Here are the steps I followed to make homemade need frankfurters, aka hot dog wieners. I’m fortunate to have a bowl chopper. I’ve seen people online using food processors. Looks like a processor works if anyone wants to try it themselves, but don’t plan on a large batch.

I began with a classic frankfurter recipe and decided to make an all beef frank with 20% fat. 20% was fine but if you want a smoother bite, go for 25% or 30%.

I had a beef shoulder clod. I cut the meat for the grinder, keeping the fat and the lean separated.

Ran the lean and the fat through the grinder.

I weighed the meat into batches and placed each portion in the freezer for an hour or so to get it nice and cold. I think the shoulder was 27 pounds. I gave up emulsifying at 20 pounds. And I gave up stuffing at 15 pounds. A whole shoulder was a lot to process in small batches with the bowl chopper.

It’s important to keep the meat cold because the bowl chopper will cause it to warm up. Too hot and you will lose some of the emulsification properties you want.

This step is what makes a hot dog different from the smoked sausage that we know. Smoked sausage (that we are used to) is not emulsified.

Ran the lean meat for a few minutes, then added the fat, the seasoning, and the Prague powder #1. I let that run for a while then added ice to keep the temperature down. You want to add water to your hot dogs to keep them moist. You will lose water during cooking, so adding water helps keep it moist. Adding water in the form of ice serves two purposes.

The emulsified meat and fat.

Stuffed the meat into a 22mil collagen casing. I wanted to get a non-edible cellulose casing (remove after smoking) but wasn’t able to get it in time. 22mil was the best size I could get. It was what I’d refer to as a normal hot dog size (the normal skinny size, not a larger plump size). Ideally, I’d want a 25-28mil to give it a little more size.

It’s best to use twine to tie the links instead of twisting them as the twisted links are hard to keep with collagen casings. I was doing too much to fool with it, but I highly recommend using twine to tie a knot in between each link.

Smoked the dogs on the offset. I admit, I overlooked this process and had a learning curve. I’ve made hot dogs but never used an offset to smoke them. I thought they would smoke quicker than they did and wasn’t putting much effort into my smoker. I’ll be prepared to smoke them much better next time. I planned to smoke at 180 to an internal temp of 160, but my temperatures were all across the board.

Dogs came off the pit and were given an ice water bath to cool them down.

Half of the dogs after the ice water bath. You can see the casing on some of the ends, another reason to tie a knot with twine.

The beef franks had a great flavor. There’s recipes for “American style” franks that use garlic and onion, but I opted for the traditional recipe. I could have let the meat chop a little longer in the bowl chopper, but overall, great hot dog. I had 15 pounds of beef hot dogs to share with friends.