Weber Kettle Club Forums

Hi to all!

When I generally cook pork sausages on my Weber MasterTouch, I generally cook these using indirect heat (lid closed, vents slightly open), with a heat probe attached to one of them, using the 'Pork' setting on my Wireless iTronics thermometer, until it hits the required temperature.

They come out properly cooked however I find that they don't tend to colour much (they almost look raw but they're not!) so I then have to sear them over direct heat.

The problem is though that more often than not, as soon as you start to sear them over direct heat, the skin of the sausage will ever so slightly split, which causes the fat from the sausage to shoot all over the coals and produce a massive flare up (my  father in law always jokes, sausages should be renamed 'napalm' purely for this reason!!)....!!!!  All I can then do is close the lid for few seconds to kill the flare up, but its a pain having to keep opening the lid again, move the sausages about (which causes another flare up), close the lid to kill it, and repeat several times in order to get colour on them....!!

What's the done thing here with these pesky sausages....?!!!!!

???

I understand what you're saying and although I'm no expert, just try it with fewer coals. It'll take a lot longer for the skin to split, and may nicely brown first like you want.

So try the first part the same, indirect with some heat, and when it comes time to brown, scatter the charcoal to reduce its impact (and napalm.)

....scattering the charcoal may prove to be difficult, as (I guess I should have stated this above) my charcoal, is inside 2 charcoal baskets....

I generally cook my chicken first, and once thats done, remove it and throw on the sausages afterwards to cook on indirect heat, so its getting the colour on the sausages at the end (with no flare ups) which I am having difficulty with...

So pickup and remove the grate to somewhere safe, dump one of the baskets onto the charcoal grate, reinstall cook grate. Proper gloves and a second grill work great for flexible moves like that.

Couple of ideas.  While we talk about 2 zone cooking, direct and indirect.  It's not such a clear cut binary.  The direct part is straight forward, right over the coals.  But I. Direct could be all the way on the other side of the grill from the coals, to right up next to, but not over the coals.

Move your sausages so that they are close to, but not over the charcoal baskets an d they should still get color.

Another idea is to fill the baskets to different levels or perhaps even add another basket so that one basket only has a few coals, enough to provide color.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Don't slap me down for this.

Best way to insure doneness AND a crisp
browned sausage is to par cook them by
simmering in water until 1/2 or more cooked thru.

Blot dry and grill to color.
They won't take so long since they are mostly cooked thru
and you can get them browned without drying them out.

Try it once and you'll be convinced.

If they are bratwurst go to the brat hot tub.

Beer or broth with loads of onions and some butter
simmering in a half steam tray on one side and brats on the other.

As soon as they are browned toss em in the pool.
Let em sit and soak for 20 minutes or so and serve.

Best thing is that they will stay hot and juicy for an hour or more.
Great way to cook for a mob.

Not opposed anything you said but will unfortunately require somewhat of a translation.

I like to give a quick sear to the cold sausages first and then set them to the indirect side to finish...
I have never used a thermo on sausages because in my opinion that is about the same as splitting the skin...
I usually give em 20 minutes from start to finish...Usually done perfectly and never split...
Try it...It works for me...

So what about letting them come up towards room temp first? They'll have 3 days' worth of salt on them, right? And the other half is fat, so they're probably good on the counter for hours.

I look for "first split" on the grill so that dinner table gotchas are minimized.

Quote from: addicted-to-smoke on May 11, 2018, 02:05:48 PM
Not opposed anything you said but will unfortunately require somewhat of a translation.

What part would you like clarified?

Here's the hot tub part, straight from Johnsonville.

http://www.johnsonville.com/recipe/brat-hot-tub.html

Par cooking sausages is a time honored technique.
Kinda like par cooking taters before grilling.

-Rob

I cook sausages direct but at low-medium heat, turning every so often. For a 22.5" kettle this means a loose-ish charcoal layer roughly 2 briqs thick, lower vent maybe 51-62% open. You want the sausages to brown, not char.

Alternatively, if you want to cook them more hands off, you can sear first, then let them come to temp indirect. I do this when I am cooking a huge feast so I can do more value added stuff.

My best cooks have been around the Vortex, top  vent wide open, lower vent(s) barely open. Just sayin'...

