What is your fave method to pack?

[UrbanBirds]

Hello All!

This is my first time posting in BYC, but I have been lurking here for at least a year.

I did not see my specific query addressed in the archives, so I decided to finally post!

This is not your typical "how do I kill/process my chickens post". I am pretty adept at that now, thanks to BYC of course!

What I want to know is how are most of you butchering and packing your delicious pastured lovelies?

I have my largest crop of birds (37) so far ready for slaughter in about a month.

For me, I began raising my own meat because I wanted something better than I could buy. I do all the cooking in my home and I essentially cook everything I eat...almost never eat out. I taught myself how to cook rather late in life (I'm a guy, we aren't taught this by our mothers like you ladies are), and so I learned to cook with chicken parts. So if I'm making a curry, I buy a pound of thighs or breasts or whatever.
I do buy whole birds and roast them on my rotisserie for chicken salad or just fresh roasted chicken

sometimes, and I have made chicken soup with a whole bird also, but I am more of a chicken parts guy so far.
My initial plan was to remove all wings and save them separately for buffalo wings

Then pack half as whole birds and half in parts (thighs, breasts, legs)

But my issues with that approach are:

1) time-I will be processing the whole flock by myself. I built my own whizbang to cut down on the biggest time drag, feathers, but quartering all those birds and packing into separate bags is going to add a lot of time to the process.

2) wastage-the idea of cooking only thighs or breasts is nice and convenient, but do any of you find that parts of the bird get wasted such as the back meat?

Long before my time, people would kill a bird and cook, a whole bird...right? Either frying all the parts or doing a one-pot arroz con pollo dish or whatever. The idea of cooking with only select parts is a modern convenience, I think.

So what do you guys do? What dishes do you like to make and how do you pack your meat so that it is most useful to you and your family and how does it suit your lifestyle best?

I had an unfortunate accident last weekend. A poor Freedom Ranger got trapped under the rear rail of my chicken tractor when I was moving it across the paddock and she was mortally injured. She was about 4 to 6 weeks early but I quickly bled, skinned and processed her and got her in the fridge. I cooked her last night and I have to say, Muy Bueno!

I quatered her and cooked all the parts in a tomato type broth. It worked well.

Ok...thoughts?

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

I just processed my first CornishX batch of this year (36). I didn't butcher them myself, I don't have a plucker and I was selling most of them to customers. They are packed in a simple plastic bag/twist tie whole, I froze a few whole for myself and halved a few. I also parted a few out and bagged wing sections, thigh&legs and breasts. I roasted the left over carcasses in the oven for a couple hours then ripped off all of the remaining meat to save. It was a little time consuming but worth getting everything off them. I'm not a fan of soup so I didn't go the broth direction.

I can imagine how time consuming that would be for that many birds. I do know that it's fairly easy to saw birds in half after being frozen. I've got to decide what works best by the end of July, my next batch is going to be 55 birds, although 26 will be for my wedding reception.

My favorite way to cook chicken is Half or whole in the cast iron Dutch Oven with beer and vegetables. It usually comes out perfect every time and its ready to eat when I get home from work. I also like seasoned chicken breasts or thighs broiled in the oven or on the grill. My mother gave me a delicious creamy garlic sauce with noodles recipe to pair with them.

On a side note, I am hoping to get a vacuum packer by the end of this year. I haven't had a problem with freezer burn with the bags but I would prefer to have everything vacuum packed.

Edited for spelling

 

[daleeper]

We just finished processing our spring batch of 50, and here is what we do. We will package some whole for roasting, probably 15-20. The rest we break down into wings, leg/thigh, boneless skinless breast, tenders, and back/neck. The back/neck gets cooked down the next day for broth/stock, and the meat picked out for enchiladas, noodles, and soups.

It takes about as long to break them down as it does to get them to that point, but it is how my wife likes to cook. She would rarely purchase a whole chicken at the store, she doesn't like to cut them up, and didn't like the waste of the back. She would by breasts or leg/thigh packages. So now she can go to the freezer and pick out what she wants. Took us a while to figure out how to do wings, as we don't do deep fried anything, but we have been grilling them, now we like them so much we removed the wings from the whole bird before freezing, to get more wings.

We have also pre-cut some of the breast meat as strips, as we all like them and the breasts are so big on our birds it makes it easier to get them cooked all the way through. Last year we packaged a few breasts whole bone-in with skin for roasting, but didn't use them like we thought, so didn't do any of them this time.

We have packaged in zip lock bags, vacuum bags and shrink bags. In particular for the whole birds we like the shrink bags, but forgot to order them on time. I will be ordering them the same day the chickens are ordered next time. It seems like the consumer grade vacuum sealers just don't last long, so am about to give up on them, and either try to find a commercial unit in my price range, or go strictly to shrink bags.

To manage time for processing, and size of the birds, we will butcher 10-20 at a time instead of doing them all at once. We pick out the bigger birds, and allows the smaller ones to get a bit bigger, usually a 2 to 3 week time span from start to finish.

Hope this helps in your decision.

 

[daleeper]

Just a thought, maybe you could find someone to help you with processing in trade for some of the chicken. We have done that in the past. Even if they are unwilling to get involved in plucking/evisceration, they could help with breaking down the bird and help package. Ideally someone who might value the backs, livers and gizzards or the parts you value less.

You will find that with the whizbang that the gutting is the bottleneck in the process, not plucking as it was before we built the plucker.

 

[Sweet T]

Just a thought, maybe you could find someone to help you with processing in trade for some of the chicken. We have done that in the past. Even if they are unwilling to get involved in plucking/evisceration, they could help with breaking down the bird and help package. Ideally someone who might value the backs, livers and gizzards or the parts you value less.

You will find that with the whizbang that the gutting is the bottleneck in the process, not plucking as it was before we built the plucker.

Great idea! 37 birds is a lot to do in one day, especially by yourself!


I usually just freeze the whole bird to save time. We mostly butcher our older hens that aren't laying anymore, so the meat is tough. The only way to cook it where it's good and soft for eating is to put the whole frozen bird in a large crockpot and let it cook ALLL DAY. I'm also feeding a family of four.

 

[Elke Beck]

I break some of mine down into parts. I usually leave the breast whole and on the bone with the drumettes and back still attached because that gives me different options. I cut the skin between the breast and the legs on both sides, then use scissors to cut the thin layer of muscle and rib bones down the side. Once that is done, I grab the tail end and the point of the breast and bend the bird backwards. The back will usually break between the front of the pelvic bones and ribcage. Then it is simple to slice through the remaining tissue connecting the legs to the front. I then use either a chef's knife or kitchen shears to cut the legs apart through the back bone. I usually just freeze the leg quarters because it is easy to cut the thigh from the drumstick later if I want it.

I usually leave my parts big. It takes a few minutes to filet off the breast and slice it up just before cooking, but I can't reconstruct it if I want bigger pieces, but I have cut it up small.

 

[UrbanBirds]

Quote: BTW, what exactly is a "chicken tenderloin". I see these in the store, but I don't know where on the bird they come from.

Thanks for all the advice. I have the shrink bags and a food saver.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Its the small flap of meat hanging on the underside of chicken breast. I'm not exactly sure why they call it a tenderloin, its not the actual loin located along the sides of the spine.