Good Question

Good Question: Hot Dogs

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― Tonight's Good Question comes from Meredith in Vacaville. She says her six kids are always asking her exactly what's in a hot dog, so I went to Morant's Old Fashioned Sausage Kitchen in Sacramento to find out.

Derk Muehler makes hot dogs the old fashioned way. Here, they're called wieners, true to the man who invented them. "He named it after the city Vienna, which in German, they say 'Vien,' and that's where wieners come from."

It all starts with the mixture that goes into the hot dog. It's like a bread dough. "That's what meat looks like when it's ground up really fine."

Muehler says regulations these days only allow companies to mix in preservatives, but not him. "We use fresh pork and beef mixture and add it together with spices; salt, pepper, a little nutmeg."

He grinds it all up in a chopper, using just ice to make it stick together. "A lot of hot dogs that you buy at the stores are skinless, they get stuffed into an artificial casing then the casing gets peeled after the cooking process."

Not here. "I hate to say it because I know how people are, but they [the casing] are intestines that have been thoroughly cleaned."

The hot dogs end up in the smokehouse. "The wieners have been cooking in there now for about an hour and a half."

Then they get plopped into the hot water where they'll continue cooking for another 25 minutes. They have to cook between 160-170 degrees. "It keeps it from drying out."

When they come out, they get dunked in a cold water bath for another 15 or 20 minutes. Then, they're ready to go out on the counter.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration both regulate processed meats. The folks at Morant's are purists, but hot dogs can have things like liver, kidneys and hearts.

It has to say on the label it's made with "variety meat products" or "meat byproducts."

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)