Something I like to do once in awhile is use 80/20 ground beef and make thickburgers with minimal handling. Just take a portion of the ground beef and shape into a mini-meatloaf with just salt & pepper. Start the keg and as soon as the starter cube burns out put a couple of handfuls of hickory chips not chunks on the fire add the grate and start the burgers. Close the lid, top vent wide open, bottom at half, smoke billows and the temp slowly rises. Close the vents down to keep the temp around 225* and bake the burgers in the hickory smoke. At the first flip this is what the burgers looked like, with an IT of 145*, shooting for a finish around 160-170*.
Surprised to see that temp so time to open things up and let the flare up begin to get a flame broiled sear
Finished around 165* and still plenty juicy
These were huge burgers, one makes a meal so decided to do a bacon cheeseburger pizza the next night. Slice the burger thin, you can still see the grain from the undisturbed grind, and these things even had a smoke ring!
That's some Pain is Good Smokey Maple & Bacon Chipotle Onion Relish you see in the photo above that was the sauce for the pizza with a piece of garlic Naan bread for the crust. Topped with Swiss cheese and pepperoni.
Topped with some Jalapenos.
