The Viral Grilled Bratwurst Cheese Wheel Has Us Asking: 'DI-Why?'

Presentation is crucial when it comes to cooking. Consider that Ina Garten primarily serves food on white plates to ensure the vibrant hues of each ingredient really pop. However, the quest for an eye-catching presentation can sometimes lead to more trouble than it's worth. That's definitely the case with a certain YouTube grilling hacks video, which features "clever" methods for recipes like chicken skewers and bacon-wrapped beef with a cheesy center. At about 1 minute and 30 seconds into the video, viewers are presented with a devious hack involving a wheel of cheese and bratwursts. The end goal is a fried cheese wheel encircled by a whopping 16 bratwursts, but the path to get there is filled with obstacles. 

Once the fried cheese and bratwursts are assembled (which entails inserting wooden skewers all around the brats), the entire wheel of misfortune is placed on a hot grill to cook. One can only imagine the pain of flipping this abomination over to cook the other side — and it's worth noting that this part of the video is conspicuously absent. The prep for this grilling catastrophe is equally convoluted. Viewers are instructed to freeze the cheese wheel for a period ranging from four hours to a full night before frying. That means the bratwurst cheese wheel isn't something you can whip up on a whim, which seemingly goes against the ease and simplicity of the cooking hack concept. 

We're definitely not adding the grilled bratwurst cheese wheel to our list of sausage hacks you wish you knew sooner (such as splitting sausages in half prior to grilling them). From a food safety perspective, grilling time for each ingredient is a major issue. While it's not clear what type of cheese is used in the hack (it's simply described as "1 large cheese wheel" in the recipe instructions), it does bear some resemblance to provolone. 

The grilling time for provolone is about 1 minute per side, far less than the recommended time for bratwurst. It can take up to 20 minutes for brats to reach the safe internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn't bode well for either ingredient. Undercooked meats carry a risk of foodborne illness (which is why the USDA recommends always using a meat thermometer). And in addition to illness, you also run the risk of melting cheese, which can make a mess of your grill. 

If you happen to pull off this cheesy meat wheel successfully, eating it is another hill to climb. In the video, a person is seen taking a brat by hand and mashing it into the fried cheese in the center. As you can imagine, eating an appetizer in this manner is likely to lead to one giant mess. Fried, breaded cheese and brats make for an excellent combination, but it's best that each dish is prepared separately.