How to butcher and process a whole pig

[vagabondat02]

Hi everybody! I just "discovered" this section of the forum a couple of weeks ago and thought that you guys might find this interesting. In order to pay for grain, gizmos, and a basement to put them in, I've been a professional chef for about 12 years. For the last seven or so, I've been delving ever deeper into the rabbit hole of butchering and charcuterie, and realized that I needed to start getting whole pigs to facilitate some of the stranger projects that i wanted to do. Over the last three years, I've processed two dozen or so pigs at a couple of different restaurants, and a couple for friends, family, and myself. This is a personal pig that my SWMBO and I got from some local farmers that I've been friends with for a long time. Anyway, just as you wouldn't try to make an all grain, turbid mashed lambic as your first brew, this is also not a beginner project. If you've broken down a bunch of boston butts for sausage making however, you're probably a lot closer to being able to pull this off than you might think. If you are comfortable with removing bones and following muscle seams, identifying fatback vs. soft fat, connective tissue, and other undesirable material, it might be worth your time to think about a pig. I'll be at work a lot over the next couple of days, and I have a food and wine field event to cook for this Sunday, but I'll update as much as possible. So, without further ado, make a pot of coffee, and strap in for a long swiney ride. :rockin:

 

[Temptd2]

Well cool! I'm in!

I'd love to learn to do this. I was actually an apprentice butcher in a former lifetime, but that was a very LOONNNNG time ago and we didn't start with whole animals.

I DID, however, attend a seminar where they broke down a wild pig which was in its entirety when we got started. I enjoyed watching the process.

Can't wait for pics and descriptions!

 

[TheCanisDirus]

I'm in for sure! I know deer, antelope and the like and have had many full pig roasts (pig already dressed)... but never broke down a whole pig. I'm excited!

 

[vagabondat02]

So here's our patient, a 120# Tamworth/Gloucestershire Old Spot cross. He lived his short but happy life on a farm near Elliston VA.

 

[vagabondat02]

The first step is to find the joint above the foot on each leg and make a guiding cut through the skin and muscle to the bone. You can usually pop a boning knife through the joint on the front leg, but the back almost always needs to be sawed.

 

[Temptd2]

I'm already drooling.......

 

[vagabondat02]

More foot removal, and separating the ham hock at the next joint up.

 

[vagabondat02]

Next, we remove the kidney from all of the leaf fat and the tenderloin from the underside of the spine. You can alternately leave the tender in, if you would like little porterhouse (or porkerhouse as I like to call them) chops. SWMBO and I would rather use the ribs for Memphis style dry rub though...

 

[vagabondat02]

Clean the excess fat and chain off of the tenderloin, and you officially have your first easy, edible bit. Next, counting down from the head end, make an incision between the fifth and sixth ribs from the spine to the breastbone. Using that line as a guide, saw through the aformentioned bones, and finish separating with a knife. You can make this break between the fourth and fifth rib if you want your loin to be longer, but I want a lot of sausage out of this guy, and the chops that you would be getting are a little tough, so...

 

[WileECoyote]

Oh Im In, Im going to need this soon, I just bought a house with a in-ground cooking pit, I can't wait to try it out but even 1/2 a pig is way to much meat for us to eat at once, Im thinking 1/4 pig would be good for the first try !


Cheers and Thank You for the tutorial & sharing !

 

[vagabondat02]

Saw in a straight line across, directly below the curve in the spine to get through the "country" ribs. You can take these off and save them, or leave them attached to the shoulder. Cut down with a knife until you hit the arm bone/shoulder blade and saw through that. Finish the separation with a knife. You can leave the shoulder whole for pulled pork BBQ and skip this if you want. I'm breaking the butt down for sausage (top) and smoking the picnic ham (bottom).

 

[vagabondat02]

And I have to go to work now. I'll get back to this ASAP, but it may be Monday, before that happens.

 

[Temptd2]

(insert best whiny voice here) Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! Not til MONNNNNDAAAAAYYYY!!!

 

[vagabondat02]

I'm going to try to sleep late tomorrow, since I have to stay up all night with another pig and a fire, so I guess pulling a late night tonight will help... The next step is to cut up from the belly along the curve of the innermost leg muscle until you hit the pelvis. Repeat the process following the uppermost leg muscle under the tail and spine, until you hit the pelvis. Then, saw through the hip joint, and finish the separation with a knife.

 

[vagabondat02]

A lot of people just separate the entire back end and trim up later, but this technique gets you to an almost perfectly finished ham with one saw break, and leaves you with a "top sirloin" primal.

 

[vagabondat02]

Next we remove the "aitch bone" which is the piece of pelvis still attached to the ball joint of the femur. The bone is to the right side on the first pic, but I turned it for leverage halfway through. I also skinned this ham while I was working on it.

 

[vagabondat02]

Now to break the "sirloin" section from the loin, cut between the vertebrae where the spine begins the turn into the tail. Again, use a knife for muscle, and a saw for bone.

