One of the fastest ways to go out of business is to serve a tasteless, mushy excuse for a hot dog at your cart. In today’s lesson, let’s find out how to avoid that.

Cody writes…

Hey Steve my biggest question that I can’t find any where is. How long can the hot dogs sit in water before the taste of the dog chances? What do you recommending how long to keep them in before they become waste? 

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You Must Experiment. Different brands of hot dogs have widely varying holding times, especially in water. Do a taste test yourself at home. You don’t even need a cart to do this. Here’s how…

Put six dogs in hot water and taste one every ten minutes. You will find out how long your particular hot dogs can hold up.

Don’t ever leave hot dogs in boiling water. You’ll turn them into mush. Your hot holding water should be somewhere around 160 degrees.

Here’s a Neat Little Trick. I get my dogs up to temperature fast in boiling water, then immediately transfer them to my steamer where they will last a loooong time without going mushy or losing their flavor.

Thoughts Slingers?

-Steve
HDP

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