The big party that the lovely wife and I host each year is Oktoberfest. We invite a fair amount of our fellow teachers and their families to this event each year. This year, we had 55 people come...
The menu:
Brats, Beer, Moinks, ABTs, pretzels from a German bakery here in Vegas, veggies, chips and dip...
I made a cream cheese/brown sugar/chili powder mix for the ABTs, and inspired by
@Idahawk with his apricot ABTs, I decided to stuff mine with chunks of frozen mango.
The grills:
I used the yellow 18 incher for the ABTs, and the Wood Dale Fleetwood for the moinks. I have finally decided on a name for the Fleetwood: "Old Reliable." My goodness, it makes smoking things almost too easy.
And for the first time ever, I used my restored Ranch Kettle!
The Ranch is amazing. I grilled 36 brats at a time...with my beer/butter/onion bath waiting on the cooler side of the grill. Got done with one batch of brats, put them in the bath, then put the next 36 brats on. Finished that batch of brats, put them in the bath to let them simmer in the buttery beer goodness for a half hour, then I grilled 36 hot dogs to finish it off. The Ranch was a showstopper. Most people had never seen one. They asked if it was a Weber...pretty much everyone agreed it is awesome. I can't wait to use it again soon. You may notice that I had to get creative with the grill. I made a new charcoal grate out of expanded metal and some steel rods. Then I bolted another piece of expanded metal on the existing grate, as the center of the original grate is nearly gone. Someday I may get a new grate, but at $300 for a replacement, it may be a while. This worked wonderfully. I absolutely loved using it, and I'm looking forward to finding more excuses to put her into use. If you were curious about the ranch, I've put links below to the rescue and restore:
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/$75-ranch-kettle-)-but/http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/ranch-kettle-restore/And finally, a pic of the Oktoberfest gathering, right before we ate...sorry no completed food pics, I was pretty tipsy, and was having too good of a time to take any. However, I will say this: the mango-stuffed ABTs were the best I ever made. It will be the way I do them going forward.