Also, with respect to our host’s comment regarding a Foodsaver, while they are tops for freezing fish and birds, for meat I’ve had much better success wrapping tightly with Saran and then a generous and tight wrapping of butcher’s paper. I cut my own elk and take one about every other year, on average, and keeping meat in a chest freezer for two years with no freezer burn is not problem. A discussion of how best to wrap meat for freezing by guys with lots of experience can be found here:
http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2689819/page/2#Post2689819

I did a “kill your own thanksgiving turkey ” processing class earlier this year. Pics and details on the blog — ebeyfarm.blogspot.com

FWIW, the organic farm we have access to in Memphis is actually in East Tennessee. They are offering whole Berkshire hogs butchered for $5 per pound plus deliver charges.

There is also a farmer in North Mississippi who used to grow pork for Dan Latham and L&M Salumeria in Oxford. I need to contact him.

I enjoy the blog.

It was an amazing experience, one that felt absolutely normal at the time. The hog weighed close to 300 pounds, based on the guesstimate of the farmer who raised it for us. It was a Yorkshire, the breed most often raised commercially, but had a much thicker layer of fat all around than anything I’ve seen when I’ve bought pork belly at the local Korean grocery for pancetta.

We started at 8:00 am and finished at about 1:30 pm. At the end, I had two hams that are to become prosciutto that weighed about 22 pounds each. There was about 30 pounds of trimmings for sausage, about 10-15 pounds of trimmings that are mostly fat that I will render into lard to coat the prosciutto when that time arrives. There are shoulder roasts, picnic hams, butts, hocks, loins and ribs. The loins were beautiful, though less marbled than I’d like. I left both loins whole rather than do chops – just a preference – but next time I will do a combination of both. The bellies are beautiful, too, about 2.5-3.0 inches with thick, white fat throughout. They are so much larger and better looking than the ones I’ve purchased. Together they must weigh 25 pounds or so. I didn’t weigh all the meat we took back, but it must be over 100 pounds. I did not keep any of the organs, head, or ears, though I did keep the jowels, (and could use a nice pictoral walk through of how to trim them properly to remove gladular segments before curing). I captured some blood as the hog was bleeding out, but am a little worried about it. It has clotted and I’m not sure how to preserve it properly. This is one bit of information that doesn’t seem to be available on the web, or in your book on Charcuterie. How should blood be stored?

I now have one 22-pound ham salted and in the fridge. I am using the recipe from Charcuterie, but have found half a dozen others on the web — all of which call for the use of ingredients other than salt in the cure. But I am sticking with just kosher salt, nothing else (no garlic paste, pepper, paprika, etc.).

Everything else I vacuum sealed with a food saver — a great device — and put into the freezer. Space considerations mean I can’t process both hams at once – no room in the fridge. So as soon as the first one is done I will slow-thaw the second and get going on it. As it is, the meat now takes up about 2/3rds of the space in our spare freezer. Without that, to buy me time to manage the processing in a leisurely way, I am not sure this project would have been practical.

I look forward this winter to trying my first attempt at making sausage. I will use recipes from Charcuterie, of course.

This experience leads me to think I need to add some additional equipment to the household, like a small fridge I can use for curing, and a smoker. I am still shopping for a good meat grinder, as well. Any ideas?

If there’s interest, I can post a link to a Picassa photo album with shots of the processing of the hog.

All told this has been an amazing adventure. Makes me want to learn more. I wish there were classes in butchering near me in the DC area. Haven’t found any.

All 3 of the great guys who helped me on the 27th now want to have pigs raised for them, as well. The sow of the farmer we worked with had a litter just a few weeks back, and 11-12 of the piglets survived (out of 20!). Because they were born so late in the year, the farmer is thinking about raising them until this time in 2009, which would mean they’d be a full year old and probably over 300 pounds at slaughter. Typically, he takes his hogs to the local slaughter house at 7-8 months, so this would be a nice bit of extra time.

Something very much worth doing. When the bacons and pancettas are ready, I’m going to drive back out to the farm and give some to all the folks who helped on the 27th.

Best for the new year to all.

Charles

I don’t have a chest freezer. I don’t own a Food Saver. Sure, the set-up costs are one-time expenses, but I would still have to buy all that stuff – that’s $275 for the freezer and $150 for the Food Saver. So, we’ve added $425 to my upfront costs for that pig. (Our total is now $765.)

Then there is the three days off work. Let’s say one makes $100 a day. Two people have to take three days off from work or three days of vacation – $600.

Now the total is $1365 for that pig and storage. The true cost isn’t $1.65, but rather around $7.60 per pound. Plus, you can take a tax deduction on all that stuff because it’s your work. The rest of us aren’t that lucky ;>

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2005/01/goof-ball-grin.html

Look at it, then move your cursor over the photo, look, then move your cursor off the photo…

Happy Holidays and great eating!

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs & Sheep
in the mountains of Vermont

Merci Michael for an enchanting essay.

www,gastrogirls.com

Top quality pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, and grass fed (as well as some grain finished) beef. He is out west near Galena but delivers to Chicago and suburbs every couple months. Butchering is done at a place near him (I’ve visited it) and they flash freeze. I’d be curious if he’d do a whole unbutchered pig if you made the arrangements to pick it up.

Personally it wouldn’t be practical for me to do my own butchering so I just pay the extra fee to have it done, but it’s still a pretty damn good deal for the quality of meat if you buy a side or split side.

As for whether slaughter can ever be completely humane, I would think we can all agree that some methods are more humane than others. And while there is only so much that can be done with the actual killing, it’s much more palatable when the rest of the animal’s life has been as humane as possible.

If you don’t want to do it, don’t. But don’t lead others to believe it’s prohibitively expensive or impossible – it’s not.

It’s not that uncommon for me to be preparing my smoker on a saturday for some store-bought pork shoulder, and then to hear the shrieking sound of a pig getting it’s throat cut at my neighbor’s place. Those buggers know it’s coming, let me tell you.

I just wish there were some middle-man who could connect trappers and farmers (preferrably the latter…wild pigs can be kind of dangerous cooked to anything less than 180 deg. F) to eager customers.

I am lucky. Really very lucky. Living in Seattle, I have access to the incredible Sea Breeze Farms, just 7 miles away – all incredibly humanely raised, humanely slaughted. Heck, the owner personally tried different organic feeds, before he got a custom one made for his animals that need it.

I would love to do this (breaking down a pig). Split between a few families, this makes complete sense. You get great meat, at a good price – in my mind, good meat freezes really well, bad meat doesn’t (I am guessing something to do with water content, and the water in the tissues expanding when frozen).

I certainly don’t think this is something for a single person, or one of faint heart. Certainly best tackled in a large space, with a group of friends – preferably one who is a butcher! I would hate to see an animal go to waste at the hands of careless hacking.