Looking for more details on processing chickens

[Molpet]

Old hens

Older birds make the most flavorful broth.
I presser cook old birds for a couple hours and they make great pulled chicken

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Older birds make the most flavorful broth.
I presser cook old birds for a couple hours and they make great pulled chicken

Ive tried that still was tough so

 

[rjohns39]

Everything I've read here seems consistent with tried and true methods. I move my birds to be processed to the processing station the night before. That way they are much calmer when I do. I use the following methods for processing. My first year I put up over 850 pounds of chicken.

This is how I part a chicken.

 

[629864]

I'll go through the three things.

Aging is when you keep the bird long enough to let rigor mortis pass. If you cook the bird immediately (cook, not just butcher) rigor does not have time to set up. As Cassie mentioned, Mom would cook the bird immediately, no aging. no problems. You can tell when rigor has passed by the meat. If you have joints the joints should be really loose. With no joints the meat itself is very loose and limber, not stiff at all.

Brining is when you soak the meat in a salt and water solution, often when aging. There is some debate on whether the salt actually tenderizes the meat, I don't think it does directly but others do. What the salt does is retain moisture in the meat. If you are going to cook the meat a dry method like grilling or frying brining can help. If you cook it a wet method I don't see a lot of benefit in brining. You can add a salty taste at any part of the process.

Marinading is when you keep the meat in an acid solution. The marinade is usually wine, vinegar, or tomato based. The acid breaks down fiber in the meat. The stronger the acid and the longer it is left in the marinade the more the meat fiber breaks down. I don't consider a marinade necessary for really young chicken, might even turn it mushy, but for an older chicken it can really help. An example is Coq au Vin, how the French turn a tough old rooster into a gourmet meal.

You can add flavor at any stage. A lot of people use a marinade for that. The flavor itself doesn't affect tenderness but the acid will.


The others have covered this. The devil is in the details. The fresh meat you buy (poultry, beef, pork) has been handled and treated certain ways. That's going to include aging. You don't know how long it has been aged. They also don't know how you are going to store it. So they give the advice to cook it immediately, to a large extent because they don't trust the customer to know how to handle it.


I also like to get the innards out when I butcher and not wait. I just feel better about it. I'm making a mess while butchering, make one mess and get it over with. Again, the devil is in the details. If you study how they hang pheasant in Scotland they often leave the innards in for several days. The detail there is that it needs to be cool enough that the bacteria doesn't grow. I don't know the details in their techniques so I just clean them out. As mentioned in that article, a larger bird takes longer to cool down.

There is a reason hog killing time was in the fall after it turned colder. After Dad got a day job he did not have time to butcher our hogs himself. The country butcher he took it to had a huge walk-in cooler so he could age the meat, even in warmer weather.


If your dunking water is too hot or you leave the bird in the hot water too long the skin can tear when you pluck. That doesn't make plucking harder but makes for an ugly carcass. If you cook with the skin on and appearance is important to you that can be a problem. Personally I skin mine instead of pluck, my wife wants it skinless anyway, so I don't bother heating water to pluck.


We all have our own ways of doing these things. Whether you are urban, suburban, or rural can affect your options.

When I butcher I have two buckets. One is for the bits and pieces that I'm going to feed back to the flock immediately. I only save enough that they can finish it before night, I don't want the leftovers attracting predators though I don't worry about any blood left on the ground. The other bucket, which includes feathers, gets buried in my garden in an area that won't be disturbed for a while. The garden is fenced so dogs, coyotes and such can't dig it up. I used to bury it in my orchard. There I'd cover the area with wire weighted down with pavers so critters could not dig it up.

If you are going to put the offal in your trash you might want to freeze it so it doesn't stink before pick-up. Some garbage pick-ups don't take the leftovers from butchering.

Wow! Thank you so much for taking the time to write out such an informative and helpful reply!

I am so appreciative of everyone's generosity with their own experiences. If we ever get good weather long enough for me to get our fruit trees in the ground, I'll be able to focus on putting all of these tips to good use.

 

[629864]

I place a trash bag under my killing cone to catch the blood and head. I pull off its head in the killing cone when it stops kicking. I tie the trash bag up and put it in my freezer with the guts and put it out on rubbish day.
My small feather plucker sits on two 2x4 across an eight inch high planter box. I dig a hole for the feathers before I use the plucker. The feathers decompose very fast, Id say with in one month.

That's a lot faster than I'd have expected. I may bury them as well. Or put them deep in the compost like @MadGardener does.

 

[3KillerBs]

Up until the early '50's, chickens sold in the market were defeathered but that was all. They had their head feet and innards intact. You drew (gutted) them when you got home. If you look in some of the older cookbooks you will find directions on how to draw a chicken.

I have a 1938 cookbook that assumes only that the chicken has been killed and plucked. It recommends not allowing the butcher to draw the bird because he'll make too large an opening.

It also recommends “If there seems to be any indication that it has been kept too long, wash with water in which a little soda has been dissolved and put a small piece of charcoal into the body to absorb any possible odor.”

Some garbage pick-ups don't take the leftovers from butchering.

How are they going to know what's in a closed trash bag in your trash can?

 

[Ridgerunner]

How are they going to know what's in a closed trash bag in your trash can?

Smell

 

[3KillerBs]

Smell

All trash reeks after a week in the cans between pickups.

There's no telling the difference between chicken guts from butchering, meat that went bad in the fridge, or even the packaging with all the juices.

 

[Molpet]

I looked up what to do with a dead wild animal, State said double bag and put in garbage. So the predators that die for being in my poultry yard get put in the garbage...if they are close to garbage day or cool out. Otherwise I have a predator compost pile.

 

[CNJ]

Ive tried that still was tough so

I use stewing chicken from the supermarket to make soup. I think they are old egg layers, so they are tough as rubber if you try to roast them. However, the reason why they make great soup is because the meat will become edible and won't dry out like roasting chicken, no matter how long its heated.