Be gentle with your meat. Use caution when forming your patties. Overworking the grind can cause the burger to become dense and dry when cooking. Tip: If using a hamburger press, do not smash the burger in place, use it to gently tap the meat into shape and that's it. Another common cause of dry and dense patties is smashing with your spatula. Unless you're making an epic smashburger (on a griddle) don't smash the meat! This just pushes our juices and feels like unnecessarily rage-y against the meat. And no, that isn't blood you're squeezing out of the ground beef, it's myoglobin flavor, so don't To get grill marks, gently press the patty, don't flex while you're at it.