Kayem Offers Top Ten Tips for Grilling the Perfect Frank

CHELSEA, Mass., May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Let's be frank.  With all due respect to baseball and the beach, nothing marks the beginning of summer better than a delicious hot dog served at a backyard barbecue with family and friends. During Hot Dog Season, Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans typically consume seven billion hot dogs. That's more than 818 hot dogs consumed every second during that period.

So how can you show that you're hot stuff behind the grill this summer?  Kayem Foods, Inc. (www.kayem.com), New England's favorite hot dog manufacturer for more than 100 years, offers its Top Ten Tips and Tricks for Preparing the Perfect Frank:

1. Natural Casing franks are the absolute best for a BBQ, because they seal in all the juice and flavor.  Remember, when grilling natural casing franks, that they are much more delicate and may split if they get too hot.
2. Hot dogs are at their best grilled evenly over medium heat.
3. For the juiciest franks, use hot dogs made from beef or beef & pork. Turkey dogs or chicken dogs are usually less firm and a bit mushier.
4. Never pierce the casing!  Those three diagonal cuts so many of us put in our hot dogs before grilling provide absolutely no taste improvement or enhancement.  In fact, much of the natural juices and spices run out of these slices, diminishing the hot dog's taste and plump appearance.
5. Never leave uncooked hot dogs in the sun for more than five minutes, or you risk promoting bacteria.  Just take your box of franks right from the refrigerator or cooler straight to the grill.
6. Use tongs! When you use a fork, you can pierce the casing and lose the juice and the flavor.
7. Don't barbecue frozen hot dogs. They may look cooked on the outside, but they are rarely properly finished on the inside.
8. Toast your buns!  Why put a "hot" dog in a cold bun?  Better to lightly toast your bun.  The crunch of the bun goes well with the snap of a natural casing frank.  
9. Coat the grill surface with a non-stick spray before cooking.
10. Keep your grill as clean as possible to maintain even grilling and retain the full hot dog flavor.  You don't want last week's cookout to impact the tastiness of your grilled franks!  Scrape grease away with a brass wire brush, soapy cloth or special barbecue cleaners.

Kayem Foods, founded in 1909, is the largest meat processor in New England.  Owned and operated by the same family for more than 100 years, the company manufactures Kayem Franks, the #1 brand of franks sold in New England. Best known for its Old Tyme Natural Casing franks, Kayem produces over 120 varieties of hot dogs and 320 varieties of deli meats, sausage and dinner hams under the Kayem, al fresco, Schonland's, McKenzie, Triple M, Genoa, Jordan's, Deutschmacher, Kirschner, and Essem brands.  In 2009, Kayem Foods began manufacturing and distributing the iconic Fenway Franks line of hot dogs, the Official Hot Dog of the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park. In 2010, Kayem also became the official Hot Dog and Sausage of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team.

SOURCE Kayem Foods