 

[vagabondat02]

Now for the last Primal break! Take the midsection of the pig that you have left, and look at each end of the loin. Decide how much of a "tail" you want on the bottom of the loin on each end and make a guiding incision. Then connect the dots across the entirety of the midsection with a knife. On the tail end of the loin you'll be able to cut all the way through, but about halfway up, you'll hit ribs. Take care of them with the saw, and divide them into the "back" and "spare" sections, connected to the loin and belly respectively.

 

[vagabondat02]

And for all you boneyard hooligans, here's my "teats or GTFO" post.

 

[vagabondat02]

Now repeat the process in mirror image with the other side. I took care of all this before work on a Saturday morning, and jammed the primals into the fridge to await further processing on Monday.

 

[vagabondat02]

On Monday morning I started with the shoulder. I removed the spine/feather bones from the inside and took off the skin from the outside. Then I triimmed down the fatback to about 1/4" thick. I want to dry cure a coppa from this shoulder, so I found the "eye" of the coppa on each end of the shoulder (right side) and followed the seam of the muscles to separate.

 

[vagabondat02]

The rest of this shoulder, the other shoulder, and one of the picnic hams were broken down into grindable trim, fatback, and soft fat for sausage/salami making. the second picnic was skinned and frozen for Pulled pork BBQ later this summer.

 

[vagabondat02]

Each belly section is coated with a layer of leaf fat on the inside, (pic 1) which pulls off easily (pic 2). There is a seam between the ribs and the belly that can also be pulled part of the way, and a knife will finish the separation. the breastbone end of the ribs will have a good deal of connective tissue and cartilage that need to be removed, and leaves you with St Louis cut spareribs. Take the skin off of the belly, and place in your favorite cure. I'll be doing one belly in my no-frills bacon style, one half belly pepper bacon, and one half belly pancetta.

 

[vagabondat02]

Set the loin rib side up and follow the seam between the back ribs and the loin, and then the loin and the spine until the loin is separated. I then proceeded to use a cleaver to separate the back ribs from the spine. A saw will work too, but a cleaver is much easier. If you want bone in chops, you would ignore this step, and instead make a cut between each rib, and use a cleaver or saw to break between each vertibrae.

 

[vagabondat02]

After removing the loin from the bones, skinning and removing excess fatback, cutting 4 rib end chops from each loin, removing the back ribs from the spine, and separating the remaining loin into two center cut, and two tail end roasts. That's the money shot! In a restaurant, I can pay for the entire pig from what we have here. The center cut sections will still make great chops, and the tail end is great for Canadian bacon or schnitzel.

 

[vagabondat02]

After skinning, removing fatback, and deboning the "sirloin" sections for trim, the bulk of the initial processing is finished. These pots, bowls, and pans contain: (starting at the top left and going clockwise)
10.5# bones, tendons, connective tissue for stock
4.25# soft fat, leaf fat, miscellaneous undesirable fatty stuff for lard
7# of skin for soups, stews, and beans (cassoulet!) MF'n pork rinds, or footballs
25# of trim with enough fatback added back to make an 80/20 blend - sausage!
2# extra fatback for blood/emulsified sausage

 

[vagabondat02]

Please note that not a single gram of this majestic and magical creature has hit the garbage can yet... A quick recap shows that we have:
two 10.5# hams; one will become country ham and the other will be in the freezer until I need to get it prepped for Christmas dinner.
One 9# picnic ham will become BBQ before too much longer.
two 12 oz tenderloins
four feet and four ham hocks (to be brined and smoked)
2 kidneys (steak and kidney pie!)
two and a half quarts of blood (more on that later)
one 3# coppa
two 1.5# loin tail end roasts
two 2# center cut loin roasts/future chops
eight 6-8 oz rib end chops
two 6# bellies
two racks each of back and spare ribs
the trim, fatback, lard fat, skin, and bones mentioned above
and a head, oh yeah, the head!

 

[vagabondat02]

First, a blowtorch will take off all of the hair that the slaughterhouse inevitably missed on our hero's way out of this world. It smells like burning hair, definitely an outside job... Make an incision from the base of the ear down to the bottom of the jaw, following the cheekbone down and repeat on the other side. Divide the two incisions down the middle of the underside of the jaw. Peel back the jowls from the skull, leaving the meaty cheeks attached to the skull. Remove the skin and any glands that may be attached from the jowls. I'll be making guanciale out of mine, but you could make "streak of lean" bacon, or use them as fat in a sausage recipe.

 

[mendozer]

OMG I just stumbled upon this at midnight...now I won't be able to sleep. this is fabulous. I'm an avid home cook and charcuterie lover. I see your from Virginia, every go down to Polyface farms to hand pick your heritage pig?

And be lucky I live all the way over here in Seattle otherwise I would be your neighbor, coming over for beer and salami...daily

 

[vagabondat02]

Place the head on a bed of mirepoix and have the SWMBO rub it liberally with salt and pepper (she likes headcheese almost as much as me!). Put a couple of quarts of water in the bottom of the pan, cover with foil and place in a 250* oven for about eight hours. I usually let this happen while I get a well deserved night's sleep.

