I used to help my granny make it years ago and yes, there is alot of work to it. She had two big aluminum pans that she would put it in, cover each with cheese cloth, add a board that was cut to fit exactly inside the pans, and then she would put bricks on top for weight to press out the excess fat. She made a batch of regular souse, as she called it, and a batch of hot souse in which she had added lots of hot peppers to while she was grinding the head meat together with the boiled hams. She used all pork meat in hers. Every fall, when it was butchering time, we made souse meat, lard and cracklings, and I've cleaned my share of chitterlings too. Wouldn't eat em, but I cleaned em.