What's the most robust flavored bratwurst recipe you know?

[realdocBBQ]

I made some Johnsonville brats last week.

Holy carp. I can't believe I used to actually like those things??? Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad or anything, just BLAND! I guess I used to actually think those had flavor - now they seem just... Meh. Bleh. I gotta find a recipe for a better brat.

I tried making the Nürnberger bratwurst recipe from 2 Guys & A Cooler, and it had good flavor, but they still weren't a very strong flavor, you know? And i know when it comes to some of these recipes, you can't just like... double the spices or something, and expect them to come out right.

My new stuffer is coming in, hopefully tomorrow, and even MOAR hopefully, I'll be able to make some sausages this weekend or the next. And being late spring now and working toward summer, some real bratwursts are seriously high on my list! I am absolutely CRAVING some really good, really ROBUST bratwurst.


I'm hoping someone here can help me out!

[Michael_in_TX]

I have not done this one yet, but Bradley Robinson's stuff seems pretty solid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvF57d2EZOY

Here's his spices and ratios for a ~7 lb pork butt:

3123g Pork Butt
60g Kosher Salt
15g White Pepper
7g Ground Ginger
15g Granulated Garlic
10g Ground Mustard
3g Mace
5g Dried Thyme
10g Ground Corriander
10g Carraway
120g Milk Powder
300g Heavy Cream

[Huskee]

Johnsonville's Chilli Cheese or Jalapeno & Cheese. (But seriously, pretty darn good for store-bought precooked brats)

[Andrrr]

I love throwing on a pack of Johnsonville uncooked jalapeno cheddar brats during the middle of a long smoke. Slice them up when they're done and serve with a toothpick for an appetizer.

[SheilaAnn]

Brats are one of my love languages! Following!

[Sid P]

mrteddyprincess made some last year that were dynamite. Perhaps he’ll share his recipe.

[mrteddyprincess]

Sid P those brats were from a recipe from the free side of this website in a recipe that has a calculator built in to determine amounts. Here's the link.

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/sausage-recipes/homemade-bratwurst-recipe/

B

[Sid P]

mrteddyprincess Thanks B!

[radshop]

In my opinion, Great Sausage Recipes by Rytex Kutas is a must-have for home sausage making. Start with his brat recipe. Then if it's not to your taste, start tweaking to your own preference.

https://a.co/d/hi2H3ud

[fitzoo7]

I live in the bratwurst capital of the World, Sheboygan, this is how we do it.

1) Everyone gets their brats at Miesfelds, https://miesfelds.com, no one eats johnsonville even though they are ~5 minutes from us. Miesfelds carries around 30 different brats.

2) This is how they suggest cooking - basically charcoal first then beer bath 2nd. I do believe they changed this in the past few years, it used to be beer bath first.

https://miesfelds.com/tips-and-recipes/how-to-perfectly-grill-brats

3) You must use a Sheboygan hard roll bun. These are a bit crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. There are 3 different bakeries in town who make this. Usually bun is grilled, with butter on the inside.

4) Use a 2 brats on the Sheboygan hard roll.

Most places if been use onion, mustard, and pickles minimum.

now I’m salivating and am going to Miesfelds first thing.

[SheilaAnn]

Steve B I didn’t get that far into the process. Let us know. Ain’t mad at $7.99 for a 6-pack. Especially if they are as good as fitzoo7 says.

[CRO]

Great Brats!

[WI Bubba]

I agree, Johnsonville is not worth buying. Miesfeld's are good. But for me the Piggy Wiggy made in store brats are the best you can get without making your own. I don't know if every store uses the same recipe, so your milage may vary. But if you find yourself coming West on 23, The Pig is just past the first light on the left.

[fitzoo7]

Shipping - I’ll go in today and find out if they do, my friends and family usually just bring a cooler or freezer bags, freeze it, and hope it’s still cold when they get off the flight. 🤣

[realdocBBQ]

Shipping - I’ll go in today and find out if they do, my friends and family usually just bring a cooler or freezer bags, freeze it, and hope it’s still cold when they get off the flight. 🤣

Not a lot of options for me locally. There's this:

https://siegis.com/

They have some good sausages. Their Nurnburger brand bratwurst is the best I've had from there. It's still pretty mild, though. I want a recipe for something that is robust and really strongly flavored. Not a blood sausage, not going there. Anyways. I may pick up some Siegi's here - there's a couple of local markets I can get them. I'm apparently not going to be MAKING sausage anytime soon, in spite of dropping $350 on a new stuffer. I just don't have the help I need. My partner in crime and sausage doesn't have the freedom these days.

[jfmorris]

Well, if you can't stuff sausage by yourself, I have no hope of ever doing any. Most of my brewing, cooking, BBQ'ing etc is a solo adventure.

[realdocBBQ]

My problem is space, really. My kitchen doesn't have room. My buddy has a big island we can spread stuff out on. But between narrow counters with cabinets over them and all the junk we have on all our tables and other space, I'm just kinda... crowded out of everywhere here. I really really need a big kitchen with a big island and big, deep sinks. And I don't have freezer space to chill the meat in tubs or whatever and and grinder parts, etc. I'm just limited here.

