Feeder Pigs

Great,, I can't wait to smell those chops on the grill!
Oh, well, at least see the chops on the grill!!!

We took them this morning to Emory, about 30 miles from us. The custom slaughter place is family owned and operated by Mennonites. A young man helped us unload the pigs and while he prodded them with a long stick, he didn't hit them and he was mindful of the pigs. I was pleased with his attitude towards the pigs. We will get smoked hams and bacon, pork chops and sausage, plus other cuts in about 3-4 weeks. Yum!

When we got home, I washed out the trailer, it really wasn't so bad. They ate in there the last week, so they never peed or pooped in there. There wasn't a big poopy mess, just a little poopy mess. It cleaned right up. I washed out the Hawg Hut too. It's next job will be a Lamb Hut when I wean the lambs, but I think I'll always call it the Hawg Hut.

Yeah, the Lamb Lounge just doesn't roll off your tongue quite the same.

Sounds like one of those night spots folks call a "meat market"....

Bee there is a bar I used to visit in NYC called meat market LOL

We picked up our pig (Bacon) last Thursday. We decided to not have it smoked & to butcher it ourselves to save money. We did what is called a "Kill & Chill", which means they kill & gut It & skin It. It ended up saving us $150 doing it that way.

It was quite a sight, seeing the butcher's son pull the 2 halves out of the cooler, on the track, hanging up on hooks. He cut it into 6 parts, so it would fit into our two coolers.

We bought a Kindle book on Amazon, that did a good job of telling us how to butcher our pig. Some places were a bit confusing, but we muddled our way through getting two chances too cut each section. it had photos, that really helped

http://www.amazon.com/Butchering-Poultry-Rabbit-Lamb-Goat/dp/1612121829/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458955764&sr=8-1&keywords=Butchering

Here are the photos I took the second day of butchering.

This is only part of the meat. We still have a rack of ribs, to cut into pork chops, as well as meat in our fridge (with the temp set at 34°F, to allow one batch of meat to freeze, so we don't over tax the freezer all at once. We also have a nice batch of fat, to be rendered at another time.



This is the back leg (the ham) which we boned. It doesn't look like it, but there are two ball joints & was quite a job to do the boning.


Top shelf of our full size upright freezer. The loin roast was done yesterday (3/24/16). DH got the date wrong when he labeled the packages of meat yesterday.


Bottom drawer, of the freezer, full of meat.


Precious Filet cuts. YUM! Looking forward to cooking those!


Shoulder (Butt roast)


Bones to be used for bone broth.


While we were cutting meat, DH was drooling, so I suggested he take some of the smaller pieces, that we are going to use to make sausage & fry it up. About the same time, I found a beautiful piece of muscle that looked a lot like filet. So, I cut it across the grain, which made it look like medallions. OMG! It was so tender & full of flavor! YUM!

On Saturday morning I thought we were finished with the butchering. Au Contrairé! We found a plastic bag with the second belly/rib meat.

I separated the ribs (spare ribs) to be grilled at a later date.

Since sodium nitrates, used to cure meat, gives me severe migraine, we had decided to use the belly meat for bacon. It killed me to do it, but we cut the other belly meat up to be used for sausage.

As I stood there looking at this beautiful, meaty, bacon cut, I told DH maybe we should just go ahead & slice it for bacon, even though it wouldn't taste like it was smoked/cured.



Before we wrapped it, for the freezer, I thought I should take a photo, to show how nice & meaty our bacon is. We ended up with seven 1/2 pound packages.

Before wrapping it, we wanted to try frying some up, to see if it made good uncured bacon.


When I put it in the pan, on low heat, it seemed to be getting a bit rubbery. So I thought adding some water & cooking slowly before frying it would help.

We have some Wright's "liquid smoke" in the cupboard, so I added about 1/4 tsp to 2 Tbsp of water & poured it over the meat. A few shakes of Himalayan Sea Salt. On the lowest setting (with the lid on) I put the lid on & let it simmer until the water was gone. When I heard it sizzling, I turned the "Bacon" & browned it on the other side.

OMG! This tasted better than store bought bacon, with just a hint of smoke flavor.

Now I wish we had saved all the belly fat!

Oh well, ya live & learn. We keep telling each other, "we didn't know what we didn't know"

When Baymule said she would raise a pig for us, I wanted to name it Bacon, so we could make nitrate free bacon. Then, with all the work learning to butcher the meat, making sausage PLUS learning how to cure meat, it was too much. We decided to forego curing bacon this time & I was feeling bad, that we weren't making bacon. Now we can safely enjoy bacon for breakfast!

What a job! I am so proud of Devonviolet and her husband! They worked so hard to cut up all that beautiful meat! They are already planning where to build their pig pen for this fall. I can't wait to go pick up our meat.

BLT