A Plan! So Just What IS My Plan?

So I'd finally gotten over my information saturation induced analysis paralysis mentioned in the last post by narrowing it down to one method and process and going from there.

I had decided to use the very detailed pdf  with photos and instructions contained on the CD included with Cole Ward's book, "The Gourmet Butcher's Guide to Meat".  He basically starts with a picture of the entire half hog carcass laying on the table and says, "First, we're going to cut here..." and goes from there to break down the primals (shoulder, belly, loin, and ham) into sub-primals, and the into actual retails cuts.  While his process goes so far as to bone out just about every cut, such as the ham, picnic shoulder, Boston Butt, etc... I'd planned to leave certain bones in based on what I wanted do with that cut.  Which I'll describe more in a sec.

I know I'd mentioned Adam Danforth's book as being the one book to own, and I still stand by that.  However, since one of the methods outlined in his book was the exact method that was shown in the electronic guide on Cole Ward's disc, I erred on the side of having lots of pictures to guide me.  I think that aside from that pdf, the content and "meat" (if you will) contained in Danforth's book is FAR superior to Cole Ward's.

So what was my plan?  Seems weird to even be typing this now... but at the time, it was kind of a big deal.  I was sweating the small stuff I guess.

Rather than give a play by play in advance - I'll wait and cover that later.  For now, it might be helpful to describe what it was I wanted out of the carcass from the standpoint of cuts and what I planned to do with them.

Hocks were to be removed and frozen with intent to cure and smoke later.  Trotters removed and frozen to be used for something later... maybe bone stock?  I figured I'd decide that once other projects had settled down.

I planned to brine the whole ham and make a "city ham".  This was partly contingent on how big the ham turned out to be and whether it would fit nicely in a 5 gallon bucket (my brining vessel).  If it was too monstrous to fit handily, I'd bone it out into some smaller roasts to brine separately.  The idea here was for lunch meat and sandwiches after the initial cooking.  I'd wanted to time it so that it would be ready for Easter Sunday but I gave up on that and decided to keep it simple and not complicate things with self subjected timelines.

I wanted the spare ribs left intact.  And if possible, I wanted the baby back ribs intact too, which meant boning them out from the sirloin.  Lots of sources used a table saw for that process (to remove the chine bone) and so I decided that if I couldn't do it, I'd revert to bone in loin chops.

The belly was going to be made into bacon and salt pork.  I had two techniques I wanted to try.  One a simple brine and the other a cure-rub.  But until I had the belly cut up, I wasn't sure how much I'd be doing for either method.  But the point was to do bacon with it.

The loin was going to be a mixture of boneless (or bone-in, see above) chops and roasts.  I'd just kind of eyeball it once it was on the table.

The shoulder was going to broken down into a bone-in Boston Butt for pulled pork BBQ and into a bone-in picnic ham to be cured in a method to be determined later (but frozen for now).

Leaf fat was for leaf lard and back fat for regular lard.  Skin was to be left on the bellies going into the brine but removed from the part getting the rub.  I'd make decisions on skin once I had it on the table and could see how well it'd been scalded and scraped as I didn't really want to stink my wife's kitchen by burning a bunch of hair off.

Trim meat and some back fat (leaf lard is less desirable for sausage to my understanding - and is MUCH better used rendered into lard for baking) were to be set aside for sausage.  I had no idea how much trim I'd wind up with so I was going to have to wing it in terms of how much sausage to plan for.  I'd also set a 5 pound beef round roast to thaw from the last grass-fed side of beef we'd got.  This way if I ran short on trim meat, I'd be able to supplement with some beef.  And since I'd planned on kielbasa as one of the sausage types I was planning for (andouille was the other - both to be cold smoked as well), that would work well since there were recipes abound that included both beef and pork.

While I would have loved to have the head available for headcheese or rillette, I think that was going to push my bride out of her comfort zone.  After all, she was letting me butcher a hog on her kitchen counter... no need to push my luck!

