Do the amount of holes cut into a hotdog affect the circumference when cooked? By Alejandro Ossio and Bryant Tello

A Hotdog is a sausage that is very moist and different to a regular sausage, it is originally made from a mixture of pork and beef fats with meat. It is often eaten with different condiments and on a hotdog bun. Hotdogs were first originated in Frankfurt, Germany. As we found out, when you cook a hotdog it will expand from its original size. But by also cooking certain amount of holes in a hotdog it will have a effect on the way it looks afterwards. This is because there is a lot of moisture and gasses inside of the dog, and when being cooked under heat pressure is building up inside and they are trying to escape causing the dog to expand and rip in places. Now Knowing this information we will prove if by poking ½ inch holes into these hotdogs if it will release too much or too little gas causing the hotdog to increase, decrease or remain the same in circumference.

Methodology First we are going to purchase two different brands of hotdogs, Oscar Meyer and Ball Park. Then we will open the packages and make observations and measurement in all parts and record them down. Once that is done we will begin to poke holes with pre-measured toothpicks in the hot dogs, first we will poke 0 holes in one, 3 half inch in an other, 5 half inch in another, 8 half inch in another and 1 half inch in an other. We will do this to both brands of hot dogs and after that is done we will begin to cook the hot dogs in the same amount of water at 100 C for about 9 minutes in the same pot. After the dogs have cooked we will remove them from the pot and record all observations and measurements, we will measure in the both ends and in the middle. Once we have gathered all of this data we will compare both findings to see which has a greater circumference and if one is better in taste than the other.

DATA FOUND Number of holes pokedOscar MeyerBall Park Circumference before being cooked Number of holes pokedOscar MeyerBall Park Circumference after being cooked

Circumference increase Inches Hotdogs Our results proved that with Ball Park brand hotdogs expand more than Oscar Meyer with and without cuts.

Conclusion Our results proved that to get the plumpest hotdog you must poke from 1-3 holes into your wiener before cooking them in boiling water. If we were to repeat this experiment again we would substitute boiling them in water with cooking them in the microwave. We would also recommend using different brands.