So what makes a bratwurst easier to make than a smoked sausage? Still using casings correct? And why do they not require curing salt? Cook faster?
The guys are giving great answers.
Making Brats (fresh, not cured) means you grind, mix up, stuff in castings, and then grill/cook. No long drawn out smoking process like with a cured sausage.
They do not require curing salt because they were made to be cooked up hot and fast like on the grill, in a skillet, etc. and never intended to be a smoked sausage.
Fresh sausage will always be faster from starting to eating because there is no smoking process involved. It's simply throw on a grill, skillet, oven, etc. and go :D
I always found it easiest to think of
Fresh Sausages as ones you throw on the grill, if they are in casings.
No smoking or anything like that. So Brats and Italian sausage, etc. are like that. These sausages don't contain cure#1 because they don't need it due to not being smoked, just cooked up immediately vs in a low heat environment for hours up on hours which would be bad for sausage without cure#1.
Breakfast sausage is an even easier fresh sausage because its "loose" vs being put in casings. This means no need stuff into casings. You could literally just vacuum seal 1 pound batches. Now it may make sense to make a bunch and stuff it into 1 pound poly ground meat bags and freeze it. So now it is kinda similar to the 1 pounders you buy at the store but instead looks like this:
Cured Sausage (not fresh) has cure#1 in it and is almost always stuffed in some kind of casing (natural hog/lamb, fibrous, cellulose, etc.) and is then smoked in the smoker. It needs cure#1 to be smoked so it doesn't go bad at those low heat temps for how long it takes to smoke up and be ready to eat.
These sausages are things like Polish Sausage, Summer Sausage, Pork Franks/Hot Dogs, Bologna, etc.
I personally stuff a bunch of cured franks and vac seal them. Then i can smoke them later or USUALLY I just throw them on the grill like a fresh sausage and they are amazing. Gives me the option to go either way (smoked or grilled immediately) with them, where I can only do the "grill immediately" option with my fresh Brats.
So in short, Fresh Sausage = no cure#1, and Cured Sausage = cure#1 added.
Let me know if this all makes sense :D