Get out all of the ingredients before you start.

Melt the butter and set aside.

Measure out a little more milk than you need and heat the milk to 105 degrees.  The milk cannot be too hot or else the yeast won't work.

In a large mixing bowl place on the kitchen scale, tare the measurement so it subtracts the weight of the bowl.  Then make sure the scale is measuring in grams.

Start to pour the warm milk into the bowl until it reaches 315 grams of milk.  It's okay if you go over one or two grams.

Now add 37 grams of melted butter to the milk mixture.

Add 53 grams of sugar to the milk mixture.

Add 5 grams of yeast to the milk mixture.

Cover the milk mixture with plastic wrap and set aside for about 5 minutes.  You will start to see bubbles and this means you have active yeast.  If you do not have bubbles, your yeast may be bad.  Start over with new yeast if you don't see bubbles.

Now remove the plastic wrap and add 460 grams of bread flour and 7 grams of pink salt to the mixture.  You don't want to add salt to the milk mixture because the salt would kill the yeast.  Sugar feeds the yeast.

Use a spoon to stir the dough scraping all the bits for the edge of the bowl.  This dough will be sticky.

Sprinkle out some flour on the the counter and place the sticky dough on top of the flour.

Start to knead the dough.  To knead the dough, you will sprinkle the top of the dough with a small amount of flour.  You will use the heal of your palm to press down and away from you and then turn the dough back in and turn the dough to the next side to continue kneading the dough.  You will keep adding light sprinkles of flour every time you feel the dough get sticky.  You will be done kneading it when the ball of dough is very soft and it no longer is sticky and doesn't need flour.  It will be nice and smooth without any cracking in the dough.  This process will take about 5 minutes in total.

Place the dough in a clean bowl that has been lightly sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and allow it to set in a warm environment (or on the countertop) for at least 30 minutes.  This is when the dough will rise.  The dough will be ready when it has doubled in size.

At this point, you can place the dough in the refrigerator to stop the rising and make the pretzel dogs whenever you are ready.  Or make them right away.

Pour the dough onto the countertop (no flour needed this time).  Roll the dough into a log shape that is about 3 inches thick and about 12 inches long.

Use a knife and cut the dough right in the center of the log shape.  This will evenly distribute the size of each dough ball.  Then cut each half in half again.  This will leave you with 4 pieces of dough.  They each will be about 3 inches long.  Cut each piece into 3 more pieces.  This will give you 12 each balls of dough.

I like to boil the hot dogs before using them in this recipe to give them color and more flavor.  You don't have to though.  My favorite hot dogs to use are the all beef hot dogs from Costco.  Those are delicious.

Now it's time to prepare your baking soda water bath.  Place hot water and baking soda in a bowl and mix.  Set aside.

Grab a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper.  Spray the parchment paper with nonstick cooking spray.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Take one dough ball and start rolling in back and forth with flat hands to create a long piece of dough in the shape of a snake.

Take the end of the hot dog and start rolling the hot dog along the strip of dough as it covers the hot dog completely.  Hold both ends of the dough and dunk the hot dog into the baking soda water bath.  Then place the pretzel dog onto a kitchen towel to allow it to drip off any excess water.

Now start making the next pretzel dog by repeating the same steps above.  After you make each pretzel dog you will take the one you dunked in the baking soda water and place it on the baking sheet.

Complete all the dough balls into pretzel dogs.

Now make your egg wash by placing egg and water in a bowl and whisking it.  Use a brush to spread the egg wash onto each pretzel dog on the baking sheet.

Sprinkle pretzel salt or any other topping you choose onto each pretzel dog.

Place it in the middle of the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the pretzel dogs are golden brown.

Serve warm with mustard and enjoy!