Bill says:

Maybe these aren't the "authentic" buns for brats, but never having tried the real thing, I have no idea. They worked for me

They look 'right' to me--something about their texture is quite clear in the picture, plus the shade and texture of the browning is indicative of appropriateness-to-task. Looks right.

I found out the Mexican name for their baked bun that looks and acts like a Sheboygan semmel, but I then promply forgot it. Has a brown top on it hard(and thin) as a veener. Like Rockwell C =10, while the inside is 0. I'll go back to the bakery and find out again. The bun is flatish (maybe only 3/4ths inch high) and about as big as your hand.

I figure you'd be able to find them there in SFNM.

Geo

Bolillo?

Close (indeed, they were in the next bin), but not quite: the top has a wave/curl in it, as if it had been laid upon by a rod before baking.

I'd recognize the name if I saw it.

sorry to be so stupid about this...

Geo

Sounds more like a telera, the standard roll used for tortas.

Bill/SFNM

Yup, that's the name, here's a pic:

http://panaderiamexico.tripod.com/siteb ... 00h225.jpg

But the ones here are a bit browner, and shinier than those in the pic.

Geo

Teleras have no shine or glaze and are a light brown color. The rolls I made were very similar in texture to a telera, maybe a bit softer, but not as wide.

Bill/SFNM

Huh. That's funny bcz I just ate one this morning and I sure remember it having a shine. Almost like an egg-glaze, but not so shiny. Is the top surface on a telera hard, I mean, can you get a "tick-tick" out of it with a fingernail?

The two signs said (if memory serves) "bolillos" on one side of the bin and "teleras" on the other [yeah, the "-s" suffix was there, too]

If I had one left, AND had my USB cable, I'd take a pic and post it. Which is what I'll exactly as soon as both conditions are satisfied. : )

I wonder if what we're seeing here is regional variation?

Geo

Geo,

Mexican bread in Santa Fe sucks - one of the reasons for baking my own. Teleras and bolillos here are shaped right, but have none of the crust and crumb and flavor of the real thing. I have visitors from Mexico City coming on Sunday. I'll ask them to bring me real teleras and bolillos (along with my favorite cheeses ) and I'll take photos and post them here.

OTOH, if you like what you get in KC, who cares what they make or call it in some other place?

Bill/SFNM

Bill:

OTOH, if you like what you get in KC, who cares what they make or call it in some other place?

Point, set, match to you. : )

My teleras are exquisitely matched to brats, so that's their now-official function in Life.

BTW, as I'm sure you know, the Santa Fe trail begins (? or ends, depending on your direction) in Kansas City. So we've had a New Mexican Latino community here simply forever. The food, of course, has pretty well melded into what's local, and the folks are simply folks in the community like everyone else. But there ARE some customs, like Sunday morning family breakfasts in certain places on the West Side for instance, that retain their distinct character.

But our (New) Mexican food is pretty uninteresting. Luckily, we've got Salvadoreans, Nicaraguans, and all sorts of others in coming, which makes things exciting again.

Geo

Scroll down on this page for a photo of a brat bun and a semmel roll side by side.

Bill/SFNM wrote:Served on grilled bun with caramelized onions and spicy mustard. They were just great - I can't imagine how fresh could be any better, but I'm looking forward to trying some from Miesfelds.

Bill,

Looks terrific, but then again I don't see how anything served on your homemade buns could be anything but.

I'm going to be in Milwaukee for a few days, I'll try to swing up to Miesfelds in Sheboygan, it's about 50-miles from where I'll be, and pick up a few pounds of brats. If I do I will post with pictures.

Enjoy,
Gary

OK.....drumroll, please....

I did the Great Brat Experiment. Disclaimer- I am biased towards grilled raw brats, unpierced, stirred, not shaken.

I divided 6 Vollwerth's brats into 3 groups. Group A was grilled unpierced on med-high for about 12 minutes until med to dark brown on the surfaces exposed to the fire.

Group B was pierced, simmered for 30 minutes in 12 oz of MGD with 1/2 of a sliced yellow onion and then grilled until brown for about 5 minutes. The precooked weight of the two were 172 gm. After the simmer, I strained out the onions and put the liquid in the fridge to congeal the fat. The fat weighed 4.5 grams and the brats weighed 152 gm before grilling.

Group C was grilled the same as Group A but then put in a beer/onion bath at 180F for 30 minutes.

The results were divided between 4 tasters who were allowed to use buns and the same condiments for all groups.

Group A had a very good texture to the interior, a satisfying 'snap' to the casing, and sweet carmelization. Rated 4 buns up.
Group B had a noticeably denser, drier interior texture. The casing had a 'snap' but wasn't nearly as sweet as the first group. No one could detect any flavors of beer or onions. 2.5 buns up.
Group C was very similar to B except that the texture was a little better but the casing 'snap' and sweetness was absent. Two people said they could taste the beer and onions faintly. 2.5 buns up.

