Smoked Chicken Thigh Bratwurst with Rhubarbecue Sauce

So I decided I had to use some of the rhubarb from Mom’s garden since she went through the trouble to pick, trim, cut and bag it for me. The plan is to make barbecue sauce out of it….rhubarbecue sauce is born! Now, what kind of meat to cook? Since I have not done a sausage post for my blog, it is time. I have a good amount of bratwurst seasoning from Michlitch’s. Deciding on something a little different, I am going to use 3 lbs boneless, skinless, chicken thighs. Since they do not have enough fat I went to Sonnenberg’s for 1 lb of pork fat and the natural hog casings.

Start off by cutting the meat into about 1 inch chunks. Place them onto a tray in a single layer and put into freezer with grinder attachment for about 1/2 hour to firm up. This step makes the grinding easier as the fat does not melt and make such a mess.

After about 1/2 hour I took the meat out and set up the grinder. Time to grind!

All ground up.

Now is the time to season the ground meat. I used my bratwurst seasoning and a little ice cold bourbon to mix it in nicely.

Once it is mixed together, back in the freezer it goes to firm up for a second grind to mix it up real well.

I took a small amount to fry up and test the seasoning and make sure there is enough.

The flavor is great and the fat content seems to be right as well. Now it goes back into the freezer again until I get the casings on the sausage stuffer attachment (which is a PITA). All good now, time to stuff.

I decided to leave the sausage whole rather than tie off individual links, plus it looks pretty fricken cool too!

On to the grill. I set it up using the fuse method with 3 little piles of pecan chips pre-soaked in water. I use the water that I soak the chips in to put in the drip pan which helps keep things moist.

In order to get the sausage on the grill I inverted the pre-oiled grill over the sausage and flipped it over. Worked like a champ. I then loosened up the whole roll a little so smoke could get all around there.

Placed the lid on with the vents opened up over the top of the sausage. With a little fiddling with the vents I got it at 225 degrees and let it go for 2.5 hours. While that is going on, it is time to start the sauce. I used about 1.5 cups of rhubarb covered in water and added about 1/4 cup of brown sugar and cooked until very soft, about 1/2 hour. 

Then I added about 1/4 cup vinegar, a little more brown sugar, a little molasses, some ketchup, garlic powder, pinch of salt, black pepper, crushed red peppers and some cayenne. Bring that to a boil…

…then strain (I did not want all the fibers from the rhubarb in it). I then reduced it down to a nice consistency.

After 2.5 hours the sausage is done and it’s time to grub.

Smoked chicken thigh bratwurst with rhubarbecue sauce on a nice soft potato bun and some suddenly salad.

Check out how juicy this thing is.

I cut one lengthwise to check the smoke ring.

Yum!

Meet Meat!