Miesfeld’s – Transcript

– Announcer: This week on Wisconsin Foodie:

[upbeat music]

– Hey, Luke, welcome to Miesfeld’s.

– Hey, Rich, thanks a lot.

– So here at Miesfeld’s we have about 30 different variety brats or specialty brats.

– Everybody can make brats, it’s the ingredients, we use the finest pork. We still use grandpa’s 78 year old recipe, which is very important. You look at something like this, that tastes great, I mean, it’s pride, a lot of pride.

– And there they are, coming out all linked. Wash your hands, and we’ll get you on there, and we’ll see what the difference is.

[laughs]

Okay, new lever. Forward, push it forward.

– Oh, there we go. Awesome.

– Rich: Cooked perfection.

– Cooked to perfection. Nice.

– I think it’s time for a sampler, what do you think Luke?

– Luke: Yeah, I’m ready, I’m starving.

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

– Introducing Organic Valley Ultra, milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides. Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[dramatic music]

[cow moos]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

– You hear that? She would drink that.

[people cheering]

– Parents are weird.

– Announcer: More protein, half the sugar. Organic Valley Ultra.

[upbeat music]

– Man: The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese. Just look for our badge, it’s on everything we make.

[upbeat music]

– Announcer: Employee owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer is made.

– Man: Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov- Announcer: From production to processing right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies, and others at fabwisconsin.com- Man: Specially crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award winning ciders and wine. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

[upbeat music]

– Announcer: Society Insurance.

Freshwater Family Farms.

Also, with the support of the friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music]

– Man: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet. We are a merging of cultures and ideas shaped by this land.

[upbeat music]

We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[upbeat music]

We are story tellers. We are Wisconsin Foodie.

[upbeat music]

[door closes]

– You can’t talk about Sheboygan without talking bratwurst. And you can’t talk about bratwurst without talking about the home of the grand champion brat, Miesfeld’s. Three generations have been at the helm, making these brats and other assorted products that literally define this place. Let’s go check it out.

[upbeat music]

– Hey, Luke, welcome to Miesfeld’s.

– Hey, Rich, thanks a lot.

– Glad you could join us today.

– Oh, I am super excited to be here. What do we have going on?

– Well, I’d love to give you the quick tour of our little retail store here, follow me.

– Luke: Great.

– So here at Miesfeld’s we have about 30 different variety brats or specialty brats as we call it, and we store ’em in six packs in this big bunker right here.

– Luke: Wow.

– So, depending on what kind of flavor you’re in the mood for, a little sample pack. We got something for everyone. From chicken brats to bratwurst with horseradish, cheddar cheese bratwurst to swiss cheese and mushroom. Everything that a palette could desire.

– Luke: What’s your favorite?

– Mines got to be the Jalapeno cheddar. It’s just got a little bit of sweet heat, and that cheddar cheese just really calms it down when you’re eating it. I like to cook up one of those as a sampler while I’m on the grill, and then have the original for dinner.

– Luke: And you guys you’re world renowned for these brats, and not to mention, a grand champion brat, right?

– Rich: The original brat, the grand champion.

– Luke: The OG.

– That is the 1941 recipe that Chuck Miesfeld the first came up with.

– No kidding, that’s what it takes to get your name on the building.

– Yeah, you just got to come up with a grand champion bratwurst, and you get your name on the building. So, this place Miesfeld’s has been owned by three generations of actually Chuck Miesfeld, Chuck Miesfeld the first, Chuck Miesfeld the second, Chuck Miesfeld the third, and now you’re looking at him, Richard Sachse the second. I partnered with Chuck about eight months ago as he nears retirement age, so him and I are now partners.

– Luke: He’s still around?

– Rich: He’s still around. I think he’s the best one to show you all the different sausages we make, and really go through the meat counter here, ’cause we have one of the biggest meat counters probably in Wisconsin, but when we take you over here, I’ll introduce you to Chuck.

– Luke: Let’s go say hi.

[upbeat music]

– Luke, let me introduce you to Chuck Miesfeld the third.

– Hey, Chuck.

– Hey, Luke, how you doing?

– Good, what an honor.

– It’s great you guys are here, we appreciate it.

– Luke: The Miesfeld Brat, the grand champion brat is something that I’ve identified with as a kid from Wisconsin for, you know, a decade at least. Tell me a little bit about your brats.

– Well, I think the main thing, everybody can make brats. It’s the ingredients, we use the freshest pork, the finest pork. We still use grandpa’s 78 year old recipe, which is very important.

