Bratwurst Days

[Aurora]

July 31 - August 2 are the dates for this year's Sheboygan Brat Days (Bratwurst Days) held annually in beautiful, downtown Sheboygan, WI.

The location is Kiwanis Park, and there's music and a whole lot of grilling and beer drinking going on. For anyone who loves brats -- and who doesn't? -- you will be in bratwurst heaven.

I would like to assemble a Heartland caravan in the hope that we can head up to Sheyboygan and make eGullet's presence known. We could rent a van and make arrangements to stay in Sheyboygan or Milwaukee overnight.

Brat Days 2003 - Sponsored by the Sheboygan Jaycees

I think this would be a lot of fun if we could get it together. We will need a little something after our Paella Party high.

Thoughts please.

[snowangel]

Would love to go, but no can do.

It will be blueberry picking weekend up north, and my birthday, which I have celebrated at the cabin every year since 1977.

Come to think of it, just about every weekend in the summer is bad for us, considering the passion for the cabin.

[Lady T]

August 1st is a concert night (the only one this summer!) for the CSO Chorus at Ravinia. If the caravan is departing Saturday, August 2nd, I'm clear and delighted to go along; otherwise I can't.

Watching to see how the consensus comes out...

[guajolote]

I was all fired up to go until I read this from here:

"A true brat lover knows there's only one way to enjoy a Sheboygan brat," says Mary Lou Haen, past president of the Jaycees. "It's called 'a double with the works.'" Two grilled brats are served on a Sheboygan hard roll (that's a special bun rolled in cornmeal and baked to crusty, tender perfection) with pickles, ketchup, onions, and stone-ground mustard.

We were going to try to get to Milwaukee this summer to visit friends, so I'll see if this weekend works. Someone bring bail money, they may arrest me for my search and destroy the ketchup mission.

I do love the fact that they put butter on the brat, though.

[Aurora]

Agreed. That just ain't right. The pickle part got stuck in my throat, too.

Ketchup to a brat is the equivalent of mayonaise to pastrami.

I don't want to hear about anything but onions (raw or grilled), kraut, and mustard -- spicy, brown mustard. I admit that it's some nerve, but I bring my own mustard. When you go all that way for a brat, you can't take chances. They understand this level of dedication in Green Bay. They head down for Brat Days with similar ideas.

I leave the grilling to them, but you better believe I take control when it comes to dressing my bratwurst. No Jaycee on the planet is going to throw ketchup where it isn't wanted.

"If you don't turn em, you burn em."

[Jason Perlow]

Ok, so is what you guys call a bratwurst the same thing that Germans do? Or is it different?

[Aurora]

Ok, so is what you guys call a bratwurst the same thing that Germans do? Or is it different?

Yes. As I understand it, we're basically talking about the same thing. The recipes from brand to brand do change, but a number of established Wisconsin bratwurst producers (Usingers and Klements are among the oldest) follow old family recipes that were brought over from Germany.

BTW, I never had a brat in Germany that was slathered with ketchup and pickles. Kraut and mustard all the way.

[col klink]

Damn! I won't be out there in time.

I do love my brats, bursting with porky juice and fat. They're great grilled but they're even better when they're smoked!

[DRColby]

Once upon a time, long ago and far away in the place the Republican Party started, there was a wonderful butcher who made the greatest brats I have ever had. Oh woe, he got bigger and bigger! First contracts with Micky D's for hamburger patties, then jam to Smuckers. Quite obviously: he sold out; it's now a Smuckers or Swiss Colony or Harry's David or something big and corprate.

No more brats. But on a recent trip to Dairyland we bought the last box the butcher made , they were burried back in a freezer.

Brought them back to the great PNW, put them in a foil container and on the grill (you want foil because you'll never get it clean again) with a can or so of beer and some nice Walla Walla sweets. Cook and cook and cook some more until the brats are bathing in a thick syrup with the sliced onions. Take the brats out, put them on the grill to finish until they mark and pop, then load the bun with the some of the onions. Top and then the best grainy mustard you can find. Hope you saved a good bottle of beer (not cooking beer) to go with it. Heaven !!!

Now it's Johsonville from Costco across this great land - from here to Ripon, Wisconsin - so sad

dave

[sammy]

I was in Milwaukee a few years ago and was placing a large brat order at Usingers. I must of looked like the clueles easterner I was when it came to cooking brats because the nice lady behind the counter (Usingers is filled with nice ladies behind the counter) asked me how I planned to cook them. I told her that the brats were for a tailgate party and I was going to grill them at the stadium and serve them with mustard and onions cooked in beer. She suggested that I wake up a little early and cook the brats on the grill first then put them in a beer bath with the onions. That way, as the brats cook, all of the brat juices go into the sauce with the onions. I usually add some additional pork fat to the beer bath as well. The mustard Usingers sells, Kallas Honey Mustard, is the bomb with brats.

