All-Beef Hot Dogs (American Frankfurters)

The American all-beef hot dog is a frankfurter made only of beef: a fine, smooth, cured emulsion stuffed into a thin sheep casing, lightly smoked, cooked through, and reheated to order. It is the dog under the Chicago-style build, at Nathan’s and in the kosher-style deli tradition, and the frank many Midwestern Coney stands use. Its ancestor is the German frankfurter and Vienna wiener, a pork-and-beef Brühwurst; America’s contribution was the bun, the cart, the regional toppings, and the all-beef version itself, which US labelling law recognises as its own category — a frank made from a single species must say so, as in “Beef Frankfurter”. Inside, it is a different craft from coarse sausage: lean protein, salt and ice are chopped into a paste that wraps every droplet of fat, and the batter must stay below about 55–59 °F or it breaks and greases out. Commercial franks owe their juicy springiness partly to phosphate, which this recipe uses. I have not made this one yet; the formula is built from Marianski’s hot dog and Coney Island frank to the federal frankfurter standard, and it is untested.

Ingredients

MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight

1,816 g / 4 lb beef chuck, about 18–20% fat, all sinew removed (80%)
454 g / 1 lb beef fat trim (brisket point or plate fat), firm (20%)

CURE AND FUNCTIONAL (% of meat weight)

41 g / 1.4 oz fine salt (1.8%)
5.7 g Cure #1 (pink salt, 6.25% sodium nitrite) (0.25%) — 2.5 g/kg × 2.27 kg = 5.7 g; 2.5 g × 6.25% = 156 mg nitrite per kg = 156 ppm, the USDA ceiling for comminuted products
9.1 g sodium tripolyphosphate (keeps the batter juicy; USDA cap 0.5% of finished weight) (0.4%)
1.1 g sodium erythorbate (cure accelerator; optional) (0.05%)
11 g dextrose (0.5%)
45 g / 1.6 oz nonfat dry milk powder (2%)
340 g / 12.0 oz crushed ice, weighed (about 340 g / 12 oz) (15%)

SEASONING (% of meat weight)

6.8 g sweet paprika (0.3%)
4.5 g white pepper (0.2%)
2.3 g coriander, ground (0.1%)
1.1 g nutmeg or mace (0.05%)
3.4 g mustard, ground (0.15%)
2.3 g garlic powder (0.1%)
3.4 g onion powder (0.15%)
24–26 mm sheep casing, about 20 ft / 6 m, linked at 5–6 in / 13–15 cm

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Mustard

In the collection: this is a beef Old-Fashioned Bologna batter in a thin casing; Knackwurst and Bockwurst are its German cousins in the collection. It is the dog for Chicago-Style Hot Dog and Detroit Coney Dog.
Everything cold, first: cube the beef and fat, keep them separate, and chill to 28–32 °F / −2–0 °C. Chill the grinder head, plate, the food-processor bowl and blade. In an emulsion, temperature is the recipe: the dive’s emulsions page gives about 59 °F / 15 °C as the ceiling for a pork emulsion and 55 °F / 13 °C as the working target off the machine. Beef fat is firmer and a little more forgiving; aim for 55 °F anyway.
Grind fine: grind the lean and the fat separately through a 3 mm (1/8 in) plate, then refreeze them 20 minutes. Marianski triple-grinds for his Coney Island frank; with a food processor to finish, twice is enough.
Protein first: in the processor (work in two batches), run the lean with the salt, Cure #1, phosphate, erythorbate and about a third of the ice until it is a sticky, shiny paste, 1–2 minutes. This extracts the protein that will coat the fat. Fat added before this step has nothing to hold it.
Then fat, then the rest: add the fat and another third of the ice and process until smooth; add the remaining ice, the milk powder, dextrose and spices and process until it is a uniform, glossy, pink batter. Check the temperature with a probe after each stage. If it reaches 55 °F / 13 °C, stop and chill the bowl. Over 59 °F the emulsion will break in the smoker and the dogs will be greasy and crumbly.
Test-poach: drop a spoonful into 170 °F / 77 °C water for 5 minutes. It should set firm, springy and smooth with no fat pooling. If it weeps fat, the batter got warm or the fat was too much for the protein.
Stuff and link: stuff into sheep casing without trapped air (a vertical stuffer, slow) and twist into 5–6 in / 13–15 cm links. Hang on smoke sticks so the links do not touch.
Dry and smoke: dry at 130 °F / 54 °C, damper open, 30–45 minutes until the casing is dry to the touch. Smoke at 140–160 °F / 60–71 °C for about an hour, until a light reddish-brown. Marianski: smoke at 140 °F for 1 hour.
Poach: move the links into water held at 170–175 °F / 77–79 °C — never boiling, which splits casings and breaks the emulsion — until the centre reaches 160 °F / 71 °C, about 15–20 minutes. (Marianski finishes at 154–158 °F / 68–70 °C, the commercial target; 160 °F is the household figure.)
Shower and bloom: plunge into iced water 5–10 minutes so the casing does not wrinkle, hang 30 minutes to dry and darken, cut the strings into singles, and refrigerate. They keep about a week; freeze the rest. Reheat by steaming, simmering below a boil, or on a griddle until hot through (165 °F / 74 °C).

