| Please allow me to introduce
myself, I'm a beer of wealth and taste. I've been around a long
long time, and I've laid many a soul to waste... |
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Please to meet you, hope you
guess my name...
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But what's troublin' you is the
nature of my game...
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Rolled a tank, held a General's
rank, when the Blitzkrieg raged, and the Bratwurst stank! They
call me Lucifer, and I'm in need of some restraint!
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Ok, just kidding. Here's
the Iron Hibachi back in action! This is about the right size
pile of coals for grilling Bratwurst. I make a little pile in the
corner and put a few squirts of lighter fluid on them. Then toss
a match. (FOOM!) The coals look like this in about 15
minutes:
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I like to use good quality
charcoal because the flavor of the smoke goes into the food. It
makes a difference. The charcoal I used had mesquite wood chips
in it. So, here is the Bratwurst. Trader Joes makes it with
their own beer. Nice!
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Once the coals are hot, spread
them out evenly so they are 1-to-2 coals thick and touching each
other. You don't want to leave any coals out by themselves.
Put the grill over the coals. Wait about 5 minutes for the grill
to get hot. It is a good idea to brush it with a wire brush to
clean off the carbon soot. Sometimes I like to rub the grill with
some kind of oil, to season it nicely. Then put the Bratz on:
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If the fire is too hot the
Bratwurst will split. That happens to me all the time when I cook
on a propane gas grill and have the flames too high. Bratwurst
needs to take it's own sweet time. Longer cooking time is
better. With the level of heat on my BBQ just right, I turn them
over in 5 minutes.
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You can see how they are
browning nicely and none have split. The package says the
internal temperature needs to get up to 170 deg. F. Bratwurst is
sausage made with pork marinated in beer. They have a lot of fat
in them, and the fat gets really hot and helps to cook them from the
inside. I took the Bratz off after 11 minutes.
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The coals were still blazing hot
and it felt like a shame to waste them. New coals will go for
about an hour. At this point I decided to go in the kitchen and
get a package of chicken drumsticks. This would be good for lunch
tomorrow. So I washed them under cold tap water, dried them and
put them on the grill.
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These cooked for about 45
minutes. They were turned every 15 minutes. I left them on
as the fire died down, and they roasted nice and slowly. They
were seasoned with Penzey's Chicago Steak Seasoning. That has
salt, ground pepper, sugar, garlic, onion, lemon peel, citric acid and
natural hickory smoke flavor. Sure, it's meant for steak but it
is great on chicken too.
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Tonight's beer of choice was
Dead Guy Ale from Rogue Brewing in Oregon. Good stuff. It
has a full flavor, while it is balanced and not too hoppy.
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