It is hard to beat a good cheeseburger. Whether grilled or smashed on a griddle some nice ground beef covered with melty American cheese is about as good as it gets. Throw some homemade bacon on it, a bit of mayo, ketchup, mustard, and a couple slices of good pickle and you are looking at food perfection.
Since Snake River Farms and Porter Road are my two favorite sources of meat I decided to put them head to head and see which meat made a better burger.
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First off, let’s talk a bit about the two contenders:
Snake River Farms American Wagyu Ground Beef
Snake River Farms is based in the Northwest and they are well known for their American Wagyu beef. American Wagyu cattle are Japanese Wagyu cattle crossed with Angus cattle. The result is an animal that has some of the great marbling of of the Japanese cattle and the size and quicker growth of the Angus. This produces some very rich, well marbled meat that is some of the best beef you can eat. Their American Wagyu steaks and briskets are legendary and are excellent to eat. So it stands to reason that the ground beef from these animals would be excellent as well.
The Snake River Farms American Wagyu ground beef comes in 1 lb packages and regularly sells for $14 per pound. If you catch it on sale you can get it for a few bucks less too.
Porter Road Ground Beef
Porter Road is a butcher shop based in Tennessee that sources its cattle from local farms in Tennessee and Kentucky. Their beef is all raised in the pastures and is hormone and antibiotic free. Porter Road has their own processing facilities and practices whole animal butchery so nothing goes to waste. They have a great selection of butchers cuts like hanger steaks, denver steaks, and bavette but their steakhouse cuts like ribeyes are excellent as well. Porter Road also dry ages their beef for 14 days. That amount of time will start to give some texture differences but it isn’t long enough to develop the really funky dry aged flavors that some people love and some people hate.
Porter Road sells their ground beef for $9 per pound and regularly will include a pound on all orders over $75. If you use code MEATLOVER on your first order you can also save $15 on orders over $100. You can also buy pre-made patties in half pound, third pound, and quarter pound sizes for $10 per pound.
So let’s get on to the comparison:
I made up some 1/3rd pound patties with beef from each company. The Porter Road patties are on the left and Snake River Farms are on the right. At first glance you can tell the Porter Road beef has a bit coarser grind and looks to have more fat. The Snake River Farms beef is a bit smoother texture. You can definitely feel a difference in the beef as you are forming the patties.
Given a choice I would probably prefer a bit of a coarser grind but I don’t think this was a deal breaker by any means. The difference is pretty minor and a lot of the difference is probably the lower melting point of the fat in the American Wagyu burgers.
I lit up a chimney of Fogo Premium Lump charcoal and dumped it in my 26 inch Weber Kettle. More and more I am leaning towards lump charcoal for cooks like this. It burns hot and clean, lights quick, and doesn’t produce as much ash as briquettes. Fogo Premium Lump is a great size for cooks like this too. Not a ton of dust or small pieces like you get in most bags of lump. 2 bags cost $40 but they ship free and it will last longer than the same weight of briquettes.
I have also been using my 26 inch grill more than my 22 inch. For long smokes like brisket and pork butts it is awesome but even for quicker cooks like this it gives me more space to push the coals to one side, have plenty of hot cooking area, and also have a lot of cooler space to move the food as it cooks. As you can see above I have 10 burgers (the 4 small ones in the back were for the kids) and I still have almost half the grill in front if things start getting too hot or there are any big flare ups.
Anyway, back to the burgers. Nothing fancy on these. Just some salt when they went on the grill and I cooked them to medium rare. For burgers like this I like them pink in the middle. BTW, a simple thermometer like the Thermoworks Thermopop is great for thin foods like this. The part that measures the temps is right in the tip of the thermometer so you can get accurate readings even if you only stick the probe in 1/4 inch. As you can see above there is a bit more smoke on the left side with the Porter Road burgers. It seemed like a bit more fat was dripping down and causing a few more flare ups but nothing too out of control.
I threw some American cheese (by far the best cheese for a burger) on most of them but my wife insisted on cheddar so I used a couple slice of that for her.
Here is the finished product. Just a simple bun, some mayo on both halves of the bun to keep the juices from making the bun soggy, a couple slices of good pickle, some homemade bacon, and a bit of ketchup and mustard:
At this point there is really no difference in the two. They both looked very similar after they were cooked and neither fell apart or dripped excessively or anything like that. So now the important part: How did they taste?
The burgers definitely had a different mouth feel. Like I expected, you could tell the Porter Road beef was a bit coarser and the Snake River Farms beef was a bit smoother. It almost had a silky texture to it. The Snake River burger had a bit more high class or refined taste if that makes any sense but the Porter Road burger was a bit beefier tasting. If I was ordering a burger in a roadside diner I would expect the Porter Road burger. If I got a burger at a nice steakhouse I would expect the Snake River burger.
The Porter Road burger will probably fit better with simple, basic burger toppings (lettuce, pickle, tomato) but if you are adding things like avocado, grilled onions, blue cheese, sauteed mushrooms or something like that I think the Snake River burger would be the way to go.
Both are definitely better than the ground beef you get at the grocery store or at most burger restaurants for that matter. Cook up some burgers from Snake River or Porter Road and burger night will take on a whole new meaning at your house. Yeah, it will cost you 2 or 3 times what you spend on grocery store beef but there is a huge difference in quality, texture, and taste.
In the end I can’t say which one is better. They are both great, just different. For what I look for in a burger I would probably reach for Porter Road ground beef 51 out of 100 times and Snake River American Wagyu ground beef the other 49. Give them both a try and see which one you like for yourself.
