on already flattened, but there you go. I like the smash method favored by Shake Shack and (duh) Smashburger, where you make a ball out of the meat, drop it on the skillet, and then press it flat with a spatula or two. Unless your burgers are the thickness of a hockey puck, y the time there's a nice crust on either side, you'll be very likely to have a cooked middle. Bear in mind, temperature will rise a bit internally after the burger comes off the grill, but not a lot. Inevitably someone will get sick from undercooked beef this way, but you probably won't, and if you do, it probably won't kill you. But since you want a pink center, you could pull it out in the upper 140s/150s. You want the center to be.well, I trust Meathead, who doesn't screw around, follows the USDA guidelines, and says 160 is pretty much the same as medium rare if you're blindfolded. Assuming you're grilling on a skillet/griddle or outdoors and not sous vide, you've got a couple options:Ī meat thermometer.