The kind of ground beef you use for your hamburger patties is completely up to you. Meat with a higher fat content will be juicier, but it will also shrink more when it cooks. If you shop at a grocery store or a butcher that grinds their own beef, choose coarsely ground beef for juicier burgers with a more pleasing texture.
Raw hamburger patties do not stand up well to marinades since, of course, they are made of ground beef and will fall apart if left to soak in liquid. However, that doesn't mean you need to forego the extra flavor that marinades add to meat. Burgers should never be mundane!
You can add just about anything you like to your burgers, but whatever you do, DON'T mix salt into the beef, especially if you're not going to grill the patties right away. Salt will extract moisture from the meat, leaving you with bone-dry burgers. Instead, sprinkle each burger with salt right before you put it on the grill. Use a light touch when combining seasonings and tidbits with the ground beef. If you mix it too much, your burgers will be dense and heavy.
Once you have concocted your ground beef masterpiece, you can leave it in the refrigerator for several hours to allow all the flavors to mingle and intensify. To form the patties, wet your hands a little to keep the meat from sticking to them. For juicier burgers, make those patties nice and thick! The more fat your ground beef has in it, the more your burgers will shrink, so either buy extra-lean beef, or make the patties quite a bit bigger than the buns. You can form the patties ahead of time; just stack them on a plate with waxed paper between each one, and cover the whole plate with plastic wrap before you put it in the refrigerator.
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