How To Make Homemade Hot Dogs - Recipe
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How To Make Homemade Hot Dogs
Watch the full video below, read the highlights here, and then post your comments or questions below.
What Is A Hot Dog?
Hot dogs, frankfurters, wieners, or whatever name you are familiar with…Is just a sausage with a very small meat particle size, typically emulsified to where the fat and lean particles in the meat are basically indistinguishable from one another. Hot Dogs can be made from beef, pork, chicken, poultry, wild game, or a combination of meats. Another staple feature of hot dogs is to make a skinless product. This is usually done by using a cellulose casing, and then stripping it off of the final product, but this is not a requirement and collagen casings or natural casings can still be used.
Meat Block
25lb 80/20 beef trim
Additives
1 package Excalibur Hot Dog Seasoning
1oz Sure Cure (packet included with seasoning)
6oz Sure Gel Meat Binder
2oz Smoked Meat Stabilizer1
2 to 3 lb High Temperature Cheese (optional)
26mm Cellulose Hot Dog Casings
1 Quarts Ice Cold Water 1Process
Grind the meat 3 times. 1st through a 3/8in (10mm) grinder plate, then the 2nd and 3rd grind will be done with a 1/8in (3mm) grinder plate.
Always use a sharp grinder knife and plate to help retain a better particle definition, color, and help prevent any smearing of the meat.Meat Mixing
Using a meat mixer is preferred to hand mixing when making hot dogs. Many other products like a fresh bratwurst can be adequately mixed by hand, but we need to make sure we get a lot of protein extraction for hot dogs. That is a bit more difficult to achieve in hand mixing but still a possibility to do if you don’t have an actual meat mixer. We are going to mix for about 8 minutes in total. When you start the mixer, just start adding all the ingredients, except the High Temp Cheese. This last ingredient can be added in the last 45-60 seconds of the cycle, or just long enough to evenly disperse. Over mixing the cheese can lead to smearing and loss of shape. When you are done mixing the product should be extremely sticking, which means you are getting a lot of protein extraction.
Sausage Stuffing
Load your sausage stuffer and be careful not to create air pockets. Begin stuffing until the casings are full with a smooth exterior. Stuff into as long of ropes as possible, and then you can cut them to length when you are ready to place them in a smokehouse or oven.
Processing Notes
Whenever possible, try to separate the lean meat from the fat prior to grinding and mixing. Mix all of the seasoning in with the half of the lean meat and don’t add the remaining lean meat and fat until the second half of the mixing cycle. This will give you a temporarily higher salt content in the meat which will help with the emulsification of protein in the meat and the binding of the rest of the meat, fat, and water in the final product.
(If you do not use a cure accelerator like Smoked Meat Stabilizer, then hold in a refrigerator for approximately 12 hours or overnight before cooking)Thermal Processing
Either hang on smoke sticks or lay on racks in your smokehouse or oven. Just be sure to leave a slight gap between the snack sticks. A simple cooking schedule you can follow is here:
120F for 15 minutes
130F for 30 minutes
140F for 30 minutes
150F for 30 minutes
175F until internal meat temp of 150F and hold temp for 5 minutes (or 160F)
(keep humidty as high as possible; add water pan to smokehouse)Cooling & Stripping Casings
To help prevent wrinkling we need to shower the hot dogs when they are done cooking or put them in an ice water bath. It should only take around 10-15 minutes to get the temperature to drop down. After they are cool, you can easily strip the cellulose casings off the hot dogs. Then, we’ll let them set out for about 1 hour before moving to the refrigerator/freezer. After we are totally done with the cooling process, then we will package in vacuum pouches for longer term storage.
Wrap up
Walton’s has everything you need (except the meat) to make great hot dogs at home, plus we have the knowledge to help you perfect your own processes. If you have any questions or need help in your process, please share your questions or comments below.
Other Notes
1. For Home Processors 2 Qts Will Make Stuffing Easier (Return to text)
2. If you do not use a cure accelerator like Encapsulated Citric Acid or Smoked Meat Stabilizer, then after it has been stuffed into its casing hold in a refrigerator for approximately 12 hours or overnight (Return to text)
Place a small pan of water in the bottom of smokehouse during entire cooking cycle to help increase humidity
If your smoker, smokehouse, dehydrator, or oven cannot reach temperatures as low as 120F, just start as low as possible and slowly increase the temperature over timeWatch WaltonsTV: How To Make Homemade Hot Dogs
Shop waltonsinc.com for Cellulose Sausage Casings
Shop waltonsinc.com for Collagen & Natural Casings
Shop waltonsinc.com for Hot Dog Seasoning
Shop waltonsinc.com for Sausage Stuffers
Austin Can you please confirm quantity of ice water for your 25LB hot dog recipe? Your page suggests 2 quarts but your video suggests 1 quart? Thank you.
