Hi Everyone, I am preparing to process my first group of cornish x a week from tomorrow. For those of you who process at home, is there anything you wish you had remembered to do/have on hand/etc the first time? I'm a serious planner. I have butchered steers before so I'm not new to the processing game, but this will be my first time with poultry. I just want to have every tool at my disposal so I am fully prepared. Any thoughts on how long to age or preference on tools for cutting up birds? I am going to leave some whole and cut some into pieces and then vacuum seal. Does it matter if you age the whole carcass together or in pieces? Thank you all so much for your help!
Keep the scalding water at 140 degrees to prevent from cooking any of the meat. Any hotter and the skin will turn yellow and fall off the meat easier or tear during plucking. I like to use a butter knife to pinch between my thumb and the small pin feathers that are hard to pull out by hand. Good luck.
All I really want is a very sharp knife and a thermometer -- and even the thermometer is not critical, if you can test hot water with a finger. I also take a whetstone. I don't think it would matter whether you rest the meat before or after cutting up, though I'd cut up first, just to have the mess over with. I do like some dish soap in the scalding water; not necessary, but helpful. We find a few good strong clips, or whatever, to hang the bird after the kill, very handy. We string a short clothesline and have a few clips ready, and just clip it on a foot. If you will use killing cones, I suppose this is unnecessary, but we chop the head off. We keep a clean cooler ready, with lots of ice and water in it, so they get cold fast, but you've probably got a plan for that. I'd rather use fingernails than a tool to get the lungs out. This will be much easier to do after cutting up, for the ones you're going to cut up.
I list out pretty much everything I do here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-process-a-chicken-at-home I use a rope to hang from the legs, a bucket to drain blood into, my hot water canner for scalding, a thermometer, a scalpel, a cutting board, and bags and bowls for holding unwanted parts and wanted parts.