– Is there any pressure on that, to not mess up grandpa’s recipe?

– Well, they always say the third one screws it up, right? I proved them wrong on that one, so.

– Your customers, I mean, are most of these people from Sheboygan, they’ve grown up on this brat specifically.

– Chuck: We have a lot of people that are really loyal customers. It’s amazing. We see, now some of their kids shopping here, and their grandkids shopping here. I’ve been here a long time.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Chuck: I’ve been here 51 years, believe it or not. I started when I was 10 years old vacuuming floors. In the old store we had a carpet, it was the market with the red carpet. So, I vacuumed floors. When I turned 12 years old, I started making brats in the sausage kitchen in the summers, so I was working 40 hours a week, and I loved it.

– So, you have 30 varieties of brats over there?

– Chuck: Correct.

– You know, chicken, pineapple, teriyaki, what would your grandfather think of the chicken pineapple teriyaki?

– I think he’d be rolling. [laughs] Everything was pretty straight laced, traditional then. You know how times have changed when you have to have all these different flavors. You have to find something for everyone.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Chuck: So, he’d be proud, but he’d be very surprised.

[Luke laughs]

Our snack sticks, our beef snack sticks that you see here have really taken off. We make 12 different flavors now. Of course, with the brats too, you have to expand.

– Luke: And you know, there’s a lot of stuff actually in this place.

– Yep, we do a lot. You can come here and one stop shopping, get a lot of gourmet items, and still the regular things. We’re proud of it. We want to, we want to share it. We’ve expanded to over 70 supermarkets in Wisconsin now. We just went national yesterday, as a matter of fact, so we can expand throughout the whole United States. We’re really looking forward to it, to growing the brand. We’ve got a great product.

– What else do we have here in front of us?

– A good example of the braunschweiger, talk about my grandfather. When I started making sausage back in the ’70s, he always came up to me, and said, he loves braunschweiger, and he said, he likes putting horseradish on it. He says, hey kid, do me a favor, save me the step put it inside. So we have horseradish braunschweiger.

– Luke: Nice.

– So, and that’s a huge seller, you don’t see it anywhere else. Just certain little things like that. Of course we change the recipes over the year, but a lot of them are the basic recipes. I mean, I got to give credit to my grandfather and my father, they really knew what they were doing, you know, and they had a passion for it, and that’s what you need. Our sausage maker Eric’s been here 32 years. My manager Tracy, 34 years. We have one guy that was the assistant back when I was growing up, Ken Zastrol worked here 52 years, just retired three years ago.

– Wow.

– So we have longevity here, and that’s great, I mean, that shows, you know, dedication, and they’re putting their heart into doing this.

– What’s the secret to longevity of a Miesfeld’s employee?

– Well, there’s, I think, there’s a couple things. You have to treat your people right, and if you treat ’em right, they’re gonna work for you, and when they see the results, they take a piece of raw meat, and form it, grind it, and add seasonings, and you turn it out, and you look at something like this, that tastes great, I mean, it’s pride, a lot of pride. Yeah, and it’s great to see the Miesfeld name is gonna continue.

– Yeah.

– And that was very important for me when I, when I partnered up. We can grow, but we want to keep our product the same, and never change that tradition.

[upbeat music]

– Hey, Luke, you ready try your hand at some sausage making?

– Are you ready to have me try my hand at some sausage making?

– Well, first you got to gear up.

– [laughs] Yes, awesome.

– Rich: Follow me back this way.

– Chuck, thanks so much.

– You bet.

– Oh, I see it.

[upbeat music]

– Yeah, we’re heading in here today as our sausage kitchen. We’re making a couple different variety brats today. We got our burger brat, our cheddar burger brat with bacon. We have our mushroom swiss brat, and our jalapeno brat. Let me introduce you to a few of the guys here. Darren.

– Hey Darren. Yeah, the fist bump.

– This is Eric, our head sausage maker.

– Hi, Eric, nice to meet you. This is not a small time operation.

– No, we’re growing every day right now, expanding as much as we can. Luke you’re in good hands here. I’ll catch up with you later this afternoon.

– Sounds good, thanks a lot Rich. So, it seems like there’s a lot of varieties of brats you guys are putting out here, right?

– Oh, yeah, I’d say about 30 kinds.

– 30 kinds.

– We make a lot of specialty brats too. Today we’re making a bacon cheeseburger brat, nacho brats, mushroom swiss brats. Yesterday we made buffalo blue cheese brats, so anything you can think of.

