Beer Brats

Another Wisconsinite here. We didn’t have a problem with ketchup, and we often eat the sauerkraut on the brat. But brats are hardly gourmet, or meant to be fussed over.

Wisconsin native here, recipe nails it but add chopped jalapeño with the beer and onions then drain and reserve for serving.

I have eaten my weight in brats, but never prepared like this. Easy and so delicious. Brat party in the works. With Wisconsin beer, of course.

Add whole cloves (one per brat) to the beer bath. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the beer bath. When it gets to 180F, time to brown then in the grill.

Ketchup on Brats is an insult. In SE Wisconsin, we like to add thinly sliced green pepper and extra garlic with the onion (It's an Italian thing). If you can't eat it right off the grill, keep it warm in a beer bath. Perfect Brat has mustard, onion, green pepper, and sauerkraut on a Paielli's or Cardinali's brat bun, and no ketchup.

Sous Vide the brat, the kiss it on the grill. Perfect, super juicy and no flavor lost. Serve with a crusty bun and good real German mustard.

I boil onions and brats in beer until the raw pork is cooked, about 10 minutes. Continue to simmer the onions while the brats cool (15 minutes or so) before I flash grill them at high heat to get a char quickly. Before I did this the brats would heat up inside the casing and squirt out all the delicious juices I was trying to keep inside. Much juicier brats for the effort.

Mom’s way…Boil the brats before grilling, in a big pot with 2 bottles of good beer, 1/2 to 1 stick of butter & top off with enough water to give them all a good boil. Definitely going to try this adding onion this year!

Extra points: Always simmer, never boil. Boiling splits the casing. The appropriate simmering beer is from the back of your fridge. Use up the cheap beer that people bring to your house, but nobody drinks. Brat mustard has horseradish in it. If you can’t find a good hard roll, a Kaiser roll or a Mexican bolillo will substitute. Hot dog buns cannot be trusted. Simmer a few extra brats. Split lengthwise and fry them with your eggs in the morning. Trust me on this.

My experience: a correctly grilled brat with grilled onions on a grilled roll is preferred 2:1 over a boiled-then-grilled brat. The boiling takes out some of the salt, while the straight-to-the-grill brat concentrates the salty goodness. We had both at a few different cookouts last summer and tasters liked the grilled-only better.

I’ve also had various store-made WFM sausages that cooked up dry. My guess is that their definition of quality leads to using insufficient fat thereby sabotaging the result.

I discovered brats cooked just right in 10 minutes on the gas grill, heated on high for five minutes then turned down to medium when I put the brats on. Nicely browned and nice and juicy. Haven’t tried cooking them on the Weber yet the same way I cook ribs — covered and with wood chips for smoke.

The timing in the recipe needs to be adjusted if you have really large brats. We had some that had to go back on the grill to cook a bit more because they were not completely cooked on the inside. Otherwise, we loved them. Enjoy you Memorial day cookout, but please remember who we are memorializing.

A note from Wisconsin: Here's what's really good -- slice up a big yellow onion and cook it in the beer along with the brats. Let the onion simmer while the brats are grilling. If you want to caramelize it, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and cook it down in some butter in a skillet. Either way, eat the onions on the brats. Then, freeze the beer, onion and brat broth to use in bean soups in winter. Mixed with chicken broth, it's truly delicious.

This is the way. I usually add Mustard and Caraway seeds to the Beer.