Juicy Chicken Bratwurst - Recipe
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How Do we Make a Juicy Version of a Chicken Bratwurst? A while ago we showed you guys how to make chicken bratwursts. I love chicken brats and any time anyone here wants to make them I always want to be involved but the last few times we have made them we found ourselves wondering if there was a way to make them juicer without adding fat. We had about 4 lb of chicken breast sitting in my freezer so we decided to see if we could figure out a way to use more carrot fiber and water to help give the brat some extra juiciness. It turns out you can add up to 4% of carrot fiber before you can really taste it, so we are adding every bit of 4% making it 2.56 oz. A 4 oz bag of carrot fiber is enough for 25 lb so….that makes me slightly worried but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained right? We are going to use Excalibur's CheeseBurger Cheddarwurst seasoning and our brand new Ghost Pepper Hi temp cheese and let me tell you that stuff is not to be taken lightly, it is extremely hot but it has a great flavor.
How To Make Juicier Chicken Brats?
So normally when we are doing chicken we grind through a 3/16th plate once but this time we are going to basically try to turn the chicken into goup so we are going 3/16th for the first grind and then twice more through a 1/8th plate to really break this down. If we need it, we might even do another grind, basically, we want to emulsify it. We are going to use the Walton’s #12 Processing Grinder for this.
Next, we are going to mix in the seasoning, the water, and the carrot fiber. Even though we are still calling this a bratwurst we are going for protein extraction here. We want the finished consistency of this to be almost similar to a hot dog. The reasoning behind this is we want as much surface area of the chicken as possible exposed to bind to water. Think of a piece of wood that is 1 ft x 1 ft, poor a pint of water on that and see how much it absorbs, now toss that board in a chipper and make sawdust out of it and poor the pint of water over it, it will suck it all up. The same basic effect is what we are hoping for here. With such a small amount of product, we are going to try to use the Walton’s 20 lb meat mixer but we might have to finish this by hand so we have a clean meat pan here in case we need to do that.
Next, we are going to stuff these into cellulose casings and smoke them. The stuffing process is going to remain the same, it might just be a little messier than normal. we are using the Waltons 7 lb stuffer and as we are stuffing and cranking myself we are being very careful not to overfill the casings.
We are going to tie these off individually since we only have a few pounds we are going to do this by hand instead of using the Walton’s Sausage Linker.
The smoking process, however, is going to be a little different we can’t simply cook these. They need to be very carefully stepped up in temperature so we don’t end up with a bunch of split casings and droopy product. Remember we are adding extra carrot fiber and water to try to make it juicier.
Now, if you are going to follow the smoke schedule below, we suggest that you add in Sure Cure to your product to keep it safe during the smoking process.
We are going to start out for a half hour at 120 with no smoke, then add smoke and cook them at 130 for a half hour, then 140 for a half hour, then a 150 for a half hour and finally at 200 until the internal temperature is 165. We are using the Grilley Bluetooth Thermometer to monitor the internal temp of the brats.
After taking them out of the smoker and peeling them from the casings we found that adding extra carrot fiber and water plus almost emulsifying the meat really did help the chicken retain more moisture so we are calling this one a success but we are also going to try again and next time we are going to use Cold Phosphate to see if we can’t make them even juicier!
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pkzipper Interesting that you ask that as I was recently chatting with a different user about the same question. This was a test and we were trying to keep it a fresh product while still smoking it at lower temps. Now, if you want to see that it can absolutely be done with normal grilling temps we grilled These Turkey Brats that we also added carrot fiber and cold phosphate too and they didnt dry out at all!
I am adding to the post that we recommend you add cure if you are going to smoke it, I just didn’t want it to all of a sudden appear and have you think it was already there.
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Today I did a 50/50 thigh-breast mix with the Turkey Brats recipe. They turned out perfect. They were juicy with great texture. I only ran it through the grinder once with a 3/16 hole. Made them with the Habanero Mango Brat seasoning and wish I didn’t because as it was good for the Brat, I also made a smoked version, Like summer sausage, and there was just way to much going on in the flavour and even though the Heat is good, it just dominates the flavour.
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