How Are Hot Dogs Made?

What actually goes into these sausages that American eat by the billion? Learn how hot dogs work in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Bogelbaum. Here, Americans love their hot dogs, and we
may really love them. The National hot Dog and Sausage
Council estimates that Americans eat twenty billion hot dogs a year.
And yes, that's billion with a B. That's about seventy

(00:23):
hot dogs per person. That's a lot of hot dogs.
But hot dogs did not originate in the United States.
There are a couple of stories about where the hot
dog did come from, but we're pretty certain it's Germany.
One story says its origin is the Frankfurter, which was
first created in Frankfurt, but another story says that's not
quite true, but that its roots are rather with the

(00:44):
popular sausage known as the docks in or little dog sausage.
That one was created in the late sixteen hundreds by
a particular butcher who was from Kuborg, Germany, who supposedly
later traveled to Frankfort to promote his creation. That one
would explain the source for the name hot dog. Whichever
story is true, was pivotal for the hot dog. That's

(01:06):
because tons of them were sold that year at the
Colombian Exposition in Chicago. They were tasty, easy to hold,
and cheap. That same year was also when the hot
dog became synonymous with baseball. That tradition was started by
a St. Louis bar owner, one Chris vonder Aha, who
was a German immigrant and the owner of the St.
Louis Brown's Major League baseball team, though again there is

(01:30):
some contention here. Others claim it was a New York concessionaire,
Harry M. Stevens, who popularized the hot dog at baseball games.
But all of this brings us to the question of
the day. What exactly is in those seventy billion hot
dogs that Americans scarfed down every year. Well, it depends
on a lot of things, especially the brand you buy.

(01:52):
Every brand, of course, uses their own recipe, which will
include different ingredients, spices, binders, and flavorings. But according to
the National hot Dog and Sausage Counsel, in general, hot
dogs may include meats which could be pork, beef, poultry,
or a combination of the above. Water, spices which could
include pepper, garlic, coriander, cinnamon, human nutmeg, paprika, and allspice,

(02:16):
beef stock for a meteor flavor, a cherry powder for color,
citric acid which is used to help balance the flavor
and as a preservative. Sugar or corn syrup to balance
the flavor and help promote browning, and as a preservative.
Sodium nitrate which is responsible for curing casing, including collagen
as an alternative to hog or sheep intestines, modified food

(02:37):
starts used as a thickener, and finally, yeast extract which
adds a savory flavor. So not every hot dog will
include every ingredient from this list. As we already mentioned,
recipes will vary greatly depending on who's making the dog
in question, But how hot dogs are made is pretty straightforward.
Here's how it works. First, selected meat trimmings are cut

(02:59):
and round into small pieces and put into a mixer. Then,
a high speed chopper blends the meat, spices, and curing
ingredients into an emulsion. You can think of this as
a batter. The mixture is then pumped into an automatic
stuffer and linker machine and further into either temporary inedible
casings or permanent edible ones. Once the casings are filled,

(03:21):
they're twisted into long linked strands of hot dogs and
then fully cooked. Some hot dogs are also smoked for
extra flavor. Next, the hot dogs are cooled in water,
and if it was a temporary casing, that protective casing
is stripped away. Individual links are sent to the packaging lines,
where the hot dogs are finally fed into the vacuum

(03:43):
packaging equipment, wrapped and vacuum sealed in plastic film, packaged,
and boxed. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Americans eat
about seven billion hot dogs. On July fourth alone, Americans
eat a hundred and fifty million hot dogs. That's enough
to stretch from washing to d C to l A
more than five times. Today's episode was written by Sarah

(04:09):
Glin and produced by Tyler Clang. For more in this
and lots of other linked topics, visit how stuffworks dot com.
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