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.

Lambing starts

Heavily in pig Welsh sow in her favourite position

In-lamb ewes, making the most of the excellent red clover silage we managed to get hold of this year. We would have suffered a shortage of forage without the help of a fellow local organic farmer to keep us topped up.

Frozen veg can still be fresh veg?

Triplets up and about within 10 minutes of being born.

The new hen house. Pleased it wasn't too windy when I erected it, as my arms weren't quite long enough in the first place.

Ginger, a few weeks off farrowing.

The packing shed progress.

Pleased it's 4x4 - snow mobiles would have been used if available!

When the lady loves good hay.

Sunrise, out delivering one morning.

A few memories of summer to cheer us up.

Fearnley helping prepare for our annual organic inspection

Spring has definitely sprung here at Christmas Farm - we've had clear skies and fair weather for at least a week now. It's amazing how cold it must have been when you start to think 3 degrees is a good opportunity to work in a T-shirt.

The slightly better weather has coincided with the first lambs being born, and it's going well so far with only one single in the flock, and a set of strong triplets has made up for that. Piglets are all doing well and are desperate to be out of the farrowing shelters they have been in for nearly four weeks now. It's the first time we've housed pigs inside for farrowing at Christmas Farm, which says something for the lousy weather we've had. To keep in with organic standards the finished pigs can only be kept inside for a fifth of thier lifetime, so we need to get them out as soon as the ground dries up.

The cattle are going through a frustrating time watching the ewes get the best silage, nuts and high energy lick blocks, whilst they have some straw and crushed barley. The smaller ones have worked out that with a little limbo'ing they can get underneath the creep bar that should be keeping them out, and once the bigger ones see this they just jump over the fence anyway.

Winnie is coming up to foaling time and is being fed like a dairy cow, again this must be frustrating for her welsh pony companion, who is on basic rations but stands and watches closely at feeding time.

New stock arrivals have been kept to a minimum with lambing coming up, but we did manage to get a new batch of table chickens put into the newly fenced off orchard, which should help us keep the grass down this year. It feels like I spent ages last summer just keeping the grass down, so this year we are trying to maximise the under-utilised areas for stock, which will not only keep the grass down but also fertilise and condition the soil.

Jobs we've been busy with:

• Fencing off the orchard and veg beds


• Lambing


• Attempting to tidy up


• Moving the little polytunnel


• Digging ditches


• Planting garlic, beans, and radish


• Putting black membrane onto beds in the kitchen garden, ready for planting


• Building a new hen house that we can pull around the field to clear up after the veggies have been harvested


• Planting trees for a windbreak


• Having our organic inspection


• Delivering boxes, feeding the animals etc

Jobs we should have been busy with and need to get done before April:

• Building the big polytunnel


• Planting the 1000 strawberry plants, 200 blackcurrants, and 100 raspberry canes that have been waiting for the ground to thaw


• More ditching, and scraping out a duck pond


• Filling in the bare patches in the hedgerows


• Cleaning all the mud off the entrance track, and filling the winter's pot holes


• Getting the old tractor fired up after sitting out all winter (fingers crossed)


• Laying the rest of the concrete for the new packing shed base


• Finding some more customers for the box scheme (any ideas?)


• Pruning fruit trees and bushes, and trying to get the veg beds sub-soiled and mucked by a contractor

It feels like we've still got a winters worth of work ahead of us, and only a few weeks to go before we need to start planting this season's veg. The plan for this year is to use more WWOOFers at the busiest times for planting and harvesting. They can be a lifeline for getting jobs done that we otherwise wouldn't have time for, and our current volunteer (Sarah, from Germany) is saving us a lot of time with the feeding and bedding duties each day, although the 5:45am start is six hours ahead of her usual wake up call, she says!

It would be nice to get some volunteers from the UK through the scheme, as nearly all come from Europe and need a reasonable length of stay to make it viable. Most also want to use it as a summer break too, which is the time not much is going on other than weeding and harvesting. As a host, it would also be good to be able to call on people for a weekend for jobs that need lots of hands for a short period, like re-sheeting polytunnels, or digging potatoes.