Mini-experiment: An American Classic

Mini-experiment: An American Classic - How long does it take for a Hot-Dog to split open? 

The warm Hot-Dogs are split open first 

For the first mini-experiment of this J-term I decided to work with an American Classic, the Hot-Dog. A Hot-Dog is a cooked sausage that is often grilled or steamed that is served in between a bun. Cooking the perfect Hot-dog is not as easy as it sounds and one of the major complication of the grilling process is the splitting of the Hot-dog. When the Hot-dog splits open valuable juices, aroma, and heat gets lost. Today’s experiment thus examined variables that influence the splitting of the Hot-dog. When using a grill meat is exposed to direct contact with extreme heat and fire.  The splitting of a Hot-dog or sausage is likely due to the internal structure of the meat. Build-up steam that attempts to leave the Hot-Dog will eventually break the outer layer to release the pressure that is built up inside. Temperature is thus crucial to preparing the perfect Hot-Dog. For the mini-experiment I examined the time it takes for a Hot-Dog to split depending on the initial temperature of the Hot-Dog.  The hypothesis of the experiment is that Hot-Dogs with a high initial temperature will split before Hot-dogs with a low initial temperature, because the Hot-Dogs with a higher initial heat will reach the splitting temperature sooner. The Null-hypothesis would thus be that there is no difference in time of splitting open between the warm and the cold Hot-Dogs. The independent variable will be the initial temperature of the Hot-Dog and the dependent variable will be the time it takes for the Hot-Dog to split. For the sake of the experiment I have placed one set of sausages in the freezer for 10 minutes and left the other sausages on the kitchen counter at room temperature. The Hot-Dogs will be categorized as either warm (room temperature) or cold (freezer). It is important to consider several standardized variables as the grilling-process largely influences the state of the Hot-Dogs. The Standardized variables that were taken into consideration were; the type and size of the meat/sausage, placement of the sausages on the grill, temperature of the grill and handling of the sausages while on the grill. I used an 8-pack of beef Hot-dogs and placed half the package in the freezer and left the other half on the counter. The size and type of the sausages is thus exactly the same for both testing groups. To ensure a controlled application of heat I alternated warm and cold sausages on the grill, making sure that none of the sausages were deliberately exposed to higher temperatures or fire conditions. The grill’s temperature is the same for all sausages as they were all placed on the grill at the same time. Lastly I made sure not to turn or touch any of the sausages until they split open. As (most) Hot-Dogs are already cooked when you buy them and you could theoretically eat them raw there were no instruction as how long to grill the sausages. After only 2.27 minutes the first warm Hot-Dog split open and shortly after the other warm Hot-Dogs followed. It wasn't until all the warm Hot-Dogs had split open that the cold Hot-Dogs split open as well. 

Results
With a stopwatch I timed how long it took for the Hot-Dogs to split open and I entered the results into the table below. I labeled the Hot-Dogs according to their initial temperature and place on the grill. The Warm Hot-Dogs are labeled with the letter W followed by the number 1 through 3 and the Cold Hot-Dogs are labeled with the letter C followed by the number 1 through 3.
                         

W  Warm Hot-Dogs	Cold Hot-Dogs
W1 -    3.14	C1 -   6.14
W2 -    2.27	C2 -   5.25
W3 -    2.38	C3 -   3.52

The Hot-Dogs are labeled according to their initial temperature; Warm/Cold

The average time until the warm Hot-Dogs split open was 2.59 minutes and 4.97 minutes for the cold Hot-Dogs.I portrayed the results of the average times into this graph to visualize the time it took for the Hot-Dogs to split open.

Yummy!

Conclusion
My hypothesis and prediction was correct. Although the sample size was small the results were accurate and consistent within the variable groups. More research could point towards actual temperatures of specific Hot-Dog and when they split. This experiment could be extended by looking at Standard Deviation Data and by using more Hot-Dogs to get a more detailed and deep set of data.

Even though all Hot-Dogs split open at one point they still tasted delicious!