Hog Processing Grandpas Way

[skyhightree1]

oh ok thats good I will go look at them.

 

[mwj]

Hey can yall tell me if this is a good deal its the guy I posted his link in this forum this is what hes selling tell me if you think this is a good buy. this is what he said to me in an email.

Hello,
I have 2 cut boars 1-425lb and1-325.......$250 and $190. also have 4 from 50lb-90lbs......$1 pr lb......one big hog is hamshire x the rest are mostly durock x berkshr/hampshr

Ask if the ''cut boars'' are barrows or stags? There is a huge difference.

 

[skyhightree1]

mwj I do not know much about hogs whats the difference so i can ask ?

 

[Jogeephus]

A stag is one that has been cut after reaching maturity. Don't know how this would affect the meat though as long as it wasn't done just before killing but I've never messed with these so I don't know.

 

[3waycross]

A stag is one that has been cut after reaching maturity. Don't know how this would affect the meat though as long as it wasn't done just before killing but I've never messed with these so I don't know.

My guess is it would be pretty rank if it's a stag!

 

[mwj]

Sometimes you can butcher a boar and have no problems with taint. When you do get one with a problem it is a lost cause!!! It would be a shame to loose the meat from a 400# hog after you put all the work into it. The taint sometimes is only detected after it is cooked. If those are just big barrows they should make some good eating. They would have pork-chops the size of ''Buick'' hubcaps :cowboy:

 

[HOSS]

I agree about brats and they are in the top five favorite sausages on my list. The combination of spices is really hard to beat. I like pretty much any brat but there is one in particular I really like. Its recipe is a little different than what some of the purists accept but the end result is hard to beat. I think I made some out of Hoss's swamp heifer and I think he too would agree its a pretty acceptable sausage.

I can vouch for that! The brats were all ate up in record time. Fine, fine eatin

 

[skyhightree1]

Thanks for explaining the differences to me all I have never had pigs before and im just trying to buy some for processing so i dont have to buy it out the stores.

 

[Jogeephus]

I won't waste my time on a boar. Like MWJ says, that smell is terrible and permeats everything. I took a fella hog hunting for meat but he decided to shoot a big tusked boar. When we got to it you could smell the rankness of it. Told him it wasn't fit to eat but he insisted that we drag it to the hill. This was about a 300 lb hog and wasn't an easy drag. We hung it and with each knife stroke the smell got worse but he insisted. He ended up carrying the meat home and packaging it only to throw it all away when he cooked the first bit of it.

I don't know if this is correct or not but I have killed boars that had no taint at all but in raising hogs I noticed whenever the pigs came in heat it seemed like the boar began to stink. I don't know if this cycle has anything to do with it or not but it was quit noticeable.

 

[skyhightree1]

Wow I kill some wild boars here never noticed the difference I just thought they all stank lol

 

[tater74]

Had a guy tell me the one's that stink had some type of tumor. He would avoid those. The one's that didn't he would buy and butcher.

 

[Jogeephus]

Don't know what that might be unless its a tumor between his butt cheeks. I've always suspected it was the testosterone level based on whether or not they were feeling frisky. Have killed some that had no smell at all the others were just plain rank. I noticed the phasing of the smell with my penned boar.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

As long as they been cut for a while they will be fine.We used to cut them in the spring and let them run till fall never had one to taste like a boar done that away. You can get some big sides of bacon off one that big.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

Actually, you don't need a/c cause when the meat goes in the smokehouse its already cured and the smoke is more for flavor and bug retardent.

Can you give an reader's digest version of the overall process after they are sliced and diced? I've never gotten in on real hog butchering before.

 

[Jogeephus]

Actually, you don't need a/c cause when the meat goes in the smokehouse its already cured and the smoke is more for flavor and bug retardent.

Can you give an reader's digest version of the overall process after they are sliced and diced? I've never gotten in on real hog butchering before.

Its really quite simple but its also ingenious given the fact they figured out how to do this along about 3500 BC but mankind did not understand the science of it till the early 1900's. Basically, what you are doing is dehydrating the meat using salt. The salt used is a special salt containing both nitrates and nitrites. Prior to 1900, special salts were found and used for this purpose. These salts were prized but after 1900 science unravelled the mystery of these magic salts by isolating the nitrates and nitrites. These chemicals are the basis of the nitrogen cycle and when they react with meat they break down and form nitrous oxide which prevents the formation of botulism spores so the use of these chemicals is a important today as they ever were and are the only thing outside of radiation that will prevent the formation of this toxin. Any of the misinformation you have read on the news pertaining to nitrates is just that. Misinformation which for the most part has been retracted but only in small print but the effects of this poor journalism is still felt today.

All that aside, basically what you do is to treat the meat with salt to reduce the available water below .92. At this point, the baddies cannot ruin the meat and it becomes shelf stable. Once this process is complete, the meat is sometimes hung in a smokehouse to bathe in the smoke so it will gain a smokey flavor as well as to keep insects like the skipper fly from boring into the meat. In most cases the meat is simply left in the smokehouse till its needed. The longer the ham hangs (or ages) the better it gets. The Bohemians will cure hams whenever a baby girl is born. These hams hang till her wedding day and are then used for the feast.

Many people today think cured hams are to salty but this is because they do not know how to prepare them. There are two main ways. One is to slice it thin - with only one side as 3-way says - and serve it like proscuitto or use these slices for garnishes or hordevours. The other way is to soak the meat in water for a couple of days before baking. Keep in mind, the reason for curing the meat was to make it shelf stable in a time when refrigeration wasn't available.

Then there are other things and a whole world of stuff you can do in between from city hams to all sorts of bacon. Thousands of possibilities.

 

[mwj]

Before we had electricity it was either ''can'' ,''cure'' or fresh. The joints and sides were trimmed up and covered with Morton's sugar cure and laid on a plank table where the moisture could drain while the cure was going in. After a couple of weeks they were wipid off and hung up. If it was later in the winter they would be cold smoked before they were wrapped in newspaper bagged in a ''seed sack'' and hung up to finish curing. This was not for people that don't like salt because towards the end of summer you almost needed to parboil some salt out!

 

[skyhightree1]

MWJ i remember eating those salt licks aka country ham steaks for bfast lol I loved it today gives me a major headache.

 

[Jogeephus]

They can be salty if cut right off the ham. You also have to keep in mind that today we make our meals around the meat dish where they used meat in a more limited manner than we do today. If you want a meat dish out of a country ham then you need to prep it first. This can take up to two days. One of the popular things today is to slice it thin like proscuito

 

[skyhightree1]

my mouth is watering something fierce