Best Meat Breeds

[Mosey2003]

I'm not sure how you'd go about steam scalding.

Setup and tear down is the worst part to me, too. But I'm hauling out a sink table, buckets, a drum plucker, and the turkey fryer and scalding pot. Plus a card table, if I'm doing more than a couple. The turkey fryer isn't that bad to set up and put away, really. I leave mine connected to the tank, so all I'm doing is carrying it back and forth from the garage and grabbing the pot and thermometer. I also use a probe thermometer with a wire and an alarm, so it beeps at me when it hits 140 and I don't have to keep an eye on it.

 

[Mosey2003]

Also, the nice thing about the dual purpose birds is that while their breasts are much much much smaller than the Cornish X, depending on how you eat chicken that can be a feature rather than a bug. If you're good with a filet knife, those thin breasts are actually really handy for things like sandwiches or salads, because they're thin enough to cook quickly. Cornish X breasts really should be sliced down if you want to put them on a sandwich. Or pounded out and cut. But, if you mostly use the breasts as fried chicken or if you usually cut into chunks for casseroles, the DP ones wouldn't be ideal for that.

 

[RUNuts]

This is about the most basic and simplistic buildout of a"rocket stove" I have seen I didn't watch past the 2:35 mark to see if they covered the front blocks for air regulation or adding in a 1 inch air space using something like hardware cloth as needed to supply your fuel with oxygen. I also would go one block higher than these folks did.

But I like free and have plenty of free cured sticks to use for fuel on the property. I certainly wouldn't waste money on a turkey fryer or gas tank refills when I can spend 15-20 bucks one time and then have the rest for free to scald birds.

Edit-Opps forgot the link:

I'm playing with the rocket stoves also. Small combustion chamber has to be tended and fed quite often and if I'm doing everything myself, could be challenging keeping the water hot. With the propane burner, I can't turn it down enough so it gets turned off, used and have to relight it every 2-5 birds.

Do spray the carcasses down before putting them in the water. Wets the feathers to keep your water level up and knocks most of the icky bits off. CX get icky with lots of room. In confined spaces, they get gross.

Acre4me makes a great point. DP and heritage breeds have LOTS of feathers compared to CX. Ducks have more and they are water resistant.

 

[AllenK RGV]

@RUNuts might be worth hearing from here I'm pretty much sure he follows the feed to processed weight ratios and time until harvest. Also he is still new enough at it to remember most of his mistakes.

 

[TheAmundsons]

Thank you for the advice! It would just be me and my husband processing them and we would probably make a day/weekend out of it just to get it all done at once. I appreciate the advice on allowing CX to forage. Our current flock free ranges all night and we just lock them in at night, so our meat birds would do the same. We don't necessarily have much interest in dual purpose, other than to be able to hatch out our chicks instead of having to keep buying them. We currently have a BR hen, so maybe we'll try to get a BR roo and a few other dual purpose hens as well for breeding. We typically order our birds from McMurray, any word on their quality of dual purpose birds as far as meat goes?

 

[NHMountainMan]

For fast meat go straight to the Cornish Cross (CX). Not the tastiest or firmest, but quick, cheap and better than grocery stores. 8 weeks to butcher.

For Dual Purpose (DP), hatchery stock tends to be smaller and geared to egg laying, but they eat just fine. Expect 16 or more week grow outs and less meat per bird. Better taste, firmer flesh and will forage given enough room.

Meat birds other than CX that includes Freedom Rangers, Dixie Rangers, Imperial Broilers and all the other broilers can be explained by saying slower growing (12-24 weeks to butcher) birds that can get as large as the CX.

I started with CX. All the bad things you hear are not due to the breed, but the care they receive. They will outgrow their bodies and hang around the feeders unless you make them forage. The couch potatoes of the chicken world.

Research. See what everyone says here. Then figure out how much time, money and effort you have or want to invest in good food.

For butchering, take your time. Adding stress to your life will sour the experience for all involved. 20 birds is a good number. Enough to keep you from making pets and few enough to handle easily. I'll butcher 2-7 a day depending on how I feel. If you have helpers, you can process all at once. No reason to, though. The advantage of slow food is supposed to be healthy and enjoyable. All parts, not just the eating.

Best wishes!

Can I ask - if you process 2-7 per day, do you still scald the birds, or dry pluck or skin? To me, the most difficult part of processing was heating the water to scald the carcass.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I used to scald and pluck but where I was doing it was a bit of a fire hazard, near a shed with straw for mulch used in the garden. I'd start the water heating and then do all the set-up. Sometimes I was still waiting for water to heat when I was ready, especially on cooler days. I generally do 5 to 7 at a time, roughly 5 month old cockerels, 8 month old pullets, or "spent" hens. I cut them into serving pieces as I butcher and my wife prefers them skinless. They go through a couple of juvenile molts, and the spent hens are generally molting when I butcher them. Plucking a molting bird is no fun. Now I just skin them all. It works better for me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

while Cornish x are more tender and similar to grocery type, I would have to disagree they are “mushy”. Grocery store birds often have adds, such as saline solution, etc, and I often find cheap grocery birds “mushy” but not home processed Cornish x.

That brings up an interesting to me point. You age a bird to get past rigor mortis. Marinading a bird adds flavor but the acid in the marinade also breaks down fibers, makes it less toothsome. If you leave a young tender bird in it too long it can make it mushy.

My understanding with brining was that the salt caused the meat to hold moisture. Not very important if you are cooking it with a moist method but quite helpful if you use a drier method like fry or grill. Of course you can use different brining recipes that might also marinade, but you've got me wondering if the salt in brining helps tenderize the meat. I would not expect the commercial operations to add anything special to their brine to tenderize, 6 to 8 week old chicken doesn't need it and it would just run up their costs.

 

[RUNuts]

but you've got me wondering if the salt in brining helps tenderize the meat.

I don't believe so. I've had salted meats that are tough. They soaked in brine solutions for a while and still were tough.

Acids and enzymes attack the proteins in the muscles to tenderize them. Aging meat also does this.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Can I ask - if you process 2-7 per day, do you still scald the birds, or dry pluck or skin? To me, the most difficult part of processing was heating the water to scald the carcass.

I had a question regarding scalding if I may. Can't you just steam scald them? I'm lazy and were I ever to process want a lazy way out vs boiling a big pot of water. If that isn't possible I imagine the scalding process would have to be done on a homebuilt "Rocket Stove" as that is a huge waste of energy vs burning all the fallen twigs and branches in my yard.