Smoking weiners

This Sunday we decided to have a taste testing. The contestants, from top to bottom:
- Johnsonville Beddar with Cheddar
- Johnsonville Stadium Brats
- Johnsonville Beef Hot Links (with jalapeno and red pepper)


Yeah yeah, they're all the same brand, and aren't cool butcher shop-made sausages, but I saw 'em on sale and thought I'd give them a try in the smoker after we really enjoyed the Zweigels sausages from NY.

After two hours in the smoker with two rounds of hickory wood chips, here's how they looked coming back in the kitchen...


The skins got just crispy enough - you can see some splitting on the ends. I gave them a few minutes on the gas grill, just to ensure they were really hot and scorchy (although I didn't have them on long enough to really get grill marks).

Brett liked all three equally.

I found the Beef Hot Links to be very greasy, and sure enough, plenty spicey.

The Beddar with Cheddar's were pretty good, but the cheese inside seemed like artificial/American cheese, and the pockets of cheese seemed pretty salty. I WOULD have them again however...

I loved the Stadium Brats! I've done brats on the grill before and wasn't too impressed with them - I think I'm really enjoying hotdogs and sausages more after a nice long smoking.

We only smoked two sausages out of each of the three containers, and that got us both lunch, plus I had the leftovers for lunch at work today. So that leaves us with four more of each of the three types of sausages - so maybe we'll have friends over to sample our sausages, or maybe we'll keep our sausages to ourselves. Who knows!