Despite being a staple of American cookouts, it’s actually possible to screw up hot dogs while making them at home if you aren’t careful. Those franks often split wide open as they cook, an annoyance that makes it impossible to achieve the perfect level of doneness for a hot dog.
To some, hot dogs bursting is just a natural part of making them. But for Mike Williams, the vice president of sales and marketing at Kenyon Grills, it doesn’t have to be this way. He explained that you can avoid this phenomenon entirely on the grill by just being conscious of how you are managing the heat.
“Although high heat can get you a crispy dog if that’s what you like, it can also cause them to split if the exterior cooks too quickly and pressure builds inside. That’s most likely to happen if you’re cooking over a direct flame,” Williams explained to The Takeout. “High heat itself isn’t the issue; it’s how evenly that heat is distributed,” he clarified. Simply overcooking your franks can also lead to splitting. As for the best way to grill your hot dogs evenly, arranging your charcoal properly may be the key to success that you are missing.
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Read more: The Highest And Lowest Quality Hot Dogs You’ll Find At The Grocery Store
The Casing Influences Whether Hot Dogs Split On The Grill
A person slicing open hot dogs as they cook on the grill – Johner Images/Getty Images
Beyond unevenly cooking them, another reason your hot dogs are bursting could be the casings. “If you’re using a hot dog with a thinner casing, which is often those with natural casings, they can be more prone to splitting, although they can crisp up better,” Williams revealed. “Those with synthetic or collagen casings are a little less likely to split.” So if you feel strongly about grilling being one of the best ways to cook hot dogs, casing type may be something to strongly consider when selecting hot dogs at the grocery store.
Nevertheless, if you’ve already learned to control the heat as you cook your hot dogs and they still burst open, there is another way to try and keep them from doing so. With a technique known as butterflying, slice down the whole length of the dog (but don’t cut clean through). This allows the steam to release during the cooking process, completely solving the splitting issue. Williams also advocated for this method for these additional reasons: “It cooks more evenly that way, gets extra crispy, and you get a nice char on the inside too. Simple move, way better hot dog.”
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