It seems like I have not stopped all week. After starting the pigs last Saturday and Sunday, and getting them into primal cuts, they rested in the fridge for several days. But did that mean I could take it easy? You got it! I had to get the old kennel transformed into a meat processing room. Of course, nothing ever is easy around here. What should have been a day's work at most ended up taking three days. First, the floor drains were clogged from two years of non-use. Getting them unclogged was a major task. The electric high-pressure washer worked great, thank goodness, but the wetvac - which has a hose connection to pump the sucked-up water out into a drain - had small leaks around the water exit. That was not something I could fix so I just put up with it...
Then there was the new meat bandsaw. Now - I am no engineer, but I am betting that I could have designed something to go together a LOT easier than this. Ken and I spent a HUGE amount of time trying to figure out what the instructions actually meant, and then how to accomplish the task. Nuts and bolts were in impossible places, adjustments and readjustments abounded. It was very frustrating. At least it was cheap...
Anyway - Amanda and the girls came over on Thursday, bringing their piggy parts with them. We sawed, sliced, deboned and ground for 4 hours and were rewarded with a handsome pile of nice-looking pork cuts. We made a maple cure for the two bacon sides and they were refrigerated. Amanda had to leave then, so I decided I would get to work on my pig.
The first thing that happened was the blade of the bandsaw came off as I was cutting rib chops. I have figured out that the blade tried to follow the natural line of the rib instead of cutting through it. I still haven't figured out a way of preventing that happening. I eventually boned out the chops and cut them boneless to save time and temper. Ken got the saw fixed while I was working on a shoulder, but by then it was getting late and I needed to feed animals so we quit for the day.
Friday we got a fair amount done, but we hadn't got the saw adjusted properly, so it twisted off again a couple of times. We spent a lot more time messing with the saw than with the meat, so we still didn't finish the cutting. We finally got done yesterday.
Overall, I was happy with the cuts I did. Some looked better than others and there is certainly room for improvement, but I felt I did a creditable job. Even the less-pretty ones will taste good. I ended up with 116 pounds of cuts, including the bacon, but not including 10# of soup/stock bones, 4# dog bones, just short of 9# trimmings for sausage and a measly 3.5# of fat for rendering into lard. Actual "throw away" was less than an ounce...
The only part of this pig that was "wasted" was the hide. The LGDs have picked the head clean and eaten most of the offal. What they left the chickens picked over. When the bones are done making stock I will put them in the pressure cooker and cook them under high pressure till they crumble, then they can be crushed and added (along with their calcium-rich broth) to dog food. Adding a little apple cider vinegar to the pressure cooker with the water will help the calcium leach from the bones...
For the bacon, Amanda used a very basic cure of brown sugar, salt and enough maple syrup to make a paste. This was rubbed all over the bacon, and it is now in the refrigerator curing. I used the same cure for one side, then for the other I substituted some apple juice concentrate for the maple syrup. For the uneven "chunks" that I cut off the two sides I made a cure of salt, sugar and cracked pepper bound to a paste with hard cider. I am thinking that I will need to smoke the bacon Tuesday or Wednesday. I am really looking forward to tasting the results.
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