It was Wisconsin where I first learned to love the brat.
Bratwurst was a new thing to me, child of new Jersey that I am, but here in this new land it was as common as the Italian sausage I knew and loved was back home. It was 1992, and I was living away from the East Coast for the first time. I ate an awful lot of red and white brats and drank an awful lot of beer when I was a student at UW-Madison.
Then I moved back to Long Island, and there I met a woman named Jen, who would ultimately become my wife for a time. Ironically, Jen was from Wisconsin, and when it came time to meet her family, I found myself back on familiar ground. It was Jen’s uncle Casey — Casimir Migacz — who first showed me how to make Sheboygan brats.
Casey was a gruff older man, probably in his sixties, a true blue collar, stand-up guy. Deer hunter, family man, lover of Friday night fish fry. One day he invited us down into his workshop/basement. It was time to make sausage. Brats, to be exact. And not just any kind of brat, the classic “white brat” made famous in nearby Shebogyan.
Sheboygan brats owe their origin to the classic German bratwurst, possibly the Nürnberger variety, which looks and tastes similar. No two recipes are alike, but they all tend to have marjoram, ginger, nutmeg, black or white pepper, and occasionally mustard seed, caraway and other spices. Many recipes have a bit of egg and or cream in them, too.
Casey’s recipe had most of these ingredients, although no egg or caraway. We made a giant batch, easily 30 pounds, and it was made with the traditional mix of pork and veal. My recipe here is a turkey sausage with some pork. (Wild turkey is an excellent white meat for sausage-making.) I used trim off the carcass, as well as the thigh meat and some of the breast.
No matter what meats you use, a Sheboygan brat is light in color, medium-coarse — somewhere between an Italian sausage and a hot dog — rich, and bright with that medieval spice mix, which feels like its been around for a millennium.
Grill these turkey sausages and serve them on a roll with mustard and sauerkraut or caramelized onions. There ain’t nothing better when the Badgers or Packers are playing. Of course, you can eat them rooting for another team, too, I suppose.
Sheboygan Brats
Ingredients
- 3 pounds turkey, pork or veal
- 1 pound pork belly or fatty shoulder
- 25 grams kosher salt
- 2 grams black pepper, about a teaspoon
- 1 gram dried marjoram, about a teaspoon
- 5 grams ground ginger, about 1 1/2 teaspoons
- 2 grams freshly ground nutmeg
- 50 grams dry milk
- 3 grams caraway, about a teaspoon
- 2 grams mustard seed, about a teaspoon
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Hog casings
Instructions
- Get out about 10 feet of hog casings and soak them in warm water.
- Cut the meat and fat into chunks you can fit into your meat grinder. Mix together the salt, pepper, marjoram, ginger and nutmeg, then mix this with the meat and fat until every piece has a little on it. Refrigerate overnight if you want, but let it marinate at least an hour or so; this helps develop myosin in the mixture, which helps the texture of the finished sausage. When you are ready to grind, put the meat in the freezer until it is between 30°F and 40°F. Put your grinder parts (auger, dies, blades, etc) in the freezer, too, and put a bowl in the fridge.
- Grind one-third of the mixture through the coarse die on your grinder, and the rest through the fine die. This creates a more interesting texture. If your meat mixture is still at 35°F or colder, you can go right to binding. If it has heated up, you need to chill everything back down. Use this time to clean up the grinder.
- Once the meat is cold, put it in a large bin or bowl and add the dry milk, caraway, mustard seed, egg white and heavy cream. Mix well with your (very clean) hands for 2 to 3 minutes — a good indicator of temperature is that your hands should ache with cold when you do this. You want to to mix until the meat binds to itself. You can also do this in a stand mixer set on its lowest setting, but I find you don’t get as good a bind as you do when you do this by hand.
- You now have bratwurst. To make links, put the loose sausage into a stuffer and thread a casing onto it. Stuffing sausage is easier with two people, one to fill the links, the other to coil, but I do it solo all the time. Stuff the links well but not super-tight, as you will not be able to tie them off later if they are too full. Don’t worry about air pockets yet. Stuff the whole casing, leaving lots of room on either end to tie them off; I leave at least three inches of unstuffed casing on either end of the coil.
- To form the individual links, tie off one end of the coil. Now pinch off two links of about six inches long. Rotate the link between your hands forward a few times. Look for air pockets. To remove them, set a large needle or a sausage pricker into a stovetop burner until it glows (this sterilizes it), then pierce the casing at the air pockets. Twist the links a little and gently compress them until they are nice and tight. Repeat this process with the rest of the sausage.
- Poach your links to set the sausage. Get a large pot of water to about 160°F, which is steaming. Gently poach your sausage in this for 20 to 30 minutes. Don't let the water get too hot. Take the sausages out and plunge them into a big bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.
- Hang your links for an hour or so to dry. Once you’ve taken the links down, they can be refrigerated for up to a week, or frozen for up to a year.
Is there something I can use to replace the dry milk powder? (cream is ok – but my daughter can’t have milk)
Carolann: Skip it. You will be fine.
Thank you for this recipe! Can’t wait to try it!
How do you think they would be with a yearling whitetail? Similar to veal?
Luke: Definitely worth a try. Yearling venison is about as light in color as a turkey thigh.
I’ve made these twice now, per the recipe, using a mix of pork and veal. They are perfect. I like them both simmered with sauerkraut or grilled. And the step by step instructions here, really true for every recipe on this site, are the best of anywhere. Thank you!!!
