First time making bratwurst

[fivetricks]

I like others have no experience in this but fivetricks could probably help you out with the beer part. He's one of the go to beer experts on here.

For brats/sausages, I use powdered beer. You can buy it at butcher and packer for sure and probably at your favorite sausage making supply house.

It's more concentrated flavor and doesn't add extra unwanted liquid to your batches. If you want to add more of your favorite beer in that's fine as well, but the powdered stuff gives you that nice base beer flavor.

 

[chopsaw]

The recipe I had listed bacon as an ingredient. I just figured that was a translation fail from German and it really meant pork belly.

Does it really mean cured and smoked bacon?

If it says bacon , I would say yes .
I used 1 lb bacon 4 lbs pork butt . Which puts it into the 35% fat range that Dan mentioned . That being said It was not fatty like you would think . At least not in taste or texture .
The recipe I used was 13g white pepper , 14g whole caraway and 2g mace . Salt of coarse , but that was it for spice .
I did use 29-32 hog casings .
You can see the bacon in the raw sausage ,

Like I said interested in what you do , be watching .

 

[JC in GB]

For brats/sausages, I use powdered beer. You can buy it at butcher and packer for sure and probably at your favorite sausage making supply house.

It's more concentrated flavor and doesn't add extra unwanted liquid to your batches. If you want to add more of your favorite beer in that's fine as well, but the powdered stuff gives you that nice base beer flavor.

Wow, never heard of powdered beer. I am amazed at how much I have learned on this site.

Thanks

JC

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Alright I guess me and JC will be making 'In the style and spirit of' the authentic version... I never considered asking my German friends I have about the bacon part. Alot of recipes just say 'pork' and that is that when I looked around.

As for the beer; I like the idea of a wheat beer, not sure why. If we could find Spaten
..

Well Spaten Hefe-Weiss was awesome :)

 

[fivetricks]

Dried Beer Extract [BEERBUDS] - $9.75 : Butcher & Packer, Sausage Making and Meat Processing Supplies

Butcher & Packer Dried Beer Extract [BEERBUDS] - Dried Beer Extract™ is a natural beer flavor prepared by spraydrying beer with maltodextrin. The water and alcohol are removed, leaving concentrated beer flavor in free-flowing form. You no longer have to mix in liquid beer or steam the product to...

www.butcher-packer.com

Beer Powder

Beer Powder is great for making beer chili, beer battered fish fry seasoning, and adding a beer flavor to any other dish.

www.americanspice.com

Here's actually a powdered Bavarian wheat beer


Hope this helps :-)

 

[zwiller]

Pretty sure that Mr. Beer kit is unfermented malt extract and nothing like "dried beer" from BP. fivetricks Very good point made about using the powder adding liquid and in a similar note. Despite how sexy/tasty using cool beers in stuff sounds, odds are there will be little to no taste in the end product.

Back to the sausage. I am by no means an authority but did around 7-8 small batches of Nurnberger and I am of the opinion it a study in simplicity. I think the main flavor is from white pepper and nutmeg/mace, both which need to be fresh ground. Not sure if you have Aldi's near you but they carry the legit German stuff (Howes). http://en.nuernberger-bratwuerste.de/explore/members/howe-wurstwaren-kg

 

[TomKnollRFV]

We infact have an Aldis right by me...I'll go there this week when I calculate all the spice amounts needed and pick them up :)

 

[chopsaw]

I am by no means an authority but did around 7-8 small batches of Nurnberger and I am of the opinion it a study in simplicity. I think the main flavor is from white pepper and nutmeg/mace, both which need to be fresh ground.

I would say you are well informed on the subject .
I would agree with simple , and that lines up with the formula I used .

 

[JC in GB]

Went to Tom Knoll's family home on Saturday to make these brats. Much thanks and appreciation to the Knoll Family for letting me use and mess up their kitchen and for them putting up with me.

Now down to business. The process didn't go too badly. My LEM #12 grinder I just got did a good job on the first grind. The second grind was a pain in the arse as we didn't let the meat sufficiently freeze. Lesson learned.

Stuffing was a breeze with the LEM 10lb vertical stuffer. It was just kind of a pain to load as there is no stop on the hopper to hold it in place while loading. I almost dumped a load of sausage in the floor because of that.

I made the brats intentionally large as I can't stand a bratwurst getting completely lost in a huge brat bun.

I prepped the brats in a water bath at 170 degrees until IT was around 160. Then on to the grill for a quick sear for some color. As you can see by the pic, I didn't get much color on them. I was a bit disappointed in that. I will do better next cook.

The Nuremberg brats spice mix was nice, simple, and well balanced. The brats were juicy and delicious and the kraut and mustard just put it all over the top.

We just wanted to try a small amount of the brat mixture with mace added. One thing we stumbled upon by accident was by adding mace to the sausage mix, we made a clone of McDonald's breakfast sausage. Yum...

I will be trying an old world Polish sausage next. Getting into sausage making just seems to be a natural progression from meat smoking. Very enjoyable.

JC

 

[TomKnollRFV]

He isn't kidding about the second grind by the by... that was the hardest part..with the fine plate we were basically turning into a glue like consistency..so we had to double run with the coarse. But it was still a real chore. But I'm glad JC had his stuffer; mine is about a third of the size, we'd have been at it much longer. <Though I swore the LEM model had a catch on the back, or maybe I saw a home mod for that!>

I know JC is a natural with the casing, so if he likes to handle casing, power to him..next time I guess I better come up with the recipe.... maybe I can talk him into hot links..

But we really did perfectly make McDonalds breakfast sausage patty meat. It was entirely odd and unexpected.

 

[Norwester55]

Looks good!

 

[JC in GB]

I am down with making hot links some time. A good hot link is nearly as good as a brat IMHO. Working with the casings was pretty intuitive to me so I am good doing the linking part.

Can't wait till next time.

JC