Butchering weekend plus Bacon in progress - PrOn!

Smoking Westy · Jan 7, 2013

This past Saturday we did our annual hog butchering. This year we did 2 1/2 hogs (5 sides). All together we processed 495 pounds of pork. :thumb: Besides the fresh cuts like chops, tenderloin, fresh side pork and roasts we made brats, breakfast sausage (links and bulk), summer sausage and then we finished up with 60 pounds of venison summer sausage. I brought home several chunks of belly which I started curing tonight and will be smoking next week.

Here are a few shots from the weekend.

First up the equipment...

Stuffer and grinder

My new slicer that I picked up with gift cards from Christmas

Removing the hocks

Removing the loin

Leaf lard (going to render for biscuits and fish frying)

Brats rolling out of the stuffer

Pork summer sausages ready to be hung

Venison summer sausages

And shots from tonight...prepping the pork belly

Meatie!

The freezer is chuck full between the pork and the doe I shot this year. :hungry:

MisterChrister · Jan 7, 2013

Nice! Great pics and thread, thanks for posting this!

Dirtbuddy · Jan 7, 2013

SO awesome! Especially love the Sawzall pic :thumb:

JonM106 · Jan 7, 2013

Looks like an awesome weekend!

Militant83 · Jan 7, 2013

Looks like a good time

chriscw81 · Jan 7, 2013

awesome!!! thanks for sharing

Bludawg · Jan 7, 2013

I like the way you roll Pi parties are hard work and all fun:-D That is some nice Belly it will make some fine Bacon.

DJnKY · Jan 7, 2013

"This year we did 2 1/2 hogs"
We used to kill hogs but I never done that before. Was it a smart hog?
As in the joke punch-line "you don't eat a pig that smart all at once".:biggrin1:

ModelMaker · Jan 8, 2013

Dirtbuddy said:
SO awesome! Especially love the Sawzall pic :thumb:

My concern with the Sawsall blade is they are usually painted and as you cut with it the paint is worn off and imparts itself on the wood you are cutting. Wouldn't the paint impart itself on the meat also?
Ed

Bonewagon · Jan 8, 2013

Nice: :thumb:

Gnaws on Pigs · Jan 8, 2013

Cool, brings back a lot of memories of the big family hog-killin's when I was growing up. We processed three wild hogs last week that my son and I brought back from a hunting trip. I don't scald and scrape them, though, just skin 'em. Made a bunch of sausage Sunday from the trimmings.

GMDGeek · Jan 8, 2013

Great now my wife wants me to get some new gear lol

jacob · Jan 8, 2013

Cool. nothing beats fresh.

Mason Dixon Bowhunta · Jan 8, 2013

Looks like quite the operation. How many hours to it take start to finish?

cowgirl · Jan 8, 2013

Great job Westy!! It really helps to have friends when butchering. Did you scald?
Congrats on the venison in the freezer too. :thumb:

gtr · Jan 8, 2013

Now that's fresh! :clap2:

I've rendered leaf lard for biscuits & folks asked me why they were so much better than normal.

Smoking Westy · Jan 8, 2013

Mason Dixon Bowhunta said:
Looks like quite the operation. How many hours to it take start to finish?

We started at 7:30 and were done with the cutting and had just started grinding by noon.

From about 12:30 to 2:30 we did the rest of the grinding and mixing and were done stuffing by 3:00. I think we had all the packaging done by 3:30 so roughly about 8 hours total. We had some cleanup time afterwards. It makes for a full day but it's a blast getting the family together and filling the freezers.

Here are a couple more shots...10AM break, time for homemade pies and bottles of ski (soda-pop locally bottled in town). I usually touch up my knife with a hone at the 10AM break.

Brats!

Inside the ladies tend to the kids and work on vacuum sealing everything up. Before this was the bottle neck of the entire process but we picked up two commercial grade sealers from Cabelas and when you get a couple people putting meat in the bags and then a person on each sealer you can wrap up the job pretty quickly.

We used to kill, scald and clean the hogs in the mornings but the last couple years we have cheated a bit and got them from the locker with that work already done. Speeds things up a fair amount.

Smoking Westy · Jan 8, 2013

ModelMaker said:
My concern with the Sawsall blade is they are usually painted and as you cut with it the paint is worn off and imparts itself on the wood you are cutting. Wouldn't the paint impart itself on the meat also?
Ed

We have been using the sawsall for years and I haven't noticed this happening. Then again we don't make a lot of cuts with it either.

Bluebird · Jan 8, 2013

That's some good looking hog meat!

basuraman · Jan 8, 2013

Looks good. But why the camo inside. Someone thinking of sneaking off with the meat?

Butchering weekend plus Bacon in progress - PrOn!

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