Tips from Brat Fest's grill commander: How to get the perfect brats all summer long

MADISON, Wis. -- Thousands of people flocked to Brat Fest this weekend for a taste of the Wisconsin staple, but how can you get Brat Fest-quality sausages all summer long? Here are some tips from the Brat Fest grill commander himself:

Kevin Metcalf has plenty of brat-grilling expertise; he's been a part of Brat Fest since it started more than four decades ago.

"I've been doing it for 41 years," Metcalf said. "I started actually with my mother in the basement boiling brats, and we'd bring them up to my dad to finish up on the grills. It's been a family tradition for us."

What started as a small Metcalf's customer appreciation event in their parking lot has now become one of Madison's most anticipated events of the year, drawing thousands to Willow Island at the Alliant Energy Center and raising more than $2.4 million for local charities.

"We're at about 150,000 brats right now," Metcalf said. "We've got 24 grills going, and we can do about 4500 an hour, so we're cranking out the brats."

Metcalf says the secret to the perfectly cooked brat is all in the product and the technique.

"They are precooked, of course, ground brats called The Ultimate Brat," Metcalf shared. "If that's not your thing, you can always take the Johnsonville raw product and boil them in maybe your favorite beer with some onions, and that comes back out to be more or less a pre cooked brat and then you finish them off on the grill."

As far as grilling the brats, he says it's all in the wrist.

"The first thing you have to do is understand your grill," Metcalf said. "You're gonna have different hot spots in any grill you have. We do about 15 minutes of cooking on all the grills. The more you can turn it the better well rounded it's going to be. What you're trying to do is really get a finish on them our personal opinion is we love to have the char marks on them and that's almost like a little crips pop when you put it in the bun and take your first bite to me, that's the perfect brat."

Brat Fest has moved inside for the last day on Sunday. You can drive through to pick up a brat between 10 am and 3 pm on Sunday and hear live music inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum from 12:30 pm to 9:20 pm.

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