[Aurora]

I have always prepared my brats in reverse of what a few people have described.

The brats, fresh not pre-cooked, are put in a deep stock pot with the beer bath, a few cloves of garlic and some sliced onions (don't poke the brats). This is brought to a boil and the brats cook until they float (5 - 7 minutes). From here, the brats (and more sliced, lightly oiled onoins in foil) go on the grill and they cook until they turn a smoky brown color. Place those babies on the bun of your choice followed by mustard and kraut. Spoon up some potato salad and grab a cold one from the fridge or the cooler, and kick back.

[Holly Moore]

There is no sausage product that a blanket of kraut improves.

I lived in Wisconsin for three years, running the delis for a supermarket chain. We carried both Usingers and Klemmets. I prefer Usingers, but many claim Klemmets are the best.

In either case I kept trying with the beer par-cooking before grilling. Could never notice the beer flavor in the brats. Recently I've been importing brats from Usingers and have been parboiling them in water. Works just fine. Only thing I figure the beer does is to add flavor to the onions if onions are added to the beer. Parboiling in beer strikes me as a waste of good (or bad) beer.

Maybe parboiling the brats in water, grilling, and then holding in beer and onions is the answer. I'll be doing that when the next shipment arrives.

[John]

For those of you who live in or near New Jersey, I suggest you try the brats from the Union Pork Store on Morris Ave. in Union. I haven't tried nearly as many brands of bratwurst as I have hot dogs, but those from the Union Pork Store are the best I've had. And I've had Usinger's and quite a few other brats from nearby German butchers. This is a pork and veal brat that is out of this world. A German guy that I know of is something of a bratwurst connissuer, and he loves these above all others, including those he's tried in Germany. In fact, he travels a couple of hundred miles roundtrip from Pennsylvania every so often to buy these brats for his parties.

[slkinsey]

Mmmmm... brats! Reminds me of the old college days. Especially good with some fresh cheese curds from Schultz' Cheese Haus on Highway 151.

We always steeped our brats in significantly-below-simmering Blatz and onions for a while before throwing them on the grill. The beer bath definitely made a difference in both texture and flavor, although I am just as fond of brats cooked without this step. My fraternity (strangely about 50/50 music majors and physics majors) used to throw huge cookouts where we'd grill up a hundred or more brats at a time, with me usually as the grillmaster. After the last brat was cooked, it was always fun to dip into the kettle where the brats had been braising and toss a coffee can full of rendered brat fat on the hot coals. Nothing like a 30 foot tall column of flame to liven things up. Of course, there was the time my best friend and I almost blew our arms off trying to light the brat grill with gasoline from my car... but that is another story.

If no one else has pointed it out, the NY Times had a good article about Sheboygan and bratwurst last summer.

[Dave the Cook]

...Of course, there was the time my best friend and I almost blew our arms off trying to light the brat grill with gasoline from my car... but that is another story.

...which we'd all love to hear.

How about using your story to start a "Grilling Disasters" thread over in the Adventures in Eating forum?

[Holly Moore]

If one wanted to attend the definite Bratwurst Festival, would it be Bratwurst Days? If not, where?

[emilyr]

If one wanted to attend the definite Bratwurst Festival, would it be Bratwurst Days?  If not, where?

←

I've never been to the Brat Days in Sheboygan, but there's a Brat Festival in Madison. I stopped by with a friend on the way up north. All it was was a big tent selling brats served by local "celebrities." No craft booths or what have you, but I think part of the time they had a polka band. I think it was around Labor Day weekend.

[ronnie_suburban]

If one wanted to attend the definite Bratwurst Festival, would it be Bratwurst Days?  If not, where?

←

IMO, no, Holly. I hit Brat Days 07 and found it to be a near waste of time, from a culinary perspective. The main issue is that it's a Johnsonville-sponsored event, so the only brats served at the event are Johnsonville Brats. While there's nothing inherently wrong with them, I just don't view them as a 'destination' brat.

I believe the Madison event is also Johnsonville-only. I'm pretty sure there's an indie brat fest held annually somewhere in Wisconsin, but I can't seem to find any information about it at the moment.

=R=

[joiei]

How about this event in Hermann, MO

and then there is also this event later in the year

[rlibkind]

Every day's a brat festival in Sheboygan, Holly. Try Meisfeld's Triangle Market, just out of town on Rt. 42, for a prize-winning brat (they serve them at the Old Fashioned on the square in Madison, among other establishments), or better yet, Brockman's Meat Market in S. 12th in Sheboygan (get the smoky hot dogs, too).

[emilyr]

How about this event in Hermann, MO

and then there is also this event later in the year

←

Oh Yeah! WurstFest is great. Also much bratwurst-loving happening at Hermann's Maifest and Oktoberfest.