annaraven - more random update stuph

[AnnaRaven]

Today, I helped slaughter and butcher a pig.

We started with the piggy trotting in and walked out with coolers of butchered pork and blood sausage at the end. Kewl!

 

[abifae]

Man, I want to slaughter something!

 

[Denim Deb]

Did you lose the head?

 

[FarmerJamie]

Man, I want to slaughter something!

I'll have about 50 chickens ready in about 10 weeks. Feel free to stop by...

 

[Farmfresh]

Wow! I am impressed!

 

[FarmerJamie]

Today, I helped slaughter and butcher a pig.

We started with the piggy trotting in and walked out with coolers of butchered pork and blood sausage at the end. Kewl!

That's so awesome. Fresh chops on grill....

 

[savingdogs]

Did you lose the head?

The missing pig head saga pops up in a new thread.

 

[framing fowl]

Was this for that class you were telling us about? How was it? Details!

 

[AnnaRaven]

Details:

Th ranch had a pretty good setup. The place we worked was a pretty well stocked and setup abattoir. They had a ramp and a pen for the small animals, and several stainless steel sinks and counters, a big scalding tub, a mechanical hair remover, hooks and chains and winches...

We watched them process one pig while we were waiting to start. They were obviously skilled professionals and had a whole pig slaughtered, dehaired and gutted in minutes. We later saw them do sheep as well.

The one part where I was uncomfortable for the day was when they let one of my class members do the stunning part (with a two prong thing that's supposed to fit around the neck and stun it quickly and humanely). The guy didn't do it properly and the pig squeeled very loudly. I felt bad for it - it was panicked and in pain and not a proper way to end. After it was finally stunned, they pulled it out and put a chain around its leg and hauled it up so we could stick it and bleed it out.

One of the guys held a clean bucket for the blood so we could make blood sausage later. That had to be stirred pretty regularly so it wouldn't coagulate - which gave everyone an occasional break from the rest - we switched off the blood stirring duty.

Once it was bled out, the instructor cut the head off and gutted it. (He wanted to make head cheese but gave me the jowl for guanciale.) He showed us how to do the gutting safely. Then he made a slit in each back leg and we hooked it and hung it up. He used a saw to cut it in half.

He separated the innards - I got the liver and heart and spleen. He took the kidneys. I'm not sure anyone kept the lungs.

Then we broke down one side - prosciutto, trotters (he kept), boston butt, ribs, belly (I got one for pancetta), loin... I ended up getting one tenderloin and one of the guys took the other.

After one side was broke down and iced, we turned to the intestines. He took and cleaned out the stomach for his head cheese. It was my turn for blood stirring duty (oh gee darn!), so the other students emptied the intestines. One of the guys was pretty squeemish about it. After a bit, I took over from him. We scraped them down, turned them inside out, scraped them down again, and then turned them right side out again.

The blood had spices and diced back fat and cream added to it (his recipe). We used a funnel and filled several of the knotted casings. Each of us got some to take home. There was more blood than we had cleaned casing for so I took some of that home and cooked it in the oven. (I hope I didn't screw it up!)

We broke down the other side, iced it, then the instructor salted down the trotters, demonstrated how to wrap the cuts, we divided everything and sat down to a brief lunch of sopressata and wine.

We started about 8:30 and got done about 2:30. A lot of the time was just instruction time.

When I got home, I packed everything in foodsaver vacuum seal and put it into the fridge or freezer. The blood sausage got poached and the blood pudding got baked. They're in the fridge now, chilling. Hopefully they turned out and I didn't ruin them (never had or made blood sausage before!)

We had pasta with olive oil, garlic and pepperflakes for dinner. (I was a little meat-ed out.) Tomorrow, we'll try some of the pork.

All in all, I'm really glad I had this class. I feel far more aware of where my meat is coming from and more comfortable with the idea of ordering a half hog in the future and breaking it down myself rather than paying for the butchering.

 

[framing fowl]

Wow! What an awesome day! Let us know how everything tastes.