I'll get to the specifics of recipes and techniques for this stuff later... especially once I've had a chance to see how some of the initial stuff came out.

Planning - Analysis Paralysis!

Now.  I realize that it may seem that I actually ordered (or started the ordering process) before I had a plan but that would be far from the truth.  Actually, in the several months it took to put together funding and find a source for the hog, I spent a great deal of time researching...  so much so that my wife can attest to the fact that it got a little out of hand.

Why did it take so long?  Well, I must confess that I'm a habitual researcher.  I get it honestly though as my Dad suffers from the same trait.  I think it is further exacerbated by the fact that I'm stingy and don't want to waste money making mistakes.

But honestly, there is a great deal to learn.  Bear in mind, that I have no expertise in butchery nor have I ever hunted and skinned deer or anything of the sort.  I had a basic understanding of where on a hog certain cuts from from and how you cook them.  I knew that muscles of locomotion tend to be tougher than support muscles and therefore benefit from a long and low temperature cooking technique.  I knew why you grilled a steak and braised chuck roast but beyond that, I couldn't tell you how you identified those cuts on a carcass and how you got them from there into your grill/dutch oven.

I started with some books and videos - some of which I'll list here:

The first one is probably what started the whole thing.  Its a series of videos by a guy named Brandon Sheard who is also known as the Farmstead Meatsmith.  I heard him on a podcast, and watched the videos immediately and I was hooked.  I started getting books on charcuterie (more on that later) and sausage making and I was off to the races.  There are three videos on this series and I can't reccomend them highly enough.  They really do capture the spirit of what it means to take animals for our own consumption.  He really captures the reverence for the animal that I think is lacking in our industrial food supply.

I'm not sure how to embed Vimeo clips into this blog - but please start with this link to:

The Anatomy of Thrift.

Now - promise me that you watched the videos linked to above - then and only then can you go on to the next ones.

This one comes courtesy of the University of Kentucky.  This was the one I watched over and over.  Firstly because it had good camera work, sound, and was in high definition.  Secondly because it was pretty thorough (being about 40 minutes or so).  Its like getting a butcher lecture/demonstration.

This is a three part series courtesy of Food Farmer Earth.  Its thorough and worth several viewings.  The other two parts follow below. 

There are tons more videos out there and you'll find that the more you watch of them, the more comfortable you'll get with not only the process but also the planning that you'll need to do.  

Books:

There are a TON of books out there.  I'll start with this one.

Pick it up at Amazon here.

This is the one that was something of the gateway drug for me.  When I first got it from the library, I had no aspirations of butchering a hog - I just wanted to make bacon, sausage, and ham.  I got fascinated with charcuterie as part of my journey with meat.  Admittedly, I've only scratched a tiny surface of the art-form but I'm learning as I go.  One of the tenets of the book is to start with quality meat - which I guess is how I got derailed into butchering.

In the interest of full disclosure, the primary author of this book, Michael Ruhlman has taken quite a bit of heat for much of the info contained herein.  Experts in the food safety and charcuterie community say that he flies a little fast and lose with some of the best practices (and that some of his recipes are too heavy on the salt).  While I'm aware of those critiques, I don't really bother with them on the whole.  I think this book is largely responsible for the charcuterie Renaissance that is happening in this country.  It kind of started (or at least threw a big log on the fire) the whole movement.  There are a ton of people out there making their own bacon and salami who otherwise wouldn't be were it not for this book.  Yes, there are better books out there.  Yes, there are probably an error or two.  Yes, some of the recipes are on the salty side.  But I think unless you are already pretty heavy into the hobby, this is as good a place to start as any.

Now on to butchering:

Just go ahead and get this book.  Right now... there is a link right under the picture.  You need it.  Or... if you are cheap, see if your library has it.  Either way, start with this one!

Buy this one at Amazon here

This book is exhaustive.  It has sections on not only each animal but also of packaging, freezing, processing, food safety, slaughtering, sourcing... if you are only going to get one book, get this one.

