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Recipe

Smoked Bratwurst

bratwursts are ready LFGGGGG! I got 3 trays of these

Everybody boils these in beer and then burns them over a hot grill, and what comes off is grey inside and split down one side.

Smoke them instead. Two hours at 225°F and the casing goes taut, dark and glassy — look at the picture, not one of them has burst — and the inside stays pale and juicy right through. It is less work than the grill and it is not close.

Three trays, because they vanish, and because cold smoked brats are a better lunch than most lunches.

Makes
20 bratwurst
Hands-on
15 minutes
On the smoker
2–2 1/2 hours
Start
Same day

A quarter of an hour of work and two and a half hours of leaving them alone.

A tray of smoked bratwurst with the bar behindHump day bratwursts stacked in a glass dishSmoked bratwursts blackened in a glass dish
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The sausage

  • 20 fresh bratwurst, raw — not pre-cooked, read the packet
  • 1/2 cup yellow mustard, as a binder
  • 2 tbsp coarse cracked black pepper
  • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika

To serve

  • Good coarse deli mustard
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Raw white onion, sliced thin
  • Soft rolls, if anyone insists

How it goes

  1. 1 — Mustard them, lightly

    A thin smear of yellow mustard over each one. It is glue for the pepper and it cooks away to nothing. Then the pepper, garlic and paprika rolled on.

  2. 2 — 225°F and no hotter

    This is the entire recipe. Above about 250°F the fat inside renders faster than the casing can give, the casing splits, and the fat you were trying to keep ends up in the fire.

  3. 3 — Space them out, do not crowd the grate

    Air has to get round each one for the colour to go even. Two trays' worth at once if the smoker is big enough; three in batches if it is not.

  4. 4 — Two hours, turned once

    Turn them at the hour mark and otherwise leave the lid down. They go from pale, to pink, to the deep red-brown in the picture, and the skin tightens as they go.

  5. 5 — Pull at 160°F internal

    Check one in the middle. 160°F and they are done — any further and you are just drying them out.

    pro tip — If you want a blistered edge, give them ninety seconds over direct coals at the very end. Ninety seconds. Not three minutes.

  6. 6 — Five minutes, then into a dish

    Rest them briefly and pile them into a glass dish. They hold their heat for the best part of an hour that way, which is the point when you are cooking for a crowd that arrives whenever it arrives.

Mustard, banana peppers, raw onion. Three trays and I would not plan on leftovers. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.