Holding Brats

It takes to long to cook brats for the lunchtime rush. What is the best way to hold them? I have a small bun warmer that I keep my hotdogs in but the casing on a brat dries out and gets to black after a while. I keep my burgers in stock water on the flattop grill and toss them back on the grill before serving. Can something similar be done for Brats?

have you thought about smoking them, and then pulling out a couple at a time to char up a bit on the griddle ?
 
or a small counter top warming oven, say around 160*, then pull them as you need them for the griddle....you have to have that high direct heat i think on brats to bring out the best flavor
 
you have a very friendly window of time when you low and slow stuff

  I cook mine off on the Flattop then hold them in a mixture of beef stock/onions and beer.  Beer Brats.

the hamburgers produce enough stock to actually make them taste better. I geuss the brats dont produce enough on their own?
 

i have a question about the burgers in the stock....
my buddy has a small grill next to the boat ramps, and he cooks his burgers off to about med rare, then holds them in stock until an order, then he finishes them off back on the griddle while preparing the order.....
they taste good and all, but i find them rubbery and chewy at best in texture most of the time, what is he doing wrong ?
 
he says he is using a strait 80/20 blend with no seasonings, but he does heavily season the stock
 
 

I think what he's doing wrong is trying to hold them at all...I tried it and the quality just was'nt there so now we just cook up fresh it takes alittle longer but i feel the quality is better and we have people tell us every day about our "famous hamburgers" This is just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions......................

lol well, i think your right, i had never seen that until he showed me what he was doing......just didnt seem right to me

I have been cooking up a bunch of burgers in the morning and keeping them through lunch. I cook them done and season them before their bath then put them back on the grill to dry a bit. Everybody raves about them, I save money on labor by dressing them myself instead of cook and prep. Trying to do the same with Brats. They take a while to cook with lunch only 30 mins for some people.

We use smoked (cooked) brats and hold them in water like hot dogs.

Steamed cheeseburgers work with a Burg'r Tend'r...
 
http://steamcheeseburgerchest.com/
 
You can see it in action at 5 minutes in this clip...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbP1FLyOutg

Farmboy does it the same way I do-cook on flat top, hold in beer, water and onions-dont need the beef broth for good old Wisconsin brats!!

At our auction house snack bar we grill the brats and place them in a crock pot / food warmer with enough liquid to cover them. We usually add a little worchestershire sauce for flavor. The secret it to just keep them warm and not over cook them. We have also used pre-cooked brats and heated them in the hot dog steamer.

This is what I've done, I got a pizza countertop warmer and line the inside with stainless steel and what the pizza wamer has is a humidifier in it and will hold at temp and able to keep without it drying out.

How long is the longest anyone has held sausage in water?  I have been cooking Italian Sausage and I noticed by the end of the day they were sinking and falling apart.  Yesterday I timed it and by the 4th hour they had sunk and were falling apart.

I never ever put my Italian sausage in water...i have held them after they come off the flat top for a short period of time in a onion, boullion mixture, but never that long maybe.....30 min. was tops, but 4 hrs.??? thats way to long but I guess if they were falling apart you found that out. by the way i only use rope sausage i cut it to the desired lenght(about 8") reseal in zip lock bags and freeze about 6 per bag. but cooking them to order is the tricky part and not having the customer wait for a 1/2 hr. and i never hold them unless i'm doing an event.

Thanks Buck and Vi's.  I wanted to get the pre-cooked sausage, at least I could have cooked them to order then, but my husband talked me into the fresh, should have known better.  Now I have about 60 more to go through before I will be ordering again.  Learned an expensive lesson.  This is the only way right now to have some ready since I don't have many customers to have some ready.

Missy... do you have a grill, or just the water bath? When I started, I also was holding sausage on my steam table, and I wasted a LOT of sausage. Sales of sausage (both then, and now) are very unpredictable, and there were days I would sell out by noon, and other days I'd throw them all away at closing.

What I ended up doing was switching to an Italian sausage patty. I grill them to order, they don't take any longer than drilling a burger, and the customer knows they are fresh and delicious when they get them (not dried out and rubber from sitting in steam all day). I still don't sell a ton of them, but because I hold them frozen I can't remember the last time I had to throw one away!

Thanks Stubby.  Are those pre-cooked and you throw them on frozen?

They are raw and I throw them on frozen. You could probably get pre-cooked ones if you needed. The ones I use are 4 ounces, and they are an oval patty (more surface area means they are thinner than a round patty would be and therefore cook faster). Mine are made by a local meat distributor, but I'm sure you can find someone in your area making a similar product.

I actually have a meat place that makes my sausages for me.  They are raw and I tried to slice it open the other day and grill it without simmering it and it took forever to get cooked.  I have about 60 more before I will change to something else.  I think the pre-cooked links would take a lot less time on the flat-top.  Right now I have just really over estimated my thawed meat.  My sausages were made and packaged in 10s, next time, whatever I get, I will have them packaged in 5s.  Thanks Stubby.

If your sausage is in natural casing, you can try squeezing the meat out of the casing and forming it into patties yourself. If you can get the patties about 1/4 inch thick it should take less than 5 minutes to grill. If you have a restaurant supply store nearby you should be able to get patty papers really cheap, and patty presses aren't very expensive either.

Since I'm on a cart and can't have raw meat, I was thinking of cooking raw Brats and Ital.Sausage at the commisary and freezing. Have them partially thawed by the time by the time I set up then throw them in water to bring up to temp, then finish on grill. Anyone do something like this? Will quality hold up?

Thanks Stubby, might have to try that one.