Stop bringing your hot dogs – our tests prove that this 1 trick works

For a long time I resisted Spiral that my hot dogs cut – it felt a little childish and twee. I couldn’t help it two Types of rolls, a Frank would create a hate back like a maggot on a hamburger roll.

But the spiral cut has advantages that go beyond the aesthetic novelty. First, the method is the method of which the Hot Dog is cut into a coil-the dog, which means that it can run to edge in the bun, which saves them from bare bread. Second, it creates gripy little pockets in which spices can settle and can fulfill the taste in everyone. Third – and above all – increases the surface of the dog and enables additional browning and caramelization. For this reason, both Joshua Bousel and Daniel Gritzer either recommend a cut or spiral -containing skinless francs in theirs Hot Dog Grill Guide. (Although Daniel favors a slight swallowing, which he says is faster and less likely to be over cooked.)

But why stop at a skinless Frank? If the spiral cut for hot dogs works so well, why not other types of sausage? I decided to try five types of sausages: a skinless hot dog, a skinless chicken sausage, an Andouille sausage, an Italian sausage and a bratwurst. The hot dog and chicken sausage were boiled down while the other three were raw.

A small, sensible voice in my head said: When you cut into a raw sausage, it falls apart. It will cry fat onto the coals and pick up your dog in a soot blanket.

But a louder goblin voice said: What if you only see …?

How to spiral a sausage is cut off

Spiral cutting of a sausage is dead and difficult to visualize. A Video leader Help, but I will do my best to guide you through you here. First, skewer the sausage in the longitudinal direction. Then position your knife at an angle near one of the ends and cut it together until you hit the spit. Slowly turn the sausage away from them while cutting and keeping your knife at the same angle. Remove the skewer carefully and your reward is a sausage that looks like a telephone cable.

The spiral tailoring tests

For a simple comparison, I grilled every sausage in three ways: completely intact, with flat slashes on the opposite pages and spiral. I put my grill up for two zone heaters and kept the “hot” side below 350 ° F and cooked the sausages to temperature: 140 ° F (65.5 ° C) for the raw dogs (consistently with Kenji’s guide).

Finally I followed the Barbecue expert advice Meathead Goldwyn And cooked the sausages parallel to the Gitern (essentially between them) and not too vertical. In theory, it enables you to position the sausages in this way, only dive into the next gap like this Hot Dog Roller -Grills of the petrol station and even promote browning. But I made the choice of aesthetic disregard. I have already liked Congress with spiral cuts; I thought I could also give the sausage.

Will it be spirals?

Skinless hot dog

As expected, the skinless hot dog went off well among all three treatments. The intact dog was the juicy – and the least of the texturally interesting. The cut down dog nicely balanced juice and a little additional caramelization, but I preferred the spiral dog. The additional cracked edges gave the skinless dog a snapshot that caused a hot dog from natural sites (my preference, but more difficult to obtain in my pocket of the middle west). The spiral version also got the temperature faster than the intact and cut down dog observations really only be the time savings for one or two minutes.

Should you spiral it? Yes.

Chicken sausage

The chicken sausage behaved almost identically with the skinless Frank: the pre -cooked sausage, which was well together both by slitting and spiraling without drying out. Although the intact version was slightly wetter, the difference was light enough to make the additional browning a worthy compromise. In addition, the spiral -cut version came a little faster than the intact and scattered sausages, which was a profit for taste, texture and convenience.

Should you spiral it? Yes.

Sausage

When I turned to the raw sausages, I quickly went downhill. Fat cried out of the cut off and spiral-shaped Andouille sausages, which flare up on the grill. Even worse, my attempts to save the spiral sausage from soot, weakened his structural integrity-Jedes times on the cool side of the grill, the coil became a little more relaxed and fragile. Although the spiral was held together, I came close enough to the catastrophe that I did not recommend it. In addition, both the reduced and spiral versions lost a large part of their juice and their bite.

Should you spiral it? Keep your Andouille links intact.

Italian sausage

The Italian sausage thought worse even worse for the slashing and spiral cut treatments. Although both pierced sausages cooked much faster than the intact connection, they tasted as dry as a corn flake.

Should you spiral it? No, I don’t even recommend punch on it.

Bratwurst

The results for the bratwurst were less conclusive. The spiral -cut brat was again noticeably less juicy than the intacts, but not so dry that it was a dealbreaker. Embedded on a roll with a little herb and mustard packed in the wrinkles? I would eat it without a complaint. The additional length also eliminated dry bites of bodyless rolls. But to my surprise I had a slight preference for the crushed brat – it was almost as moist as the intact connection, but had a slightly relaxed, less dense texture. In addition, it cooked a little faster than the intact brat (although not as quickly as the spiral -shaped), which makes it a meaningful option with medium soil.

Should you spiral it? In most cases no. But they have my blessing to cut it (as long as they cook over low heat).

The judgment

So, will it spiral? Absolutely with some careful sacrificing and knife work. But the real question is should it spiral?

For pre -cooked sausages that consistently have a homogeneous texture, yes. The additional surface helps the browning and gives skinless dogs a snappy texture. But for most raw sausages I do not recommend cutting them – unless they are particularly short or cook for a lot that likes to play with their food.