How to Pull Off Grilling a 200-Foot Bratwurst
Belleville, Illinois is going big to celebrate their town's 200th birthday.
— -- The people of Belleville, Illinois, are going big to celebrate their town’s 200th birthday -- 200-feet big, to be exact.
This Sunday, the town will come together to attempt to grill a 200-foot long bratwurst -- one foot for every year of Belleville’s existence.
“It’s just for a lot of laughs and to celebrate our 200th anniversary,” organizer Robert Fritz told ABC News. “When we’re done grilling it, we’re going to give the bratwurst away and accept donations for the food pantry.”
Fritz, owner of beer distributor company Robert Chick Fritz, enlisted the help of Larry Schubert, who has been in the meat processing business for 37 years, to create such a big sausage.
“Normally those sausages are about 8 to 12 inches long. So one day I took a little time and went into the sausage kitchen and tried a couple ideas,” Schubert told ABC News. “Sewing it didn’t work, and so I was just kind of playing around and coming up with a different idea and it just worked great. It’s like volcanizing a tire.”
The final product, which is one continuous sausage, will be 125 pounds of 100 percent pork in natural casing.
To prepare for the big day, Fritz and Schubert organized two test runs, first with a 50-foot trial sausage.
“The 50-foot was a total disaster. The coal was too hot and it wasn’t coordinated,” Fritz said. “Then we did a 100-foot and had it done right, and so we’re ready for the 200 now on Sunday. If we wouldn’t have practiced, it would be the laughing stock of Illinois.”
Community members are pitching into to roll the brat, prepare the grills and watch the coal temperature, unravel the sausage and cook it perfectly.
“Our whole goal is to not let one break be in the sausage,” Fritz explained. “We’ll be getting started on Sunday morning about 5am, and we want to have everything in line ready for the girl by 11am and roll it out and see how successful we’ll be.”