For all of the scary headlines, most of us don't fully understand how hot dogs are manufactured
(or maybe we don't really want to know).
But we took a look at the process from start to finish, and were surprised by what we found.
Join us, as we take a detailed look at how hot dogs are really made.
Whether you choose pork, beef, or chicken hot dogs, chances are they're made up of a
bunch of different animal parts that most wouldn't consider "prime cuts."
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines those as:
"The raw meat materials used for precooked-cooked products are lower-grade muscle trimmings,
fatty tissues, head meat, animal feet, animal skin, blood, liver and other edible slaughter
by-products."
Sure, the term "slaughter by-products" may not exactly whet your appetite, but making
hot dogs means making sure that no parts of the animals we raise and systematically kill
go to waste, and that's a concept that most of us can get behind.
The trimmings, along with assorted by products and variety meats, are loaded into giant meat
grinders, similar to the ones you've seen the butcher using to grind hamburger at the
grocery store.
All of those different animal parts are finely ground at this stage, to form a sort of loose,
pebbly-textured meat mashup.
After the ground hot dog mixture has been appropriately seasoned and had all the preservatives
and bacteria-inhibiting agents added, it's time for the really gross part.
For many, this is the stage of the hot dog making process that is accompanied by visuals
that will haunt your dreams.
The entire mixture is blended with water until it is smooth, resulting in a pale pink meat
mixture that's roughly the color and consistency of bad buffet restaurant soft serve ice cream.
The meat mixture is typically pureed again at this stage, and the excess air in the raw
hot dog batter is vacuumed out of the meat in order to make the finished hot dog more
dense and give it a firmer texture.
From there, it's on to the casing machines to give the hot dogs their familiar shape
that's perfect for buns.
The biggest retail hot dog brands in the United States tend to be skinless, though natural-cased
hot dogs are growing in popularity.
But whether they end up on supermarket shelves in a casing or not, casing the meat puree
is still a big step in the manufacturing process; it's what gives hot dogs their signature shape.
After all of that pink meat batter passes inspection, it is pumped into an automatic
stuffing and linking machine.
The meat is blasted at high pressure into tube-shaped, cellulose casings (made from
synthetic material), which are then twisted at precise intervals to produce a long string
of equally-sized hot dogs.
The production rate of these machines is incredibly fast; in fact, it takes just 35 seconds to
produce a chain of hot dogs so long it would span the length of a soccer field… twice.
After being stuffed into their casings, the hot dog strands are loaded onto giant conveyor
racks and rolled through a shower of liquid smoke before moving into an oven with several
cooking zones.
Here, they are thoroughly cooked under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, and all
that liquid smoke has a chance to permeate the casing for an added boost of flavor while
they bake.
After the cooking process is complete, the fresh-from-the-oven hot dogs get one more
shower, this time with cold saltwater, which helps to quickly drop their temperature and
get them ready for packaging.
After cooking and cooling, the hot dog links are moved via conveyor to an automatic peeling
machine, to strip them of their cellulose casings.
Once they hit the peeler, the cellulose casings are sliced open with a tiny knife, and then
the hot dogs are blasted with a burst of high-pressure steam, which blows off the casing and leaves
just the bare naked hot dog remaining.
A typical hot dog peeling machine can process upwards of 700 hot dogs per minute (or about
eleven and a half hot dogs per second), shooting them rapid-fire through the other side of
the peeling machine like a firehose.
Next, the nearly-finished hot dogs move along a conveyor belt where they receive a final
inspection.
The hot dogs get a quality control check to ensure they're the proper weight, and only
tubed meat that could be considered flawless makes it through these final quality control
checks, before being passed off for packaging.
Of course, "flawless" is a term that we use somewhat loosely, now that we know what's
inside of them.
Hot dogs which are damaged, broken, or torn at any point in the process are pulled from
the line and prevented from entering the packaging process, ensuring that every package of hot
dogs you crack open for a backyard barbecue is consistent, perfect, and ready to hit the
grill -- or your person.
"I like getting hit with hot dogs!
It don't bother me none!"
"I guess I'm lucky it wasn't hot chili day today."
After the cellulose casings are removed and the finished hot dogs receive a final quality
control check, the hot dogs make their way to the packaging machinery.
Here, hot dogs are lined up on sheets of plastic film printed with all of the graphics and
marketing claptrap commonly found on supermarket dogs.
The film is folded over and vacuum-sealed to preserve the hot dogs' flavor and extend
their shelf life, and then transported to a stamping machine, which prints a freshness
date on each individual package.
After packaging, the finished hot dogs are boxed and shipped in refrigerated trucks to
supermarkets, to be loaded into shopping carts and shoved down the gullets of people nationwide.
Who's hungry?
"If that's how you make hot dogs, I don't want one.
I'm good."
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