Can you believe it’s almost Memorial Day again?? To me it seems we just had the New Year and before you know it it is Memorial Day! Anyway, you know what Memorial Day means……burgers! It’s usually the first big weekend where people dust off their barbeque grills and grill up some burgers and brats. Let the grilling season commence!

This year will be the year you will make the best, juiciest burgers ever! This is the year your steaks will be cooked perfectly, nice and charred and crusty on the outside and tender in the middle (if that’s what you’re going for). This is the year. Here are a few mistakes you might be making with your burgers that you will want to avoid so they can turn out amazing each and every time.

1. You’re Mixing the Meat Too Aggressively

The less you handle your burger meat the better. If you manhandle it, the proteins in the meat get all worked up, which causes your burgers to be less tender.

2. You’re Mixing Seasonings in Too Soon

It is important to remember that you’re making hamburgers, not meatloaf. Seeing hamburgers fully loaded with onion, herbs, or even an egg or two is more common than it ought to be. Minimalism is the name of the game. To make your burgers optimally savory, try to refrain from seasoning the meat at all — that is until right before it goes on the grill.

3. You’re Tempering Your Burgers

If you’re looking for a perfectly medium-rare burger, then go against your well-meaning but misguided intuition. Remember you are not cooking steaks! The best way to cook an average sized burger patty is straight from the fridge. By cooking from cold, you allow the burger the chance to develop a lovely crust while avoiding overcooking the middle. However, if you prefer overcooked burgers, by all means temper away!

4. You’re Not Seasoning Liberally

Salting the burgers before they are formed into patties causes the muscle proteins to dissolve which will result in a patty that has a completely different texture — more like a sausage than a burger. But if you wisely choose not to mix salt into the burger itself, make sure you season liberally with salt and pepper just before going to the grill. Use more salt than you think you need. There’s a reason restaurant food tastes so good, and it has a lot to do with salt and how they season things before cooking. Seasonings should be liberally and evenly applied. You will achieve a more even layer by sprinkling from a height of about six inches.

5. Your Grill Is Too Hot or Too Cold

You need to grill at the correct temperature. Too hot and your burger will burn on the outside and remain raw on the inside. Too cold and they will stick to the grill, dry out, and develop an unappetizing grey color inside and out. The best approach to grill heat is to have a hot zone (with more coals) and a cooler zone (with fewer coals) for more indirect heat. Start your burger in the hot zone to achieve a perfect crust and then move them to the cooler zone if they are developing too much color too quickly.

6. Your Grill Is Dirty

Make sure your grill is clean before you start grilling. If the bars are clogged with crusty remains from last year’s barbecue, your grill is not going to cook efficiently at all. That nasty gunk is impeding the heat transfer between flame and food, which is definitely not what you want. So use some elbow grease and scrub that grill! Half an onion on a meat fork is a good way to clean the grill in most cases, but if the situation is dire, get out the wire brush and make your grill sparkle like new.

7. You’re Flipping Them Before They’re Ready

While there are now many who dismiss the notion that burgers should be flipped only once during cooking, there’s no denying that flipping too early is a big no-no. Wait until the burger is ready to be flipped, has developed a crust, and is no longer sticking to the grill.

8. You’re Encouraging Flare-Ups

Sure it may impress your guests to see you casually cook burgers amid bursts of flame, but it isn’t doing your burgers any good. Encouraging flames is essentially encouraging an acrid charcoal flavor, which definitely won’t impress your friends once they bite into your burgers.

9. You’re Pressing the Life Out of Your Patties

Like causing flare-ups, some people like to look flashy when grilling in their garden. Moving things constantly from one spot to another, flipping, and — most disastrously — pressing down on burgers with a spatula. What a travesty! When patties are flattened like that, any potential juiciness literally goes down the drain, forcibly removed by way of spatula interference, left to sizzle into vapor on a hot coal. So please, do not press your patties.

10. You’re Letting Cooked Burgers Rest Before Serving

Once again, burgers are not steaks! As soon as they are off the grill, they should be put on a bun and eaten. Because burgers are made of ground meat rather than intact muscle, the longer they sit, the more juices will run out (instead of being contained like in a steak), leading to a burger drier than desired. So hurry up and eat your burger!