The interesting thing is that there was hardly any fat lost in precooking so it is not a way to reduce fat in you diet. Brats are 1/3 fat and if you want to reduce fat, don't eat brats.
Most of the weight lost in precooking is water resulting in a drier texture. There was no absorbtion of the stewing liquid, hence lack of additional flavor. Just because meat is close to liquid doesn't mean it will be moister. Remember Mom's pot roast?

Most cheesehead sites recommended light beer. I don't get why people buy beer without beer in it. It only encourages them to make more. Heavier beer would seem to be the obvious upgrade but there is a problem with cooking with beer in general. It is the hops. Hops add three things- aroma, flavor and bitterness. As you cook hops, the flavor components convert to bittering compounds making it a really difficult ingredient.

On piercing...Johnsonville runs a commercial showing a brat noob getting ready to poke with a fork. He is intercepted by an older, wiser gentleman who trades his fork for a pair of tongs.

So, you have the results of my unscientific, highly subjective, non-double blinded study. I know that brats are like politics and religion in that you are indoctrinated early on and spend the rest of your life trying to justify your beliefs. There is a time to mix brats and beer.... in your stomach.

Pass the kraut and mustard,

Kit

Kit,

Great post.

kit wrote:Most cheesehead sites recommended light beer. I don't get why people buy beer without beer in it. It only encourages them to make more.

Amen. I just don't understand how bad beer keeps getting more popular... bad brewing, clever marketing, big profits... God help us...

Pass the kraut and mustard...

Antonius

Kit,

Wow, you beat me to it. Interesting results (although you admit you are pre-disposed towards the slow-cook method) I am surprised there was not much flow of flavors in either direction, also the fact that two brats actually lost 15.5 grams of water from simmering. I wonder if adding salt to the beer would change that. I do know that when I used strongly hopped beers, the sausages took on a definite bitter flavor.

I was planning my experiment for this coming Sunday. However, over last weekend, I did go to a family gathering "up-north" with my Cheeseheaded inlaws. Massive quantities of tubular encased ground meat products were served and consumed. The brats were prepared G Wiv party style. They were brought pre-simmered and swimming in a 5 gallon pot of beer and onions. They were cooked fast on a hot grill. Those that weren't served right away, were kept warm in a beer and butter "batter".

I did take an informal brat survey among the Wisconsinites present. Although most agreed that simmering in beer was the approved party method (but only for cheap brats), there were hugely divergent opinions on how brats should "really" be cooked. The grillmaster told me the purpose of piercing and simmering was meant mostly to keep the brats from bursting on the hot grill, which supports your findings that it does not impart much of a beer flavor.

Most everybody agreed that pre-simmering works best with cheaper quality brats. Or rather, they would never treat a quality brat that way. In fact, a couple of the uncles brought home-made venison brats (which had copious amounts of pork fat added). These were indeed slow cooked without any simmering or piercing, turned with tongs and were eaten with appropriate appreciation and reverence.

I don't know where I came up with the whole reducing fat thing (I must have been channeling my diet fixated mother). I guess even 2-3 grams per sausage is something. I'll bet boiling, as opposed to simmering, increases the fat loss (as well as flavor loss). The brats at this gathering were served with hot buttered sauerkraut (gotta love wisconsin), so obviously fat is not a concern north of the Cheddar Curtain. That is, unless there is a lack thereof.

I was thinking for my version of the experiment, rather than duplicate your efforts, I would use different grades of sausage. Maybe two coarse, and one fine ground, and see if the simmering improved the cheaper sausage, as some of my inlaws suggested. I am also curious about whether salting the beer might change the whole osmosis thing.

Anyhow, good report.

Oh, and I don't get the whole light beer thing either. Miller Lite was definitely the beer of choice at the outing I attended. Bleh. Luckily, I brought a bottle of hop oil with me. 2-3 drops can make even a Lite almost palatable.

edited to fix my atroshus spelling

"north of the Cheddar Curtain" What a great phase! (Said with love by a guy whose wife is from Milwaukee and one of whose kids is about to become a Badger).

Jonah wrote:"north of the Cheddar Curtain" What a great phase! (Said with love by a guy whose wife is from Milwaukee and one of whose kids is about to become a Badger).

I have to give credit to my nephew, who lives in Antioch, but works across the border in Wisconsin, for introducing me to that expression. Where he is from, which side of the curtain you live on determines whether you are a Bears or a Packers fan.

kit, great post, and I'm glad to have my own bias validated!

Kit,

Thanks! I really appreciate your detailed information including the fat loss. Contemporaneous side-by-side comparisons are really beneficial to pointing out the merits and demerits of various processes.

