Other than Poultry

[kfacres]

For those of you that do your pigs, I need a questioned answered that I can't seem to find with my google-fu skills.

Question 1: Do you HAVE to cure bacon and ham either through smoking or salting, or can you simply freeze it. If so, why?

Question 2: If you butcher your own pig, how do you cure your hams and bacon?

1- no, that is turning it into either a pork roast, or what's called fresh bacon.. either way is fine to eat.

2- our cousin has a inspected butcher shop and we take them in to him to get done. They are not supposed to do this, unless you have a good client/ shop relationship.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Because of the way my family uses pork, a pig is really easy to butcher. Everything comes off in large chunks. The spareribs are whole slabs, the bacon is whole slabs, the shoulders are whole because I cook them for shredded pork for Mexican food, tamales, or pulled pork. The haunches are either whole or halved because they are cooked as fresh pork roast.

I like to have one loin as a roast, and the rest of the loin and upper rib section is sliced into chops.

If you like a lot of chops, then you have a lot more slicing to do. The entire shoulder can be sliced into pork shoulder steaks.

I prefer the fresh roast to ham, and I smoke my own bacon.

The head gets scraped for sausage meat. There is a lot of meat in the cheeks. My family doesn't eat any of the variety meats, so all that goes into dog food.

 

[kfacres]

Because of the way my family uses pork, a pig is really easy to butcher. Everything comes off in large chunks. The spareribs are whole slabs, the bacon is whole slabs, the shoulders are whole because I cook them for shredded pork for Mexican food, tamales, or pulled pork. The haunches are either whole or halved because they are cooked as fresh pork roast.

I like to have one loin as a roast, and the rest of the loin and upper rib section is sliced into chops.

If you like a lot of chops, then you have a lot more slicing to do. The entire shoulder can be sliced into pork shoulder steaks.

I prefer the fresh roast to ham, and I smoke my own bacon.

The head gets scraped for sausage meat. There is a lot of meat in the cheeks. My family doesn't eat any of the variety meats, so all that goes into dog food.

head cheese is a mainstay at the grandparent's house... along with brains fried and mixed in... Skinning the head off, and sawing it in half is as close to head cheese as I get however...

We get a little more technicial with our pork butchering, but we borrow a meat saw-- so why not use it? We do make sausage quite a bit as well-- even use our own casings some years-- although- it's easier to buy them.

hams and bacons go in for curing, shoulders left into roast and steaks, loins cut up into chops boneless-- the backbone is cooked that night for a meal for 3. ribs are saved, and jowl is fried fresh on butchering day. We also really like the 'sirloin'- or as my uncle calls it the light dark roast.

 

[marlo1968]

Yes, we hunt elk and deer and always process ourselves.

 

[Lute]

KFacres, no chance you want to PM me step-by-step directions on butchering a cow? I've been looking for How-To videos on Youtube and it's kinda difficult. How did you learn to do it?

 

[kfacres]

KFacres, no chance you want to PM me step-by-step directions on butchering a cow? I've been looking for How-To videos on Youtube and it's kinda difficult. How did you learn to do it?

not a very easy task--- send me a PM or email-- and I'll try my best to get it down pat for you. Honestly, if you've ever butchered a pig, deer, or lamb-- it's not that much different-- but about 10x more meat and work...

 

[kfacres]

well, no PM came-- so here's my response:

To butcher a cow:

You'll need some heavy artilery to put one down. We most often use a slug, but have also used a .22 Mag. Really, anything bigger than a .22 long should do the work- shoot right in the center of the skull- and they should go down. Once they got down, their artery will buldge from the side of the neck, and you can slit it with a knife to bleed them out. Cut the hock to hang, and make sure you have a good strong double tree.

The gutting process can happen one of two ways: The first way is to skin the animal on the ground, and gut it there as well- then lift up. The other way is to life the animal with the front end loader or a fork lift- and gut it from the bottom up- dropping the insides into the front end loader of another tractor. This works the best, as otherwise you'll be left with quite a heavy load in a stock tank. Gut them completely out like you would any other species, and wash down with clean water and a hose.

To skin- you again do this like any other animal-- start at the hock and cut down to however far you want to go down on the neck- discard the head and skin. Skinning works best warm. It's best to do this in the winter time, and in a place you can let the animal hang for atleast 7 days to cure.

Once you get the animal skinned, we always start by taking the front shoulders off. The shoulders we usually cut into a few roasts-- and the rest goes into burger.

The next step we make is to take the loin off- we rarely keep any of our home processed cuts bone in-- and so we remove the loin-- cutting from the hind quarters down along the backbone-- slicing inward until the entire loin gets cut off. These are made into ribeyes, NY Strips, butterflys, and loin roasts. Don't forget the T-loin on the inside-=- best cut of meat on any animal.

After the loins, and shoulders are off- we move to the rib cage and neck-- deborn all of this into chunks and turn into burger. Again, we keep zero bones when we do it ourself.

All of the above is performed while the carcass is still whole, and hanging, except the shoulders which are removed to process.

Once you get everything from the non- round portion-- then tie the legs up good, and remove the carcass bones. lower the two back legs and cut roasts off, or steaks, or whatever you want. Burger the rest.

I am struggling to come up with words for the ways that we do things- as we have our own style and methods= that basically get used on any animal that we butcher. For the most part these things are move, and objects that we take for granted, and like most things that get explained-- are far easier to show you in person one on one-- than to type out in words.

If you have an more specific questions- let me know I'll do my best to answer them.

As to the actual cutting of the meat- It all depends on what want and what you eat. Around here, we savor our loins, make roasts from the hind quarters, and burger the rest-- regardless of what species we butcher. Pretty standard proceedures. You can make this process as hard or complicated as you want to; we prefer as easy and quick as we can-- and to take up the least ammount of freezer space. We have access to a meat saw, but it's so hard to clean and such as mess-- that we prefer doing everything with hand saws and knives.

One thing to note_ if you intend to make T-bones, or products with bone in-- you'll need a clean chainsaw, or sawsall to split the carcass...

 

[hydroswiftrob]

Thank you kfacres! That reply did not go unnoticed. Maybe it is time to make a youtube video or a step by step pictorial. I would be the first to watch!

 

[kfacres]

Thank you kfacres! That reply did not go unnoticed. Maybe it is time to make a youtube video or a step by step pictorial. I would be the first to watch!

If someone wants to provide the location, and the beef animal-- i'll be glad to assist. Until then-- I'll be taking my fat steers to town to be cut up.

 

[what did I do]

If someone wants to provide the location, and the beef animal-- i'll be glad to assist.  Until then-- I'll be taking my fat steers to town to be cut up.

We take our beef to the butcher because we don't have a decent place to age and hang our beef.