I trimmed and ground 10 lbs of pork and fat then broke it into three portions for three different recipes. Though this entry focuses on the Brats I also made a cpl lbs of Breakfast Sausage for tomorrow AM’s breakfast and 2.5 lbs of Polish Sausage from the book Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing by Rytek Kutas for a snack on the water tomorrow.
They were very good but it was missing something. SWMBO and I tasted them, look at each other, said the same thing but couldn’t put our finger on it. Maybe Mace, or Allspice. Not sure. Very good but not perfect… Yet.
Those look & sound absolutely delicious! The brats I find at local supermarkets here in Wisconsin tend to have better flavor than the big brands. Although Johnsonville brats are good for a big name brand. Making your own sausage / brats is that way of tweaking it the way you like it. hmmm, just like homebrewing.
Both of my parents were from Sheboygan, so brats have been a part of my family life forever. My father tried for years to get a brat recipe right, and the last I heard, the secret ingredient was sage. Unfortunately, I never got the amount from him. Last batch I made, I put 1 tsp in 8 pounds, but it was still missing something. I hope your recipe will get me closer.
FWIW, I have found that when making sausage following a recipe, especially Rytek Kutas’s recipes, about doubling up on the spice amounts specified in the recipe gets me where I want to go.
