Grilling the sausage definitely brought out the woodsy, smoky flavors of the smoked sausage. I took the sausage off after exactly 12 minutes. I used 18-inch stainless steel tongs to flip my sausage, which looked and felt excessively large but managed to effectively turn the sausage without breaking it in half.I cooked the sausage for six minutes exactly on each side (set a timer!) and rotated once, mainly in hopes of getting attractive, commercial-worthy grill marks. I turned the heat down to medium for more consistent cooking.Initially, I started on a medium-high heat but after a few minutes, the flames began to flare up momentarily, which caused the casing to break in a few small spots. After heating up the grill for five minutes, I placed the rope sausage in the middle of the grill on the lowest rack.Here's how I grilled a smoked sausage without the fuss of charcoal: I used a Weber propane grill, which put to rest my visions of getting charcoal everywhere, waiting half an hour for the coals to heat up, and attempting to properly extinguish the flames. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to grill sausage. The only thing this method is best for is easy clean-up (i.e., no oil splatters everywhere). The resulting dish was moist, but was missing a few distinct qualities of this particular smoked sausage: intense smoky flavor and a crispy casing. Perhaps a higher temperature would have created a better outer crust, but I feared that too long in the oven at a high heat would dry out the entire rope of sausage. There was still a lacking crunch around the casing, but this seemed to be a compromise to overcooking. The casing wasn't nearly as crispy as I would have liked, so I put the sausage back in for another minute on each side.
#JOHNSONVILLE SAUSAGE FEST FULL#
I tried to let the sausage do its thing while cooking and held my breath for good results by the end. This would mean a constantly fluctuating oven temperature and inconsistent cooking. Opening the oven every few minutes to check on the crispiness and sizzle would be counterproductive, as your oven loses 25 degrees of heat every time it's opened. While some meats are best left undisturbed while cooking, sausage requires a fair amount of tossing and turning to achieve consistent browning. I didn't have high hopes for this method, as it was the most hands-off. Since my smoked sausage was fully cooked as-is in the package, the purpose of cooking it is to thoroughly heat it through and add that desirable crispiness.