Thanks for taking one on for the team!

Regards,

kit wrote:Most cheesehead sites recommended light beer. I don't get why people buy beer without beer in it. It only encourages them to make more.

I love you Kit!

You know how you can tell it's a light beer? Hold it up to a window. If you can see light through it, it's a light beer.

leek wrote:I love you Kit!

Kit,

I wouldn't go quite as far as LeeK, but you are a complete madman, in the very best sense.

Inspired by the results of your Great Brat Experiment I grilled, no beer bath before or after, a few Usinger's fresh brats I picked up at Woodman's in Kenosha Wisconsin.



Slowly grilled w/lump these were some mighty tasty brats. Of course, since I was at Woodman's, home of all things Wisconsin, I picked up a few traditional accompaniments. Merkt's Cheese, hot pickled eggs and Fritos. The beer was not MGD lite, even an ex Wisconsinite can only go so far.



I caramelized an onion, gluged a shot of Koop's Horseradish mustard, incorporated, and served the brats on Woodman's White Brat Buns, a plain jane rendition of a brat bun in my opinion.


Enjoy,
Gary

Kit, Gary,

STOP! You're killin' me! The *only* real brats I can get in KC are J'villes, and Once A Guy Has Lived In Wisconsin, J'ville brats are bottom in preference. I mean, Usinger's, yesssss; Miesfeld's, oh boy! even Schroedel's of Ft. Atkinson's rather odd but excellent brats...

Sigh.

I guess I'll just have to await colder weather and order 5lbs from Miesfeld's, keep 'em in the freezer.

Kit, I think your results will stand; Gary, I think your pix are sooo pornograpic that they need banned from the net. Really.

Geo

one of the green city market vendors has lamb bratwurst. i pan fried them and served them on a crusty bun. i wasnt sure what to serve with them-dill and yoghurt seemed obvious, but instead i mixed some brown mustard with hot red pepper jelly and some raw onion and it was very tasty.but i think next time i'll go with carmelized onion, instead of raw. justjoan

Just to add another data point, and for the benefit of folks like Geo who are only able conveniently to obtain Johnsonville bratwurst, last night I did my own version of the simmered + grilled vs. just grilled brat cooking methods, using the standard Johnsonville product.

Verdict: Grilling without pre-simmering was clearly superior.

Ach! Here for all these years, I thought I was doing something noble and worthwhile by taking the time to pre-simmer the sausages, when all I actually was doing was drying them out and unnecessarily dirtying a frying pan. One of the reasons I engaged in this fussiness, by the way, was to make sure the things cooked through -- but grilling at a lower temperature with the lid down, for a longer period of time, gets the desired result, without sucking the mojo out of them. As startlingly improved the Johnsonville brat tasted when properly prepared, I can only imagine the results would be even more marked using a better product such as G "Guccione" Wiv has pictured, above.

JiLS--

I'm *really* glad to hear that! To be honest, I haven't bought a J'ville brat since I first crossed the Cheddar Curtain into Wisconsin 4 yrs ago. Nothing but locals, Miesfeld's or Usinger's since then. So I'll have to get some J'ville's and try the slow grill method.

Another memory came lurching to the fore: in our Sentry in Whitewater we as often as not had bins full of Cher-Make's big three: Polish, natural casing weiners and the white (part veal?) cooked stadium brat. While all were quite respectable, the white brat was actually awfully good. Very mild, but you could taste just enough nutmeg. I brought supplies back to KC more than once. So if you run into it--maybe Woodman's has it? I can't remember--give it a whirly.

Geo

http://www.cher-make.com/privatelabel.html

Geo wrote:JiLS--

I'm *really* glad to hear that! To be honest, I haven't bought a J'ville brat since I first crossed the Cheddar Curtain into Wisconsin 4 yrs ago. Nothing but locals, Miesfeld's or Usinger's since then. So I'll have to get some J'ville's and try the slow grill method.

Another memory came lurching to the fore: in our Sentry in Whitewater we as often as not had bins full of Cher-Make's big three: Polish, natural casing weiners and the white (part veal?) cooked stadium brat. While all were quite respectable, the white brat was actually awfully good. Very mild, but you could taste just enough nutmeg. I brought supplies back to KC more than once. So if you run into it--maybe Woodman's has it? I can't remember--give it a whirly.

Geo

http://www.cher-make.com/privatelabel.html

Well, do keep in mind that this is a relative improvement -- the grilled-only Johnsonville brat is better than the simmered-then-grilled, but both are still Johnsonville brats.

Funny also you should mention Cher-Makes. Never tried them, never even heard of them before today, but the Cub Foods on Elston was stuffed to bursting with Cher-Makes products when I visited there today! I almost bought some natural casing hot dogs, but decided I have enough encased meats around the house already. Should I have gone ahead? I think they had brats and some other Cher-Makes products in 2-lbs. bags.