[Luke laughs]

– And this seems pretty high tech, right? Tell me a little bit about the evolution of brat making, in your time here. How long have you been here?

– 33 years.

– 33 years.

– Yeah. Well, everyone knows the whole hand crank stuffers.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Throw the meat in there, crank it out, put the casing on the end. This is Darren here, Darren why don’t you show him how we do it now a days. We got a vacuum stuffer here. We’ve got hog casings that are already put on zip tubes, so they can put them on the horn really quick.

– Luke: Yeah.

That’s ridiculously fast.

– And there they are, coming out all linked. He’s right now, he’s adjusting the casing, so that it gets the correct tension on the brat.

– Luke: Sure.

– So that they’re not too loose or not overly stuffed. He’s feeling for the tension of the brat.

– Okay. So, when the hopper is full, how many pounds of, how many pounds of brat mix do you have in there?

– We can have 500 pounds in there.

– Luke: 500 pounds. How many rungs does that, does that produce?

– Eric: Darren can stuff that out in about a half an hour.

– Luke: I mean, it’s crazy automated. The technology has definitely allowed you the opportunity to expand. There’s still like an artisan feel to each and every one of these.

– Oh yeah. So the stuffer will stuff ’em out exactly a quarter pound each, here, if you ran out of meat, this is the end of his run, so he straight stuffed it here.

– Luke: Sure.

– So this is what you normally see come out of your hand crank.

– Right.

– And then, people either twist ’em like this, or they braid ’em. These I’m just gonna estimate, kind of wing it.

– Luke: Yeah, you’re eyeballing, but it’s still looks pretty close to that quarter pound mark.

– Eric: Yeah.

– Luke: [laughs] That’s the, the hands of an artisan.

– Yep. But we should get you do is, if you got time, wash your hands, and we’ll get you on there, we’ll see what the difference is.

– So, I’m about to get on the brat stuffing machine, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit nervous.

I’ve made brats before, but this is, I think, intimidating because they have to move fast. I’m a professional, I don’t want to mess this up for these guys. I don’t want to slow ’em down. No pressure, right, none.

Walk me through.

– Okay, Darren’s gonna grab a casing that’s on a zip tube.

– Luke: Yep.

– Gonna have you open the lever.

– Open the lever.

– We’re gonna wipe the end of the tube clean.

– Okay, yup. We’re gonna slide it on. This is the horn right?

– Yep, that’s the stuffing horn.

– Okay, I’m gonna get it on here, all the way.

– Eric: Yup, and just rip it though there. There you go.

– Luke: Sweet. So far, so good.

– Eric: Okay. So you want to try and feel the individual brat as it’s coming out, just don’t grab it, just feel it, the surface tension. Right. The lever turns it on. Hit it again to turn it off. Well, that’s pretty good. You’re hired.

– So, I can feel it, like, what I’m feeling obviously that surface tension like you’re talking about.

– Eric: Keep this casing up here a little bit.

– Luke: Keep it up, okay. It’s pushing against my hand, and it really is just kind of making sure that your hand is there to guide it though.

– Eric: Okay, new lever.

– Luke: Oh, boy.

– Forward, push it forward.

– There we go. So I busted one. Why did I break one? Is it because I didn’t move these down and far enough away?

– Yeah, you got to keep the casing going forward and then light tension. The more tension you put on here, the tighter it’ll be. See, this one, compared to this one.

– Luke: Yeah.

– See Darren won’t do that.

– Right, he better not do it. You’ve been here 10 years, right?

– Yep.

– How long before you get the opportunity to actually work the stuffer? How long before you get this station?

– Well it took me a while. I started in sanitation, cleaning the whole plant.

– Yep, that’s how most guys start. They start in sanitation when they’re young.

– Just kind of climbed the ladder, so to speak, and now it’s what I do full time.

– This is what you do full time? Awesome, dude thanks so much for letting me, you know, muck up your station a little bit here.

[all laughing]

– My pleasure.

– I bet, I bet. Awesome. Where do we go next?

– These brats are going to get chilled down so they’re a little firm. Once they’re firm enough, they go out, put them through a little stock machine and package ’em. Right now they’re too soft to package.

– Sure.

– So, I’m spacing ’em out, so the cold air can get between them, and chill ’em.

– Okay, so I’ll —

– Eric: Two up and two down.

– Luke: Two up, two down, okay. Hold it there.

And we’re coming up again, like that?

– Like this.

