How many burgers for 40 people

One and a half burgers a head sounds generous until you watch a grill empty. Some guests eat one, a few eat three, and the average lands just above one — the half is what covers the people who go back, not an excess.

Sixty patties is a real cooking job, not a quick one. A standard 22-inch kettle holds about twelve at a time and each batch takes eight minutes, so sixty burgers is forty minutes of continuous grilling before you add the time the lid is open. Form them the day before, stack them with squares of parchment between, and keep them cold until the moment they go on.

Buy 20% more ground beef than the arithmetic says if you are forming patties by hand. They shrink, some fall apart, and the last one is always short. Chuck at around 80/20 is the right fat level: leaner and it dries out on a hot grate, fattier and it flares up and shrinks hard.

Ground beef must reach 160°F (71°C). This is not the same rule as steak, and the reason is mechanical rather than fussy — grinding takes whatever was on the surface of the meat and mixes it all the way through. Cooking sixty burgers to temperature also means the ones cooked first will be sitting; hold them in a covered foil tray rather than on the cool side of the grill, where they keep cooking.