Originally we had decided to kill, hang, eviscerate, split and skin all on Friday. Well we didn't quite do things in the order they should have been done in so we didn't get to the skinning. Nate was great, he got the pig on the first try and made his death as quick and painless and I could have imagined it being. We had Chloe and Blain wait in the backyard during the actual killing, incase something went wrong, then they came over per their insistence. They were so brave and it didn't seem to bother them at all. Blain even asked to help and Chloe sang songs about turning pigs into meat.
Nate and Blain using the Gambrel, and block and tackle system to hoist the pig up. The rafters weren't high enough to use the scale that we bought so we didn't get a hanging weight on him :(
After killing and hanging then came the hard part. Nate worked on eviscerating which turned out to be harder than we anticipate, especially removing the bowel from the outside opening. That took up the bulk of the night but we cleaned up, protected the pig from animals best we could, and let the cold night do it's work.
The following morning I went out and skinned for about 2 1/2 hours, and that was only one side! I struggled to say it mildly. It was difficult to keep the fat on the pig when my knife just wanted to slide toward the meat into the thick layer of fat. Good thing for that fat cushion though or the meat would have been shredded by the end of it. I also took off a good layer of belly meat without realizing it so I had to go back and tease the meat off the skin to keep it connected to the rest of the body. Other than my hand cramping from pulling the skin and freezing from the weather it went ok. The second one only took me 1 1/2 hours so it is definitely a learning experience.
Nate the butcher - he did such a good job, watching videos on you tube then turning the huge hunks of meat into recognizable cuts. Even on the second half he hand learned a few things about the cuts he preferred and feels like he had gotten the hang of it.
After I finished skinning the first half we cut the tendon and Nate carried in half a pig. I couldn't believe how heavy it was, Nate had me grab the back end and I could barely lift it!! and he carried the whole thing from the pasture barnyard to the mudroom! So he worked on breaking the first half down while I skinned the second half which, like i mentioned, went a lot faster and smoother.
It took him the rest of the day and even after I left for work to turn half a pig into bacon, ham, sausage, ribs, chops and roasts. He saved all the fat so I can try to render it into lard and the bones for some yummy stock. We didn't save any of the unconventional parts this time around as we are barely learning what to do with the parts we're familiar with. But maybe next year I can save the blood for drying and use in the garden and keep the jowl for jowl bacon. Baby steps.
Nate grinding 11 lbs of sausage from the first half that I will be flavoring and fine grinding today. It took him about 3 minutes to do all that, it worked so well he had trouble stuffing it fast enough to keep up with the grinding! Overall the grinder worked like a dream and we are having fun looking up all sorts of sausage to make. So far we are for sure doing breakfast and Italian, with hopes to try summer sausage and kielbasa.
The big 17 lb ham brining - we will keep it in there for about a week then hopefully Theron can help us smoke it. This will be the Christmas ham as it is the Mitchell year here in Utah and there will be lots of family around.
Bacon!! We got about 15 lbs of bacon total (?) that I made a dry cure for and are now sitting in the fridge waiting to be flipped every day for a week then smoked as well. I can't wait! It's been about a year since we've had any bacon in the house because it's so expensive lately. We will be living it up!!
It was such a good experience but we have a lot to learn:
*First off it would be nice to have some help. Unfortunately Sam wasn't able to come this weekend so it was just me and Nate and our kiddos. Having more people help skin, prepare brines/cures, grind, tend babies, and even help butcher would be great and speed things up a bunch.
*Next we need to skin before gutting and splitting. We were worried about the dirt level of the hair/skin with all the exposed meat. We cleaned and double cleaned best we could but next time that would help us feel better about the cleanliness of the project.
*We are also going to change locations. The old tack room seems like it would work much better because the rafters are higher, it is fully enclosed, there is electricity, and we could make a clean surface for putting knives etc. (I had my hands full holding knives, saws, flashlights, etc. for Nate while he worked that night)
*One pig that size is probably sufficient for our needs. We are unsure what we are going to do with the girl as our freezer space is looking a little low and we already have so much meat. We are playing with the idea of trying to sell her or maybe having a "come take some meat if you come help process the pig" party. Nate's vote is to just keep her and the meat and I would like to try selling her as it would recoup a lot of the cost. But we'll see, it would be hard to see all our hard work just be sold off.
Ok, enough about our weekend full of pork, I will show some of our finished product in a week or so. Here are some cute baby moments from the last little bit:
Avenlea reading on her bed
Bubble beards
Beans!
Cops and robots: the boxes of throw away toys that we got had police hats and badges that they have been playing with a lot.
You can't play police without a flashlight!
Nate has been watching America's test kitchen which is little segments on the science behind cooking, lots of testing, and "foolproof" techniques for cooking. He tried their hollandaise on eggs benedict and it was AMAZING!
I told Chloe and Blain an Animorph story for bedtime the other night and now they love looking through the books, picking one out and having me tell that story for bedtime. It's kinda fun for me to because I loved those books when I was in elementary. I'm glad they have such a love for books even when they can't read on their own yet.
Avenlea feeding herself yogurt!
Little Daddy's girl
Not the best quality but such a cute picture
Avenlea getting in on the Animorph book action
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