– Okay, two up, two down, there we go.

[Luke laughs]

– There you go.

– Sheboygan bling, yeah.

Then you lay ’em out and space ’em.

– Eric: Yep.

– Okay.

[upbeat music]

I get that right?

How am I screwing this up?

– That’s all right, I can fix it. Got it all like this.

– Here we go.

[both laugh]

– Here’s that EWU education, two up, two down.

– Just like that.

– All right. All right, good, you see it happens to the best of us.

– Yep.

We’ve got something kind of interesting going on in the other room here. We’ve got summer sausage that just got out of the smoke house.

– Nice.

– They’re rinsing the grease off of it. Did you want to take a look at that?

– Luke: Yeah, of course.

– This is our smoke room. Got four smoke houses here.

Got a batch of summer sausage that just got done. I got to rinse it off.

Rinse the grease off with a hose. You can see it’s, how shiny it is. There’s a little bit of grease on there. We want to try and get that off.

– Eric what’s the difference between the two cases?

– Well, this is a HUKKI casing. We import that from Germany, and this is just a regular fibrous casing.

– Sure.

– So, most of the summer sausage you’ll find in a fibrous casing like this. It’s a little cheaper. This is quite a bit more expensive, but its got a beautiful mahogany color, and takes on nice smoke flavor.

– So, it’s the changing, it changes the flavor for sure?

– Eric: A little bit, yeah.

– Luke: Okay, okay.

How long have these been in the smoker?

– Eric: Oh, they’ve been smoking since one o’clock yesterday. We want to hit it with some hot water. We want to do it directly with the hose to make sure we get the grease off any sausages that might have too much grease on. The shower itself isn’t a strong enough stream to actually blast the grease off.

– Luke: Did you go to school for this?

– I did not. Everything was taught to me, old sausage maker, Dwane Gentski and Chuck Miesfeld. They were the guys that put the knowledge upon me.

– Sure.

– I started out the same as Darren, cleaning up after school at night, and then, just progressed from there. I don’t know, it was just something that you pick up, and you just stick with it, just like anything else, like, someone that blows glass or a baker, anything like that, cheese makers. That should do it. I’ll push her back in the smoke house, and then we’ll turn the shower miser on.

[upbeat music]

– I mean, when you go to a restaurant, and you see you know Miesfeld’s products on the menu, what does that feel like?

– It makes me proud, makes me proud. All the guys around here take pride in it.

[upbeat music]

Now, you’re gonna get a little wetter.

[upbeat music]

– This is the right place to enter into this operation for me, somewhere on the sanitation department. Even then, I’m sure I’d have a lot to learn.

[upbeat music]

That was an experience. The one thing that I will say though, hanging around in that smoke house, watching this all come together, I’m starving. We’re gonna hook up with Rich, and we’re gonna try out these Miesfeld brats.

– Rich: Hey Luke.

– Luke: Hey, hey, how’s it going?

– Good, I hope you worked up an appetite in there.

– I am starving, literally.

– This is my store manager Tracy.

– Hi Tracy, how’s it going?

– Good, how you doing?

– Good, nice to meet you. How long have you been with the company?

– 36 years.

– 36 years.

– Yep.

– Are you 36 years old, I mean, is that the joke, because, you don’t look much beyond that actually. Is this ready to go?

– This is ready? We can get the brats on any time.

– Okay.

– We got fresh brats made by you.

– Let’s hope not.

[upbeat music]

So, I’m just gonna have you walk me through this as simple as possible. I got my hand on this thing, this is not a tremendous amount of heat.

– Nope, you want it to firm down a little bit, get a nice good bed of light coals so you don’t burst your casing right away. I previously soaked them in cold water, makes the casings more pliable so they don’t burst on ya. You want to cook a brat at a longer, slow heat otherwise they just burst and you lose all your juices and your flavoring. If you’re gonna keep it warm for a party afterwards, then you use the beer butter and onions.

– Okay.

– But you don’t want to boil it, ’cause then you’re extracting your flavors out when you’re boiling it.

– Sure. How do you actually eat your brat? Because I think that’s —

– Sheboygan we eat a double brat on a hard roll with ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions.

– Ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions. How about you?

– Me, I’m just onions and mustard. I am simple.

– Luke: Just onions and mustard.

– Well, it’s got to be a double.

– Luke: It’s got to be a double. Like two, okay.

