Homemade Ham and Bacon....Yum! (pics, smoked sausage pic added)

[Kim_NC]

DH got a smoker grill for his birthday in mid-Oct. He's a natural! Checkout these photos of ham and bacon made from our own pastured pork. These meats are brined and then smoked. We add a rub to the bacon.

Taken at Thanksgiving. Shown here are a netted ham, two pork bellies (bacon sections) and ham hocks...just going on the grill.

These are photos of finished ham and bacon taken over the weekend - meats that DH smoked for Christmas:

He also tried a ring of smoked sausage - made from our own bratwurst. Didn't get a photo of it, but it was grand. We're currently brining more of it to smoke Friday for New Years. I'll try to get a pic of it next.

 

[annie3001]

that looks yummy!!

 

[WingingIt]

Looks delicious!

 

[Cowgirl71]

That looks SO good...

We're interested in pastured pork too. How did you do it? How did you keep them from digging everything up? What kind of fencing did you use to keep them in? We kept pigs before, but they were such escape artists. If the sturdy cattle panels were good, then they'd just dig under. We kept four hogs at a time in a one acre pasture. Sorta pasture raised, but not really enough space. They ate a lot of grain.

The pork was still a lot tastier than pork at the store though...

 

[walnuthollow]

That looks so good.

And to know it's all your own has to be a wonderful feeling!

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Oh my word! I must show this to my husband. His b-day is coming up in Feb, so that's a great gift we can both benefit from.

 

[Kim_NC]

Thanks to everyone for the compliments.
Quote:
Oh, they're going to dig up everything anyway. Well, unless you put a ring in their nose, which we refuse to do. We prefer to see them live a natural life.

We have their smaller 'yard' and shelter area enclosed with dog wire. This is their safe area for overnight. (Coyotes are a problem here....more of a concern when they're younger/smaller.) Our pastures are enclosed in cattle wire. Then we have an electric wire run around the inside of the fences - about 8" off the ground for both their yard and the larger pasture area. This teaches them a healthy respect for the fences. They won't dig under.

For the yard area, we also have electric run at 8" on the outside, to keep coyotes or other intruders from digging a way in.

Pigs are omnivores. That means they need protein, like chickens or we humans - grasses and weeds are not enough. So even on pasture, you'll have to supplement their diet to get the best growth. We give them a small amount of high protein organic feed per day, and a lot of 'waste' produce from our gardens and a local organic produce dealer. During Winter they also get hay....an average mix of grass/alfalfa hay. Alfalfa hay has a higher protein content.

ETA: We have some pictures of our hogs in their 'areas' posted on facebook. You can see some fencing in the pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29698&id=148784915148758

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
We got ours from a Lowe's box store. It's a Char-Griller Super Pro Charcoal Grill
http://www.lowes.com/pd_44754-49769..._prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_quantity_sold|1

We added the "Char-Griller Portable Charcoal Tabletop Grill" as a side fire box for building the actual fire and smoking. (See their link on right of page)

The total cost as shown on their site would be about $180....but we got both on sale for about 25% less since it was Fall and considered end-of-season.

I'm sure there are fancier/better set-ups. But this is working great for us for now.

 

[Cowgirl71]

Quote:
Thank you for all of the info!

Electric fencing is a great idea! We tried putting a strand of barbed wire at the bottom and it helped a lot but didn't work 100%. At the time we were unfamiliar with electric fencing. But then this year we were sort of forced to use it in order to keep the Jersey bull away from the Angus bull. It was very easy to use.

As far as digging up the pasture... If we keep hogs again we'll be either keeping them penned up or putting rings in their noses. We're cattle farmers, which makes us grass farmers as well.

We may not keep domestic hogs again though. There's a feral population in the area and hogs have been sighted closer and closer to us. They'll probably be on our farm by next year. Missouri Conservation wants them dead, "Shoot on sight." They're very aggressive and kill and eat fawns and wild turkey eggs and poults, and eat and destroy many other things, including cattle farmer's pastures. So when they inevitably get here we're gonna be eating a lot of "po'k."

I hear you about the water... We bought ours as weaners and had to keep them in a small pen because they'd easily get out of anything else. We'd change/refill the water twice a day when we went down to milk the cows. It was so much nicer after they'd doubled in size and we moved them to the one acre pasture with a creek. They loved it too!

 

[Talihofarms]

Nice pictures. Just curious what breed of hog? We raise Berkshires on an Organic level, mostly on grass. You are right about tearing things up. I use the rings though, pasture cost too much to destroy,,having said that we do let them loose in the garden after we are done, to till it up. Rings fall out quite a bit.


just my .02