Homemade Sheboygan Brats

5 from 21 votes
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It was Wisconsin where I first learned to love Sheboygan brats.

Bratwurst as a whole was a new thing to me, child of new Jersey that I am, but when I arrived in Wisconsin in 1992, Sheboygan bratwurst, or white brats, were as common as the Italian sausage I knew and loved was back home.

Hank Shaw holding Sheboygan brats
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

I was living away from the East Coast for the first time, going to college at UW-Madison. There I ate an awful lot of red brats from State Street Brats, white brats from there and other places, and, well, drank an awful lot of beer, too.

Later, 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.

Several Sheboygan brats links made from turkey and pork
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

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.

(If you are looking for another excellent sausage to make with turkey, use my recipe for pheasant sausages and sub it in.)

No matter what meats you use, Sheboygan brats are 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… because it has.

Grill your brats 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.

Looking for more German sausage recipes? I have recipes for braunschweiger, bockwurst, and weisswurst, too.

New to making sausage? You can find my detailed tutorial on how to make sausages at home here

sheboygan bratwurst recipe
5 from 21 votes

Sheboygan Brats

I like making this sausage with wild turkey because it gives me that nice white color -- veal would be traditional, but I don't use veal at home. You can do this with any white meat bird, too, such as pheasant or chukar or partridge. Of course an all-pork white brat is also pretty common. I do everything in grams here because you really do need some precision, especially with salt. If you don't own a kitchen scale, get one. You can alter the seasonings if you want, but this is a pretty fair re-creation of the Sheboygan brats I ate when I lived in Wisconsin, so try it this way first before you tinker.
Course: Cured Meat
Cuisine: German
Servings: 16 links
Author: Hank Shaw
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes

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. (This video shows how I make links.) 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.

Notes

I like serving these brats on a bun with sauerkraut and mustard, but you could roast them and serve with potatoes or put them in a stew. Mostly I like eating these on the grill at parties, though.

Nutrition

Calories: 102kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 27mg | Sodium: 758mg | Potassium: 205mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 144IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 41mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe? Tag me today!Mention @huntgathercook or tag #hankshaw!

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About Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet’s largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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61 Comments

  1. I feel silly asking but do you grind the caraway at all? I recently ate something similar and definitely tasted the caraway but there were no whole seeds and this recipe calls for caraway but doesn’t say seeds.

  2. We made these yesterday. Delicious!

    Since we didn’t quite have the right ingredients, we did substitute fennel for the caraway seeds and whole milk yogurt for the cream. Thanks for the recipe Hank.

  3. Made these for an Octoberfest this weekend and they were really really good! Followed the recipe as written. Another gem!

  4. I’d never made sausage before,
    but wanted to give it a try. My Sheboygan-born wife gave me this recipe. It’s as good as any brat I’ve ever had in WI, and people I’ve given them to echo that kind of opinion. It probably offends the purists, but it’s fantastic regardless.

  5. My first try at making sausage. Made this with Pheasant/pork bellies and used a kitchen aid mixer with grinding and stuffing attachments. They came out great , recipe and technique are right on the money.
    Thanks Hank

  6. Outstanding. Made these with what I had on hand beef stew meat and pork trim, and couldn’t get my hands on Caraway seed. They were a real crowd pleaser. Definitely making again for gameday.

  7. Thanks Hank.Nice story and recipe,i will try. Tu sei il re della salsiccia,and only you could make mazzafegati salati,my favorite. I just made pork loin,no fat sausages with salt,pepper garlic,fennel,juniper berry,cloves,allspices,nutmeg, bay leave,little oil,wine,little sugar. Made thin patties.super good with tortilla ,french fries.

      1. forgot hot flakes,paprika. sorry again,i am 83,forget easily.this sasage makes you feel good. I serve baked strips of potatoes,garlic ,oil, rosemary,salt pepper. 30 minutes at 400 f.

  8. Holy shit had not checked the comments prior to making this recipe,50/50 venison fatty pork shoulder. Wunderbar, my gal and I love these brats. Well done thanks Hank and UncleCasey too.

  9. I’m a sausage eater, not a maker. I might change however. I live in the East Bay hills in Oakland. Every morning, flocks- maybe twenty wild turkeys, wake me up. One pellet gun would fill my freezer. Too ethical to do that, but I may buy the sausage making gear soon.

  10. These are fantastic. A family favorite with some spicy mustard. I make a massive batch whenever turkeys go on sale! Highly recommended.

  11. I love these brats. I’ve made them using Pork shoulder, fat, and venison and I’ve made them in the spring with wild turkey and skin on chicken thighs as well. The flavor of them is perfect, and like all of Hank’s other sausage recipes, perfectly seasoned. I have tossed in some fire roasted poblanos and cheddar and those are delicious as well. Great recipe.