JiLS--
Gotcha: the grilled J'ville excellence is to be compared to ... well... simmered J'ville excellence.

I've had the energy to msg Usinger's to see if they have retail anywhere in the KC metro.

That 2-lb pkg is the standard supermarket entity for Cher-Make. Should come out c. $3 a lb. Maybe a bit more. The natural casing weiner is certainly superior to anything typical in the hot dog section. It does pop! when you bite in, and the spicing is mild but correct. When I bought hot dogs, that's what I bought.

I don't think you'd be displeased (? man, am I being daring or what? hope this works...) by any of their line. They're not the best sausages in the Wisconsin universe, but they're awfully good supermarket fare.

Let us know what you think if you try.

Geo
PS. Pass It On Dept.: a friend was going to Boston this weekend. I told him to go see the clam vendor you sent me to in the North End. :^) "Each one teach one" or whatever that mantra is.

Bill/SFNM wrote:I have visitors from Mexico City coming on Sunday. I'll ask them to bring me real teleras and bolillos (along with my favorite cheeses ) and I'll take photos and post them here.

FWIW, here is a photo of some slightly travel-weary fruta del horno of my favorite bakery in Mexico City:



The rolls on the left are bolillos, from miniature to large, and the rolls on the right are teleras.

Bill//SFNM[/i]

My method of doing beer brats is different than the simmer-first method described above. First I cook the brats over low, indirect heat (or smoke them). When done, I put them into a "bath" made of beer, butter, and grilled onions and peppers. This is similar to what others have described above, I believe.

To do this, bring the bath to a simmer while the brats are cooking on the grill. When the brats are done, dump them into the beer bath and simmer (do not boil) for at least 15 minutes, but longer is better. In fact, the brats can sit in the bath for hours, which makes this a very nice method for serving a lot of people because it gives you a good way to store the brats after cooking them. You just need enough beer bath to cover the brats. I Note also that you can take the peppers and onions from the beer bath and add them to your sandwhich.

I find this method is preferable to simmering-then-grilling for three reasons: first, my method gives more beer flavor since the beer is introduced at the end of the process. Second, in my method you are not adding raw meat to the bath, so you can therefore eat the peppers and onions that are also in the bath. Finally, my method gives you a great way to keep the brats warm after cooking.

Finally, I like to eat brats split lengthwise on a round kaiser roll, with grilled onions and peppers, and spicy mustard.

My method of doing beer brats is different than the simmer-first method described above. First I cook the brats over low, indirect heat (or smoke them). When done, I put them into a "bath" made of beer, butter, and grilled onions and peppers. This is similar to what others have described above, I believe.

Doesn't the butter sit on the surface of the liquid?

which makes this a very nice method for serving a lot of people because it gives you a good way to store the brats after cooking them.

That is really the only reason I would keep introduce them in a bath. I live in brat country and have eaten that method countless times. It does not make inedible brats but is a compromise since the yummy brown glycoproteins on the surface will be lost. Holding the meat above 160 will continue the cooking process which means moisture loss.

Second, in my method you are not adding raw meat to the bath, so you can therefore eat the peppers and onions that are also in the bath.

Since you are adding the meat to a liquid above 140 in a precook, you don't have to worry about that. Think soup.

I don't think your method is bad, I just prefer not giving up the juiciness and texture of the inside as well as the grilled flavors that defines my bias.

Grill on!

Kit

darren wrote:My method of doing beer brats is different than the simmer-first method described above. First I cook the brats over low, indirect heat (or smoke them). When done, I put them into a "bath" made of beer, butter, and grilled onions and peppers. This is similar to what others have described above, I believe.

kit wrote:Doesn't the butter sit on the surface of the liquid?

No, you mix it and it's fine. Think sauce.

darren wrote:...which makes this a very nice method for serving a lot of people because it gives you a good way to store the brats after cooking them.

kit wrote:That is really the only reason I would keep introduce them in a bath. I live in brat country and have eaten that method countless times. It does not make inedible brats but is a compromise since the yummy brown glycoproteins on the surface will be lost. Holding the meat above 160 will continue the cooking process which means moisture loss.

You don't have to keep it above 160. Keep the bath at a lower temp and you won't dry them out.

darren wrote:Second, in my method you are not adding raw meat to the bath, so you can therefore eat the peppers and onions that are also in the bath.

kit wrote:Since you are adding the meat to a liquid above 140 in a precook, you don't have to worry about that. Think soup.

Well this gets dicey because you DO have to worry about it if you don't precook long enough. In any case, I love the plan grilled brats too. But when I want to serve 15 to 40 people, or when I want to do beer brats, this is my method. Yes, I've lived in "brat country" also.