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Jerry Ogden I have changed it to 1 quart of water and added a note that 2 quarts will make stuffing easier. Thanks!
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hamm460 Yes, after cooking you still want to put them in an ice bath. That stops the cooking process, if it is easier you can shower them for 20 minutes, 1 minute on and then 1 minute off with a fan pointed at them
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I’m planning to make skinless hotdogs using cellulose casings as in your video, my understanding is that these casings are non-permeable and will not allow smoke to penetrate into the meat. Do you still apply smoke or does it have no value in the thermal process?
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With the Cellulose casing they are impermeable, so no value I can see personally.
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bpschuebel I am fairly certain these are permeable but I will get verification on that and update this post.
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Would like to make turkey hot dogs and saw your video on turkey brats. Would you recommend adding carrot fiber and cold phosphates to the hot dogs as you did the turkey brats? Anything else you would recommend when making turkey dogs? Thank you for your thoughts.
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mbroos What is your fat content going to be? My best recommendation would be to add pork fat and then use just sure gel, that would give you the best finished product. Aside from the cold phos and carrot fiber would work but carrot fiber is going to be better in a fresh product and I am assuming you want to smoke these? Honestly, you might still be better off just using sure gel, it already has some phosphate in it though so don’t use that and cold phosphate together, that could make it taste like soap.
So, add 25% pork fat and use sure gel, or add cold phosphate and carrot fiber. Either will work but the pork fat and sure gel will be a better overall product
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Jonathan - thank you for the feedback. I was hoping to do all turkey to try to make it a little more healthy. You are correct that I would like to smoke these. Unless you have additional thoughts, I will use the recipe above (which includes the sure gel) and see how it goes. Will do a small batch in the event it is too dry and becomes food for the dog.
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Jonathan - made first batch of hot dogs, 3.5 lbs venison, 1.5 lbs pork fat; used the above recipe for 5lbs, no cheese, and no smoked meat stabilizer (kept overnight in refrigerator then smoked the next day using the above schedule). Noticed there was a little solidified fat between the hot dogs and celluose casing but it wasn’t a lot. Tasted more like a brat than a hot dog but it was the consistency that was most un-hot dog like. It was softer and not as rubbery/flexible as a hot dog. I did use a meat mixer (about 10 min) and it was very tacky when completed and added about 6 oz of water. Any idea of what I did wrong or how to make them a better consistency. Too much fat? Mixed for too long? Thanks.
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Jonathan - made first batch of hot dogs, 3.5 lbs venison, 1.5 lbs pork fat; used the above recipe for 5lbs, no cheese, and no smoked meat stabilizer (kept overnight in refrigerator then smoked the next day using the above schedule). Noticed there was a little solidified fat between the hot dogs and celluose casing but it wasn’t a lot. Tasted more like a brat than a hot dog but it was the consistency that was most un-hot dog like. It was softer and not as rubbery/flexible as a hot dog. I did use a meat mixer (about 10 min) and it was very tacky when completed and added about 6 oz of water. Any idea of what I did wrong or how to make them a better consistency. Too much fat? Mixed for too long? Thanks.
vvsarpsjr What was your recipe and grind??
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Well I can only say When I do game I’ll do 60-40 pork butt. Sometimes 50-50. Never had a problem with that ratio. Outside of the greasy issue. How did it taste. I’ll add just fat but not often if my butt is a little lean. Pork is normally 30% fat. Could be a fat resource issue. Joe
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When I do game and I know there are people that don’t want to eat Bambi I do 50-50. They never know. To them. It tastes like great pork sausage 🤫
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vvsarpsjr It is unlikely that at 10 minutes you overmixed it. The fact that you had some fat between the casing and the meat means something happened with your bind. The 5 lb batch, what mixer did you use? It is possible that it just wrapped around the axle and didn’t get worked by the paddles? If you used the 20 lb then I doubt it this was your problem.
Did you use a binder? Did you grind 3 times? Hot dogs are made with either a bowl chopper or an emulsion plate to fully breakdown the protein. If you don’t have a chopper or an emulsion plate for your grinder (not really available for retail) then a 3rd grind with your 1/8" plate is probably your best bet.
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Hi Joe B - recipe was 3.5 lb venison, 1.5 lb pork fat, ground 3 times, first through 3/8", second and third through 1/8"; 4.8 oz Excalibur Hot Dog Seasoning, 1.2 oz sure gel binder, 0.2 oz Sure Cure, 6 oz water.
vvsarpsjr If your going to use pork fat not pork butt i would ratio 4lbs to 1lb. Pork butt ratio 3.5lbs-1.5lbs. If you have a fatty issue i would think there was too much fat in the batter, my thoughts. Could have lost the emulsified state, batter with water / fat separation, but my thought is too much fat to meat .
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