slaughtered my first pig

[nic8407]

Slaughtered my first pig yesterday. I think it weighed about 260-270 lbs live, I forgot to measure it before I started but the last time it was over 250. Everything went well, got a good shot 1st time with my .22 pistol and it just dropped to the ground, got a good cut to the jugular vein too and it bled out quickly. I was happy with that. Drug it down to the shop where my fork lift is and it took only about 2 hrs to get it where it was cut in half.
As far as skinning or not, instead of scalding it in hot water I thought I'd just singe the hair off with my torch and scrape the remaining hair off with a scraper. Didn't work. It singed the hair all right but the scraping didn't touch the remaining stubble under the skin, as I thought. Not getting the stubble out of the skin doesn't seem too appetizing to me, so I guess we wont have skin on our hams We wanted to leave the skin on basically and cut it off when desired for any given piece. So next time I'll build a large cauldron to dip it in and do it right.
The other comment I'll make is about the 26" meat cutting hack saw I bought for making the primal cuts in the hog. As far as using it for splitting the hog in half down it's spine, that didn't work well either. The 3/4" wide blade was too flexible and wouldn't follow the center of the spine, kept wandering off to one side. I finished the job with a short wood cutting hand saw, the kind with long "spiked" teeth, not the normal teeth most hand saws have. Worked great. Tomorrow we'll cut up the halves for the freezer. Don't have a meat cutting band saw for that so it will be the hack saw and knives. I'll post again on that job. Hope someone finds some useful info here.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

great work!

we torched one year but now just skin. didnt have any problems with the saw - just had to take it slow. once i got the hang of it we did ok. we got a meat saw from a hunting store, i think it was $30.

used just a boning knife most of the time for the rest.

as for your work for tomorrow - if you need it, a good reference is:
http://members.shaw.ca/masterbutcher/meat_cutting_tutorial/basic_cuts.html

and for an easy "blow by blow":
http://university.uog.edu/cals/people/PUBS/Swine/AN05200.pdf

and dont forget the lard! we got some prime leaf lard. and now we're just waiting around to get or hams back (we'll do the bacons here).

if you want to compare notes you can check out our butcher day here - we did two hogs:
http://adventuresinthegoodland.blogspot.com/2010/12/hog-harvest-2010-recap-day-one.html

(warning: no pix but its not for the faint of heart; i also provide a DETAILED with pictures tutorial in the next post)

 

[freemotion]

I found your experience useful, and I will be watching for your next post about cutting it up. We have a date with our hogs a week from today. We will have help (not real experienced help, though, but extra hands!) and will be skinning, too. Yep, I'd rather scald, but it just seems like too big of a job this year.....maybe we'll keep our eyes peeled for a 55 gal drum to saw in half for next year. If there is a next year. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks!

OFG is the old pro on butchering, our go-to gal! Can't birth a goat worth a darn, but she's not afraid of a few guts!!! Or much of anything else!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Can't birth a goat worth a darn,

ha! aint that right!
;-)

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

so, nic8407?

update? or are your arms too sore to type?

cant wait to hear how it went

 

[nic8407]

Here's an update: Wednesday we (my pig growing partner and I) cut up the two halves. We expected to have a friend of his who is a butcher join us for guidance. He didn't show. So we used the video from "ask the meat man.com" to work from. It went pretty well in that it took us about 5 hours to get it to the point where we each could take our halves home to finish cutting/processing on our own. It took me all day today to finish cutting, trimming, wrapping (vac u-seal), grinding ect. I have yet to start on curing and smoking the ham, bacon and hocks. This is a big job! but worth it I think.
The meat hack saw was again a big disappointment, it wouldn't cut straight and was very slow going as well. Next time, one way or the other, I'm going to have an electric band saw. With out it, it seems almost impossible to do the proper cuts quickly and cleanly by hand. At least for an amateur such as myself, perhaps there are tricks I don't know about??
I'll post one more time with the yields I get. I'd love to hear anyone else s input on butchering methods...

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

GREAT WORK!

and nope it takes that long - especially if you are trying to figure it out so dont feel bad at all. and its kinda hard running out and back to look up the instructions and then figure out "what the heck is THAT?" (we found some extra parts)

you did a fine job, for sure. i think it took my buddy 8 hrs to cut his first pork. now he can do it in a little over an hour. we are somewhere in between and we usually do two hogs. and yep its totally worth it.

while we were cutting we got a roast that was so beautiful we didnt even bag it - we just grabbed a roasting pan and some sauerkraut and put it directly in the oven. one taste and you'll see its TOTALLY worth it.

here is the saw we used:
http://www.gandermountain.com/modpe...er_Mountain_Meat_Saw&aID=503AJ2G&merchID=4006

and really i think its just practice but everyone had their own thing. my hubby was dying to break out the sawsall (which you can use - just use a fined toothed blade).. but we did pretty good with this.

be sure to update us on the smoking! we can do bacons here (just have a barrel smoker) and we had to take our hams in to be done. but a smoke house is definitely on my project list. SKR8PN over on the SS site (link at bottom) is our resident master smoker. he has a good post if you are interested.

my pal VRT did a post on her hog harvest - a butcher came to her house and she and her hubby helped. here is her report - i actually learned a lot from this:

http://vrtlarica.blogspot.com/2010/12/pork-harvest-kolinje.html

she included some great pix.

great work, again, nic - now go and getcha some sow belly for breakfast! whoot!

(oh - and you did get the jowls, didnt ya? for smoking?)

 

[Beekissed]

Excellent and informative post!!!

 

[nic8407]

Thanks for the comments, yes I did keep the jowls. My friend is going to make pancetta with them, should be good. I am going to smoke a ham and my bacon. I have a meat smoker that I'm going to modify for cold smoking the ham, bacon and hocks. I'll let you know how all that works out