Tuesday 17 May 2011

Pork Butchery

I only had one pig to do in the butchery today so had a bit of time to do a few pics to show what goes on when turning pig to pork.

Butchery is something I really enjoy, but it's a rare thing indeed to have as much time as I would like to try out new things and experiment with different charcuterie techniques and recipes. And the pig is of course, the butchers best friend with nothing but the squeek going in the bin traditionally!

With pork, as with any meat the first thing we need to know is how the animal is reared; this along with how it died will have the biggest impact on what comes to the butcher and if these two pre requisites were not satisfactory the butcher will be fighting a losing battle. I'll talk more about these things in another blog but what we do is try to give the animal a happy life and our local small abattoir gives them a professional, compassionate death.

Some of the photos below may seem a bit much but I think everybody who eats meat should see the stages that the meat has gone through before ending up on the plate. If you would like to know or see more please get in touch.

So for this post the basics are:-

1. The carcass comes back to us-we check paperwork is correct and the pig has our organic stamp on it,then assess the fat level and confirmation to get an idea how the animal has performed. This gives us information about our breeding, feeding and husbandry of the animal. Too much fat indicates the diet needs adjusting, a run of pigs with huge shoulders but small legs may be a sign of a bad breeding programme etc.



The size, fat level and confirmation also give me clues as to how best to butcher the animal..I prefer to have no pre conceived cutting lists until I see the animal on the cutting table. Its seem silly to cut a leg into joints if it would make a perfect ham or to cut chops out of a loin that would be great bacon.



2.So once we have the cutting list in our head it's time to remove the head and trotters and sort through the offal. Beth normally likes some of these for stock and making potted meat, pate and terrines for the house.


3.Then breaking the carcass down into primal cuts..shoulers, legs and saddle. From here as todays pig was quite small and really suitable for joints and chops, I take out the bones from the shoulder and leg and roll these tying with twine after scoring the skin.








4. From here it's just a simple case of portioning according to needs, so cutting chops from the loin removing any excess fat and trimming the bone if needed, slicing joints into 1-1.5kg and slicing belly pork.

It really is that simple with a small pig, I'll do a post when we do a large pig for processing into variuos sauages, burgers, bacon and hams to give you an inside view of what goes on at the farm.

A quick word on the tools of the trade..four things i wouldn't be without are my 5" boning knife, large chopper, steel and butchers saw. All are cheap from butchers suppliers, give years of service and are extremely useful bits of kit to have in the kitchen too.



I'd love to hear if your interested in seeing more of this kind of info on the blog so do please comment or get in touch.

Thursday 12 May 2011

Barry's Last Stand

Yesterday we weaned the piglets from our welsh cross sow and moved her back into the serving paddock in a bid to keep our boar 'Barry' in his rightful place. He's been absolutely impossible to keep in despite having eveything a man could dream (apart from a lady friend)for the past three months.

After only a few hours together he was back out in the fields having smashed his way through a fence again. Obviously love was not in the air.

Unfortunately at this time of the year when much needed grass, veg and fruit are grwoing we can ill afford a rampant boar on the loose so for the sanity of all concerned tomorrow 'Barry' is going to the great unfenced pig paddock in the sky..

RIP Barry

Monday 9 May 2011

A New Dawn, A New Diary

So after a few weeks of struggling by with an ever slower laptop things finally came to an abrupt end last week when after 2 hours of photo editing and writing the newsletter the laptop died completely losing the work I'd just done.

Normally we'd just calmly find a solution but this particular day it just happened that everything else had also gone wrong and it coincided with a delivery day which means a silly o'clock start and up to an 18 hour shift at work so the laptop was promptly slammed shut smashing the screen!

With no possible chance of recovery, the only choice was to replace the old girl with a newer and hopefully more reliable beast. And that's why I'm back to blogging, having a new laptop brings renewed vigour for using this resource a lot more.

So the plan is to do a few lines each day, more as a farm and business diary for us (and you if your interested) to see what went on during the year. Which brings us here.

9/5/2011
3 Pigs back from abattoir. Probe depth 14,14, and 19mm. From the pure Berkshires, note reduced back fat and intramuscular marbling compared to last weeks draw of Berkshire/welsh/saddleback cross of same feeding regime. Under 50kg seems to be optimum carcass weight.

Beth planted approx 50 raspberries from runners in garden.

Extremely hot, temperatures up to 23.More rain.

Last ewe still to lamb.