If, however, you wish to get another book on the subject, try this one:

Available at Amazon here

Now, in full disclosure, I did not read much of the contents of this book.  HOWEVER, there was a CD-ROM included with the book (that I checked out from the library).  On that CD was a pdf that contained about 250 close up pictures of butchering a hog with step by step commentary.  I actually put the pdf on my iPad and used it on the counter when I was actually doing the butchering.  I found it incredibly useful!  

There are ton of other books out there but I think you score these three, you'll be more than armed and dangerous for the mission at hand.

Once you dive into all these sources, you will quickly notice that one source will show you one way and another will contradict that by doing it a completely different way.  The point is that there a ton of ways to break down the carcass and decisions you make with one cut can exclude you from other options later on down the line.  For instance, you don't get a boneless loin roast if you want to have bone in loin chops.  You can't smoke a boston butt on the grill if you've ground it all up for sausage.  Some of that may seem pretty obvious but as you go through your options you'll quickly realize just how many choices need to be made...

Before long, I experienced analysis paralysis.  Too many options... too many sources... to many ideas... too many wants...  I was reaching all over the place for the one source that would just tell me to DO IT THIS WAY!  I was literally losing sleep.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night going over primal cuts and brining techniques.  In a way, I knew TOO much.  I had this desire for this cut of meat; I wanted to cure this cut this way and that one another way.  I wanted to make this sausage and use this method but then another method with another sausage.  I wanted to try this method... on and on it went!

Finally, I expressed some of my frustrations to my wife and she helped me compartmentalize everything and get back on track.

If you find yourself in this situation, here is my advice.  STOP!  Have a good beer and stay calm.  Back up and realize what you are trying to achieve.  You are not trying to achieve culinary perfection and butchery excellence with this first venture.  You ARE trying to learn something by putting good meat in your freezer and on the table for your family.  Find one source and just do it the way they say do it.  They say separate the shoulder between these two ribs (but the other source says you get a longer coppa if you split between another pair of ribs... but then you wind up with less....  See?  This is what got you in this position in the first place), so do it that way!   Pick a recipe that seems to be fairly well regarded and go with it.  Quit splitting hairs... don't over complicate things.  You aren't going to "have it all" the first time out!  Well, maybe YOU can, but I couldn't!  

Once I got this reality check, I was SO much better off.  I chose to go as close to step by step as I could from pdf mentioned above with the book by Cole Ward.  I chose one brine recipe for the ham and some of the bacon (with an option to do a portion of the bacon another way if time permitted).  I finally just chose two sausage recipes for types I knew my family would use.  I tossed out that odd-ball exotic recipe that sounded so good and was the perfect compliment for risotto - we don't make risotto.  But, we DO make lots of beans and rice or sausage and cabbage... so andouille and kielbasa it was.  

I felt SO much better after that realization.  I hope you don't get to that point in the first place.  If you start with ONE book on pork processing and ONE book on hog butchery, you should be okay.  I got too overloaded with too much information.  I will admit though, that having exposed myself to lots of methods did help on butcher day.  When I hit a roadblock or two, I was able to switch gears and work around them much easier - but more on that later.

How Do I Order This Thing?

So through a contact provided me from a Facebook group called "Sausage Debauchery", I got hold a gentlemen named Josh Davis from Frolona Farm.  Josh raises pastured heritage breed hogs and grass fed cattle on a farm in Franklin, Georgia - east and a little south of Atlanta.  His family has owned the farm for a long time (1840s if I remember right?) and darned if it isn't prettiest plot of land I've seen in this state.