I made with domestic rabbit (the other white meat bird at our house) and pork fat recently. What a treat! They turned out wonderfully!
Hank,
I just made this recipe but with pork shoulder and it was great. Been eating Wisconsin brats for years and finally took the plunge to make some from scratch. Thanks for the recipe!
Do you have dimensions to describe your grind size comments of coarse or fine? mm or inches
Peck: Yes, sorry. I typically do 6.5 mm for “coarse” and 4 mm for “fine.”
I love the sound of these, using turkey would be perfect, but what could you suggest in place of the pork fat since my pals eat kosher?
Carolyn: Beef fat.
Do you ever just freeze them fresh or do you always poach them? What’s the difference in outcome? THanks
JL: If you freeze them fresh they get mushy for some reason. Not sure why.
Is using breast meat over thighs and legs going to require a different technique or cooking time at the end?
Instead of poaching them in water for 20 or 30 minutes, could I use beer and onions? Is it going to change anything?
Dave: Nope, and yep. No, using any meat will work just fine. And you absolutely can poach them in beer and onions — a very Wisconsin thing!
My brats always turn out dry, and when I followed your recipie yesterday I added some really fatty pork shoulder to the feral hog meat I was using. They still turned out dry. I just read through the posts, which I probably should have done earlier. Apparently I am poaching them too long or at too high a temperature, right? I tried to keep it around 20 minuites but the temperature ranged from 140-180 while I was not watching it close.
By the way, Jesse Ellis, we have a kind of bratwash in Texas, too. But it’s only used to numb the pain of a Cowboys game and the quantities are necessarily higher.
Hank
Absolutely loving your site! I raise rabbits and will try this recipe using rabbit meat this next week. Also, would you be interested in a rabbit sausage recipe I have been using for years that people really like both fresh and smoked?
Hank, I didn’t realize you were a UW alum. I did some postdoc work there, and I’m from MN, so I understand the primacy of the brat. I thought you might appreciate this recipe for a bratwash, to go with your brats.
“Bratwash
Our friend Kevin sent sent us this classic Wisconsin recipe – his favorite accompaniment to grilled bratwurst, especially while tailgating at a Badgers, Packers, or Brewers game. Kevin says that sometimes he simply enjoys the wash, and forgets about the brats. For more than 4 healthy Wisconsinites, Kevin recommends multiplying the recipe by the appropriate factor.*
1 Cooler
3 Bags Ice (cubes)
1 Case Beer
Remove cans from recyclable cardboard holder. Place cans in cooler, intermingling with ice cubes. Chill 45 minutes and serve.
There’s much more that goes into serving Kevin’s bratwash than simply intermingling just any beer and ice into just any cooler. Pick up essential points and tips on proper technique at Kevin’s beer page.
(at http://www dot bratwurstpages dot com/brats.html) I’m not affiliated with them, but they do have some good brat-cooking tips.
I have a freezer full of pheasant staring at me my husband just got me a sausage maker/meat grinder for my kitchen aid. All I can say is thank you for this wonderful article/recipe I am very excited to try it.
Hank
There is a conversation going on about this recipe on a forum I belong to. The concern is the internal temp you have @ 160F internal temp. The concern is USDA/FDA guidelines says 165 internal temp for ground poultry.
http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html
Just wondering what your take was on this?
Bushrat: The USDA is consistently full of shit when it comes to “safe” internal temperatures. I never follow their guidelines, nor does any chef worth his or her salt. If we did, we’d be overcooking things left and right, especially wild game. I mean, duck breast to 165?! Insane. That said, if you felt like taking the sausage to 165 degrees, it’ll still be OK, but it will lose a noticeable amount of moisture.
Could you use pheasant in the brat recipe? I am trying to find recipes for summer sausage or jerky or brats I can make with some pheasant…do you know of any or where one could find some?
Sure, you could use pheasant. Where can you get pheasant? I am assuming you are not a hunter. You can buy MacFarlane Pheasants in the freezer section of good grocery stores.
Chris: Yep. That’s what I used.
Hank:
Can you make this with the thigh and leg meat? I am using the breast and making your smoked turkey breast recipe.
Thanks!
Matt: That’ll work!
Steve: I poach the brats to set the egg white and cream.
Chris: I miss Sheboygan rolls!!!
If it’s gonna be a Sheboygan brat, ya gotta serve it on a Sheboygan hard-roll! Sheboygan’s my backyard, Hank. Thanks for giving us cheeseheads props! (I’m a transplant but WI is home now)
I grew up poaching brats in beer and onions too. Served on a rye bun, brat, onions and mustard along with lots of cold beer. These weren’t white brats, we lived “up north” in Eau Claire and bought ours from a local butcher who had his own recipe. Doubt there was any veal in these. The most interesting game brats I’ve had were made with bear meat and pork.
The vacuum seal idea sounds great. I now know what I’ll be grilling Saturday night.
Hank,
Is there a reason you poach the brats? I don’t see that in your other fresh sausage recipes and am curious as to the reason. I assume it’s due to the heavy cream…
On a side note, I made your Hmong Sausage recipe a few weeks back for my first sausage project. Turned out fantastic! Thank you for all you’re doing!
The last time I made brats with some of the last wild boar I had, instead of poaching them in water, I took about two pounds of them and sealed them in vacuum bags with some beer and onions (to replicate the time-honored Wisconsin style of cooking them) and poached them in the water bath at 160. Worked like a charm, and I had self-contained beer brats I could bring tailgating.