Smoked Brats & Burgers

The weekend after our successful rib smoking, we decided to smoke some brats and burgers. We're still unsure of our smoking abilities, so we aren't doing all of our meat in the smoker. The brats had been in our freezer since February, so if they got messed up it wasn't a big deal. But it's pretty hard to mess up smoking brats!

We smoked 2 of our 6 burgers. The other 4 went on the gas grill. Just in case.

We again smoked up the neighborhood! The brats took around 3 hours to smoke and the 2 smoked burgers took a a bit over an hour. I didn't take any photos of the smoked burgers but they were so moist and juicy and flavorful. Maybe a little too moist - my burger fell apart as I ate it and my hands and face were a mess of burger, cheese, mustard, barbecue sauce, and tomato juice! I think I might like smoked burgers better than grilled burgers!

The grilled burgers on the left, the smoked brats on the right

The brats were really tasty, too. They had a nice smokey taste. Smoked is the only way I really like eating brats - otherwise, I don't much care for them. When we reheated the brats and burgers, I wrapped them in foil and heated them in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

I'm feeling more confident about smoking stuff. Next up, I think we'll try a pork butt, which SP found on sale this past weekend. He bought it and it's in the freezer, waiting to be smoked. Or braised, if fall gets too cold and yucky to smoke. But I hope we get to smoke 1-2 more times before winter starts.