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The procedure follows Marianski’s “Hot Dog” (40% beef, 35% pork, 25% back fat; 1.8% salt; Cure #1 2.5 g/kg; white pepper, paprika, mace, garlic; 15% ice; 24–26 mm sheep casing; smoke 140 °F 1 h; poach at 162 °F to 154–158 °F) and his “Frankfurter Coney Island” (70% beef, 30% pork; nutmeg and red pepper; hot smoke 60–70 °C; cook to 68–70 °C). Deviations: (1) all beef, with beef fat replacing pork fat; (2) phosphate, erythorbate, dextrose and milk powder added — the dive’s own emulsions page names phosphate as most of the gap between a home frank and a commercial one; (3) 160 °F internal rather than 154–158 °F. Untested.

What the law says. 9 CFR 319.180 governs frankfurters, franks, hot dogs, wieners and bologna in the US: the finished product “shall not contain more than 30 percent fat”, and while water or ice may be used to help chopping and to dissolve the cure, it “shall contain no more than 40 percent of a combination of fat and added water.” A frank made from one species is labelled with it — “Beef Frankfurter”. This formula’s arithmetic: about 28% fat in the meat block (80% chuck at ~18% fat plus 20% trim at ~70%), diluted by 15% ice and ~3% dry ingredients, gives roughly 24% fat and 13% added water in the raw batter — 37% combined, inside the limit, and lower after cooking loss.

Where the hot dog came from. The sausage is German — the frankfurter and the Vienna wiener, both fine cured pork-and-beef Brühwurst — and German immigrants were selling sausages in buns from New York carts by the 1860s. The famous inventions are weaker than they sound: the dive records that the 1901 Tad Dorgan “hot dog” cartoon was never found and that Dorgan was not in New York until 1903, that “hot dog” was college slang in print by 1894–95, and that Bruce Kraig found no good evidence for Charles Feltman’s 1871 Coney Island cart. All-beef franks are commonly said to owe much of their American standing to the kosher meat trade, which could not use pork.

Variations. Skinless: stuff into 24–26 mm cellulose casing, cook, chill, and peel — the skinless frank is a 1920s American invention and the most common hot dog sold. Pork-and-beef: Marianski’s 40/35/25 formula is the classic Coney and Vienna-style frank. Natural-casing snap is what Chicago and Michigan Coney stands insist on. A New York “dirty water” dog is held in a spiced simmering brine.

Sourcing and gear. Sheep casing (24–26 mm); a probe thermometer; a food processor of at least 12 cups, worked in batches; sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium erythorbate from sausage-supply houses. A bowl chopper does this better than any processor, and the dive says plainly that home franks are the hardest thing in ordinary sausage-making.

Still open. No commercial all-beef frank formula is published to compare. The point at which beef-only franks became a distinct American category is not dated here.

Read more on the site. The Industrial Sausage · American Regional