I'll admit to being most of the way sold on Josh's operation after seeing this video that was linked to from the farm's Facebook page.  That said, once I got into contact with him, he was very up front with what he did, why he did it and was very patient with my questions and inquiries.  At no point did I get the impression that he was being evasive (like I gotten elsewhere).  He told me why he bred the breeds he bred and what the goal of his breeding program was in the short-term and the long-term.  He was very accommodating of me and my family when we paid a visit to the farm.  His prices were right about in the middle of what I'd seen and met with my budget for the project.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but there is something special about being able to shake the hand on the person who raised your food.  I've spent my whole life removed from my food, just buying whatever was on the shelf at Kroger or Publix.  I think as a consumer, there is something fulfilling to looking into the eyes of the person you are purchasing something from.  We've lost that in today's society.  I'm as loyal an Amazon customer as the next person and its been a long time since I could look at the face of the person who is selling me this DVD or that coffee maker.  But even before online sales, did we really have a connection to the store clerk at Best Buy who told us which TV to buy?  I didn't.  It was still pretty sterile and anonymous.  Frankly though, I don't think I "need" the same kind of connection with the salesperson at Haverty's when buying that new sofa; he didn't build the sofa.  And true, my dollars go towards his salary, but it takes many steps to get there.  When I pay Josh directly for a hog that he raised, the money stays between us.  And I think the farmer gets something out of that interaction too... sure, its his livelihood - but there's more there.  He's met my two kids.  My son played with his dog.  There is a direct link between the hog that he is raising and the family it will feed.  That "link" is a form of accountability...  Unless he's a psychopath and gets off on feeding people diseased meat, he's going to try to raise the best product he can.  That "link" ensures that.  And I think that "link" is missing with today's food supply.   I can't be the only person who believes that.  And I really do think that there is a whole higher level of job fulfillment for a farmer who gets to see the smiling faces who enjoy the fruits of his labor.  But, I digress (you'll find I do that a lot!).

Okay - back to the project.

When you buy your meat from a local provider, you are going to come in contact with terms such as hanging weight, processors, cut sheets, and probably a whole bunch of others that I've forgotten.

The processor is the facility that will slaughter the animal (also known as an abattoir.)  For normal folks who want their meat to be pre-cut and packaged, the processor is also likely to be the butcher too.  But for nutjobs like myself, who just want to carcass on the kitchen counter to butcher on our own, the processor is just the processor.  And they'll kill and eviscerate the hog, scald and scrape the hair off, remove the head, cut the carcass in half and hang it to chill.  After that, its on me.

Hanging weight refers to the weight of the carcass after evisceration (and usually without the head) as it hangs.  Most prices are going to be given based on hanging weight.  In my case, Josh's prices (in January of 2015) are $3.50 per lb. and most his hogs were weighing about 200-250lbs hanging.

Based on our conversations, I expected the my half (I was ordering a half hog - due to budget, freezer space, and first time jitters, I only wanted to try to manage a half) to weigh between 100-120lbs hanging weight.  So for the sake of my small math brain, 100lbs hanging weight would cost me $350 total.  Josh had figured his abattoir fees into that.  Some farmers had quoted me prices that were just for the hanging weight and then a price on top of that for processing (kill fee, butcher fee...).  Had I gone with them, I would have expected to pay less in processor fees since I was doing the butchering.

We agreed on the terms of the sale and then it was just a matter of waiting until the hogs were ready and we could match up schedules.  I requested a hog on a specific date.  Sadly, he was unable to "confirm" that date two weeks in advance.  Reason being that my order was the only order for a hog that he had for delivery that day.  Certainly there are transportation costs and such that figure into that but the primary reason is that he believes that transporting an animal alone to a strange place puts undue stress on the animal and he won't do it.  I can totally respect that.  And while I'd never thought about it, I actually prefer that approach... why go through the process of raising a top quality hog only to have the quality degraded by butchering a stressed animal?  I don't think for a moment that a pig has an awareness of impending slaughter - but I do think its capable of thinking, "Hey. what is that loud machine he wants to put me in?  Hey, what is this strange place?  Hey, where'd all my buddies go?  Hey, I don't like being alone!"

So... it was a matter of waiting until our schedules would sync up - but in the meantime, I needed to get ready...  But wait, wasn't this going to be easy?

A Hog is a Hog? Sourcing the Pork

Thanks to a loose lipped hog farmer who planted the idea of butchering it myself into my head as well as my overactive miser-glad, I'd decided that this was going to be my next project.  I was going to get a hog, butcher it myself, and do all the processing on my own (sausage, ham, lard, bacon, etc...).  Sounds easy right?