– My wife’s from Madison, she still makes fun of me today, she goes, you never eat a brat on a brat bun. I was like, I don’t even know what a brat bun is. It’s a hard roll and a double brat. That’s the only way you eat ’em.

– Ah, that’s great. Like when does kraut come into the picture? Does it ever?

– Polish sausage.

– On Polish sausage, wow. We’re getting some real identity clashes here, this is great, this is really great.

– There are some that do brats on a brat bun, and they put Polish sausage on it, but the majority of the people in the Sheboygan area are going to do a double brat with just the condiments, whatever maybe and no kraut.

– And no kraut. So, these look like they’re pretty close to being done.

– This are ready to eat, these are done.

– Nice.

– I think it’s time for a sampler, what do you think Luke?

– Luke: Yeah, I’m ready. I’m starving.

– You want to slice one up in half for us Tracy? We each have a little sample here?

– Yeah. He’s been waiting to bring the shank up the whole time. That’s great.

Awesome.

– Rich: Cooked perfection.

– Cooked to perfection. Crispy skin on the outside, not boiling out at all, no thanks to me.

– Yep, we’re just missing a beer.

– Tracy: That’s the hard part, grilling without a cold beer.

– That’s what cools down your fingers after you pick up a hot brat.

– Right.

First and foremost, this is delicious. Thank you. Yeah.

The hard role, that’s a real, like a Sheboygan identity thing. Tell me a little bit about the story of hard rolls.

– Sheboygan hard roll, it’s a dried roll done in a hearth oven, so it’s a little bit more crispy on the top of it, cornmeal on the bottom of it, that’s part of your extra flavorings. Some people toast them. Some people just do them the way they are, ’cause it does have a nice crunchy top to it from that hearth oven.

– Do you have a preferred bakery in town?

– My favorite’s got to be City Bakery. For most, you got to wait in line sometimes in the morning. You don’t put your order in early, otherwise you’re not gonna get them so.

– Tracy: You won’t even get them.

– Luke: Really?

– Tracy: You got to call early.

– Rich: Yep, got to call ahead.

– Luke: That’s, I mean, that’s awesome. They’re definitely doing something right over there. There’s a couple other bakeries in town that do hard rolls too right?

– Rich: Yep.

– Luke: Any of them like widely different?

– They all have their own little bit of a different thing, but they’re all, the end result is the same concept.

– Luke: Okay.

– But they’re all just a touch different spice or different whatever they’re using.

– Nice.

– I guarantee you my 89 year old grandmother can pick out what exactly which one it is.

– That’s, I’m really noticing that the stories in Sheboygan, there’s a tremendous amount of cultural identity in all of this food, and everyone has their own spin on it. What actually makes Sheboygan the best, but I think world renowned, Miesfeld’s brats are the best brats in the world. That’s fantastic.

– We’ll vouch for it.

– Yeah, I think, exactly, thank you so much for this behind the scenes tour of Miesfeld’s, and I think you also planted a little bit of a seed, and something I have to check out is, what is the best hard roll, what makes the best hard roll. What gives Sheboygan that identity. Thanks so much.

– Appreciate having you Luke.

– Oh, we appreciate being here.

– Thanks.

– Thanks a lot. All right.

[upbeat music]

You know in all my years, there’s no way to make these things look sexy.

– The color red helps.

[Luke laughs]

– These people this really, really seriously. I know that this is really important to the identity of Wisconsin, to the identity of Sheboygan, and they have to be producing brat, so it has to move a little bit faster. So these, these grand-champion brats, there’s a high demand.

[upbeat music]

– Introducing Organic Valley Ultra, milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides. Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[dramatic music]

[cow moos]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

– You hear that? She would drink that.

[people cheering]

– Parents are weird.

– Announcer: More protein, half the sugar. Organic Valley Ultra.

– Man: The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that in Wisconsin we dream in cheese.

Just look for our badge. It’s on everything we make.

[upbeat music]

– Announcer: Employee owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin, and see where your beer’s made.

– Man: Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure visit dnr.wi.gov- Announcer: From production to processing, right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies. And others at fabwisconsin.com- Man: Specialty crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award winning ciders and wines. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

– Announcer: Society Insurance.

Freshwater Family Farms.

1. Henry and Sons Bourbon.

Something Special from Wisconsin.

Marcus Hotels and Resorts.

Central Wisconsin Craft Collective.

91.7 WMSE.

Edible Milwaukee magazine.

Also, with the support of the friends at PBS Wisconsin. For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events and dinners, please go to wisconsinfoodie.com

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[upbeat music]