All great suggestions. Cooking sausages is ever evolving for me, but generally I prefer to cook them direct over coals spread out with the lid on and rotating and turning a few times in 20 minutes or so. Sure the skin splits, but they have great color and flavor and are still plenty juicy.

I'll use different methods from time to time though.

The indirect method has always yielded tough outer casing for me.

As ats says. Dump the coals and cook traditionally. This method seems to be completely lost knowledge these days lol

Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club mobile app (https://siteowners.tapatalk.com/byo/displayAndDownloadByoApp?rid=91018)

...thanks for all the advice guys - really appreciated.  :)

Will try out some of these methods on my next cook.

I do the Johnsonville Theory.  Beer boil em in coarsely chopped onion with a hand full of pepper corns.  as soon as the onion is clear or translucent, I pull them out, place them on a paper towel and blot them dry.  While on teh boil, I fire up the kettle with 1 basket.  I rotate them over the direct and indirect sides. 

They crisp up nicely and when the seep clear they are fully cooked.  I strain out the onions and bun up the links and put the onions on top... on a toasted Brat bun... man... make my mouth water just thinking about it...

Thats my $.02 worth...

TIA!!

Works for me.

I take the Johnsonville Theory to a new level.

I caramelize a bunch of onions in plenty of butter (I used 1/2 butter, 1/2 olive oil) until they are brown and lovely, then add in beer and par boil my brats. Then sear and serve on a roll with the aforementioned onions.

Later you pack up your leftovers (note:make sure to make enough for leftovers) placing that onion bath in a nice tall narrow container- like a delicious salad container or one of those ziplock twist containers.

Then in the morning you open the fridge and look inside and see this little hardened puck of fat atop your onions.

And that my friends is gold. Brat and onion flavored butter and that shit makes for some mighty fine omelette a or scrambled eggs. And if you were smart enough to set aside a half to a full brat, dice that sucker and add it to your eggs along with a nice spoon of those onions from yesterday and then just ascend directly to heaven.

That caramelize onion butter is delicious. I've been known to use extra butter when caramelize gets onions just so I can drain a bit off and chill it so I can use it another time to finish off a steak or some chicken.

If I ever learn Ive contracted something deadly and I'm dying, I'm putting that shit on everything. I'll probably put it on a stick and eat it like a popsicle.


Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club mobile app (https://siteowners.tapatalk.com/byo/displayAndDownloadByoApp?rid=91018)

You had me at "caramelized onion butter."

And I like the tip about reusing the stuff for the morning eggs; I don't always have bacon fat available.

Fuck it! I'm in. @CarrieAnn  wins!!!

Quote from: Darko on May 17, 2018, 08:28:19 PM
Fuck it! I'm in. @CarrieAnn  wins!!!

Sweet mother of Jesus!

Sent from my LG-LS997 using Weber Kettle Club mobile app (http://r.tapatalk.com/byo?rid=91018)

Sounds so delicious!


Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club mobile app (https://siteowners.tapatalk.com/byo/displayAndDownloadByoApp?rid=91018)

I'll admit to being super lazy at the drop of a hat. So if you have a slow cooker that cooks at a low enough temp, caramelized onions (and by default, Caramelized onion butter) can't get any easier than this. Toss in your cooker a stick or two of butter then fill that crock to the top with sliced onion. They will cook way down - I usually do this after dinner or so. Put it on low, stir a couple times before bed, a let them cook overnight.

If your cooker doesn't run hot, you can slow cook those onions and not have to babysit them on the stove. Being a midwestern kitchen diva I have several slow cookers. Some of them run hot, which is why I raise the issue. The best one I have is a newer cuisine that possesses the elusive "simmer" setting which is lower than low but hotter than warm. If you have your gramma's old slow cooker or were married a while back and got an old one as a wedding gift, you might have a slow cooker with temps set before the food police stepped in and ruined slow cooking. Old slow cooker or those with a simmer setting or variable temp can cook at a lower temp which is what you want.

I'm team caramelized onion. They're delicious and other than breakfast cereal I can't think of many things that aren't improved with the addition of caramelized onion.

And that butter.... damn. It should come with a NC-17 label.


Sent from my iPad using Weber Kettle Club (https://siteowners.tapatalk.com/byo/displayAndDownloadByoApp?rid=91018)