Obviously, the first thing I'd need was a source for the hog.  I wanted a heritage breed, raised locally on pasture.  The problem is that you can't just go to the store and ask for one.  The only place I'd encountered one was at the previously mentioned Farm to Table event put on by the good folks who do our CSA - and sadly Mike and Judy didn't have any that would be ready for my timeline (which was as soon as possible - that stuff was too good to wait for!).  I asked them if they could point me in the direction of another source and they were happy to do so.  That's a neat thing about your local farmer... these folks that are trying to keep things local.  Mike was more interested that I find someone who was active in the local food community and trying to raise their animals in a respectable way, than he was concerned about losing a sale to a "competitor".

Sadly, as with anything dealing with people, there are good ones and bad ones.  After numerous text messages, phone calls, voicemails, emails, websites that didn't work, I'd learned a few things; 

- a good hog farmer isn't necessarily a good business manager

- just because a hog farmer is local doesn't mean he's part of the "local food" movement

- one farmer's interpretation of pasture isn't always in line with what I thought it meant

- not all farmers believe that hogs should be raised on pasture and that this whole idea is bunk

- some farmers will tell you what you want to hear, even when it ain't true

- when you find someone on the up and up, give them your business so they'll be around next time

One farmer told me that his hogs were on pasture.  When I asked him what type of forage made up most of their diet, he said Brand X feed.  Turns out they were "confined" on pasture (meaning NOT on a hog-barn) and fed the same feed that we were trying to steer clear of.

 Used without permission from Mountain Creek Farm

One farmer told me that you can't raise hogs on pasture.  Another said that heritage breeds "ain't good for meat, just for fat".

Another said that he raised purebred Mulefoot hogs on pasture with minimal amounts of supplemental non-GMO organic feed.  His prices were lower than any I'd seen and he could deliver however much I wanted, whenever I wanted it, wherever I wanted it.  Sounded perfect - I asked him where he was located and he replied not too far from me and that he'd be happy to deliver for free if I ordered a certain amount or more.  When I mentioned that I might like to drop by and see his operation, having never seen a pastured hog farm before, the emails stopped.  No replies to my text messages either.  When I finally did get an answer, it was a terse one-liner that said, "Sorry, we don't have any more available."  Wow!  He sold out fast.  My guess is that his hogs were anything but what he claimed they were.

So after all that, here's my checklist - your potential supplier should meet most of this criteria:

- you should expect the farmer to be able to tell you what breeds they raise (not insist that what you are looking for is a bad idea)

- you should expect the farmer to be able to tell you what they feed their hogs and what their pasture is made up of

- you should expect them to tell you if they use hormones or anti-biotics in their herd at all and if they do, for what reasons

- you should be able to visit their farm (there ARE legitimate concerns with contamination and the spread of disease to a otherwise healthy herd and in those cases, you should be able to get some sort of third party confirmation on their claims).

So where do you start looking?  Word of mouth helps.  Get connected with like-minded folks.  Check out your local farmer's market if you have one.  Ask around.  Check with your local butcher shop (if you have one... most people are stuck with their grocer's meat department and those guys likely won't even know what you are looking for - no disrespect to them at all - just outside their scope).  Check with the breeder list at the Livestock Conservancy.

I contacted a couple of the better regarded local meat processors and abattoirs in the state and asked them who was raising the best meat.  Be careful here though as what you consider best may not be what the local 4H judges consider best.  Might be great meat by commercial standards but that's not what I was looking for.

Check with your Facebook contacts - there are several closed groups on Facebook that have been very helpful in my quest - in fact, the farmer I ended up using was referred to me by someone on the "Sausage Debauchery" Facebook group.  Check out Craigslist... 

Point being is that you'll know the right farmer when you find them - just trust your gut.  For what it was worth, the guy that Mike referred me to was willing but we couldn't make the logistics work.