[fitzoo7]

SheilaAnn Steve B

I never knew they had a shop online 🤣 there is a lot of different brats.

My favorite is the grand champion or cheddar cheese brats.

Everyone of course has a different flavor profile, but this is most people and restaurants favorite.

If you do order, I’d also order the Gibbsville cheese curds, you can microwave a few for 10 seconds, pretty good. I wish they had the hard rolls and kransky on the site.

They obviously have a lot more meat options in store but their site does look like it has their more popular options.

when they say beer bath, in Wisconsin that usually means spotted cow. Unfortunately, spotted cow refuses to sell across the border, it’s Wisconsin only.

[SheilaAnn]

Is spotted cow a beer? I grew up in Chicago and never heard of it….

[realdocBBQ]

Yes, Spotted Cow is a beer. Pretty good one. Had some a friend from up there brought down.

[fitzoo7]

Alright you guys got me hungry.

I’m hoping the whiskey old fashioned brat is good, the fresh ones are the grand champion.

I did ask Miesfelds, they do ship out of state.

[Michael_in_TX]

That is.....that is a lot of brat!

[Steve B]

Just called them and talked to Chris. They, as you said, do ship out of state and ship everything frozen packed with dry ice.
Keeping an eye on the temps to place an order. I don't care if it's frozen or not, not having any perishable sent when it's gonna be 100 degrees out. But looking foward to trying several, no, many of their products.

[realdocBBQ]

Ok, I made up some bratwurst mix yesterday, along with a number of other sausage mixes. We ground all our meat, added spices, bagged it all up and it's resting in the fridge waiting for me to get around to casing it up. Some of it we froze, too, as I know I am only going to be able to do so much by myself in a short time.

Anyways, I tried this bratwurst recipe and when we fried up a patty and tried it out, we were very impressed! Now THIS bratwurst is not mild or laid-back or tame. I like it!



We didn't use beer or milk powder. No ice or water till all the spices were mixed in the ground meat. And I didn't have any caraway seed, so I left that out. Still was very impressed with it.

<edit> Now that I think about it, I do think I adjusted the marjoram up as well. I did about 1g/kg of that, I believe, maybe even a bit more. Pretty sure I stuck with the ratio on the cardamom and coriander, though. </edit>

I will admit, it is a bit 'pepper forward'. It isn't "hot" per se, but spicy, and since most of the pepper is white pepper, I think this is the reason. Definitely a lot of peppery flavor, but without the heat. I like it, personally, but if you're not a big pepper person, I'd cut the white pepper in half and maybe also the black, or leave the black pepper out entirely.

Seriously, we are looking forward to these brats being cased up and cooked on the grill. The one patty we tried was freaking GOOD!


And we should have a good bit, I think I made 5700 grams or so of mix, so that's.... about 12½ pounds. Looking forward to it for SURE!


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Spices per 1000g of meat
Salt 18g
White Pepper 2g
Black Pepper (Fine) 1g
Ground Mace 1g
Ground Ginger 1g
Ground Mustard 1g
Marjoram 0.5g
Ground Coriander 0.75g
Ground Cardamom 0.75g
Caraway seed (medium ground in spice grinder) 0.5g
Non-fat milk powder 15g
Crushed Ice (about 1 cup per 1000g) 160g
Cold Water varies
* Optional:
-Add a can a beer of choosing to about every 6 Kg of sausage when mixing.
*Keep sausage grind chilled during any prep.
*Depending on the sausage type, I may use my #32 grinder to help mix the spices during grinding. Saves on hand mixing. I don’t like using a mixer. If you have a small grinder and are worried about the milk powder overloading it, thoroughly mix milk powder after second grind, and then stuff.

1. Add spices (MINUS Milk Powder) to pork cubes and grind with crushed Ice through 3/8"(10mm) grinder plate.
2. Quickly add and hand mix milk powder; grind through 1/4"(6mm)
3. Add a bit ice cold water prior to stuffing if mixture is sticky.
4. Stuff immediately into 32-35 mm hog casings and form 6” (15 cm) links.
5. Chill in refrigerator overnight before packaging.

[realdocBBQ]

We also made up the mixture for an Italian chicken bacon sausage (around 20+ pounds?), a pork only kielbasa style (6 lbs), a pork and beef kielbasa style (~18-19 lbs?), and a batch of all beef Texas hot links (one whole brisket - maybe 15-17 lbs?).

So... I have... roughly, what is that, like.... I dunno, 70 pounds or so of sausage to stuff. lol

[Jerod Broussard]

It would probably mean more if you stuffed that all by hand.

[LA Pork Butt]

I am far from a bratwurst expert. I can number the time I have had them on one hand or maybe a finger or two on the second hand. Anyway we did brats from Aldi on the 4th and really enjoyed them. I am sure there are better ones, but the with brown mustard, grilled onions, and sauerkraut were really enjoyable. We followed a Steve Raichlen recipe from his book How to Grill.

[PGH_RAM]

Aldi brats are definitely good. I'd expect nothing less from a German company.

[realdocBBQ]

Haven't tried those. I'll have to give them a try - once I eat up all this sausage I'm working on now! lol