 

[vagabondat02]

Oh yeah, and eat a freaking pork chop for dinner! I grilled mine, along with some baby yellow squash, and plopped it on top of some buttermilk mashed red potatoes.

 

[mendozer]

...Damn you....

 

[vagabondat02]

Ok. I'm all out of uploaded pics, and I should be in bed. Coming up soon: 30# of sausage- fresh, smoked, and blood, headcheese, and lard! Thanks for the attention so far folks, I hoped some of you would dig it! @ temptd2 - now you have to wait till Monday, but I'll have some cool pics from the event I'm working @ WilEcoyote - if you just go ahead and get a half pig, you'll have chops to freeze, home made bacon, and a ham to go with some BBQ from your inaugural shoulder It's a lot cheaper in the long run, all of it is freezable and you're running a smoker anyway... @ mendozer - Polyface is a bit of a haul from my corner of VA, but the folks I get my pigs from send product to a few super legit places from NYC to Birmingham AL. They raise a pretty rare heritage cattle breed as well, and all of their beef tenderloins go to Le Bernadin, so... I make some decent charcuterie products, but I have to say, after a week in Seattle I'd love to be able to eat at Salumi every day, so if I can crash at your place I'd be happy to return the favor. My Salumi isn't hand rubbed by Batalis though...

 

[mendozer]

My Salumi isn't hand rubbed by Batalis though...

Sounds like a one liner from an Italian Porno

 

[vagabondat02]

Time for some more porknography! I forgot to take pictures of the lard rendering process, because I was working on other parts of the pig, and It's really just a "back burner" step. All of the soft fat went into a pot with just enough water to cover it (pic 1). Bring the pot to a boil and reduce it to a hard simmer, stirring frequently. Over the next hour or two, all of the water will evaporate, leaving you with a bunch of rendered fat. The liquid will clear drastically when the water has all evaporated, and basically transform from a boil into a deep fryer. Reduce the heat and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until all of the chunks of fat turn into little crispy things that look like overcooked bacon. Strain the liquid into a heat resistant container, and let it cool. Lard is great for baking pie crust and biscuits, and I like to use it for skillet fried chicken. The chunks are now called "cracklins" and are considered to be one of the finest salty/crispy snacks off of the entire animal here in the south. Next I removed all of the skin, meat, ears, and tongue from the skull and strained the broth.

 

[vagabondat02]

I'm making two types of headcheese from this head. An aspic set Vietnamese head cheese for bahn mi sandwiches and scrapple; which is a Pennsylvania Dutch, cornmeal set, breakfast meat that gets pan fried until crispy and covered in maple syrup. I sorted through the head meat and discarded all of the glands, connective tissue, and vascular structures. I then coarsely shredded the meat and skin, thinly sliced the ears, and cut the tongue into chunks. I only really need one headcheese hanging around at a time, so half of the mix went into a loaf pan that had been lined with plastic wrap, and the other half went into the freezer for later. I then put a plate in the freezer and began reducing the broth with star anise, cinnamon sticks, coarse black pepper, a little brown sugar, and fish sauce. When you braise a head, it produces an astonishing amount of gelatin, by reducing this liquid you increase the gelatin to water ratio until you get the consistency you like. Once the liquid was reduced by about one third, I poured a spoonful onto the frozen plate, and it set into a sliceable gel that wasn't too firm, which is perfect. I adjusted the seasoning in the liquid, going a little heavy on the salt since this will be served cold, and strained it into the loaf pan. Once it cooled a bit, I wrapped the plastic over the top and put it in the fridge to set.

 

[vagabondat02]

There are a few different ways to cure, hang, and smoke a country ham. In Virginia, we are rightfully proud of what I'll call a "Smithfield style" country ham, after the biggest company that makes them. A Smithfield ham is cured with salt, sugar, and sodium nitrate, cold smoked, and then hung in a low humidity environment until it is completely dried out. When you want to eat it, it has to be soaked in water for a couple of days to rehydrate it and rinse out the excess salt, and then cooked. I already have one of these hanging in my basement, and I'm way more into raw hams anyway, so I'll be making what I call a "Benton's" style ham after the most notable producer of this style. If you haven't ever had Allan Benton's country ham or bacon, you are living in an empty and meaningless world, devoid of true joy and happiness. Go here http://shop.bentonscountryham.com/ immediately, change your life, and thank me later. The cool thing about Benton's hams, is that they are aged more like a Proscuitto or Iberico ham, so they can (and should) be eaten thinly sliced and raw. The process for making these hams is curing, cold smoking, hanging in a high humidity environment from six months to however long you can stand to wait, and cold smoking again. I made the following cure:
300g kosher salt
150g brown sugar
15g cure#2 (sodium nitrate)
20g coarse black pepper
I rubbed as much of the cure into the skinned ham as it would hold, especially around the ball of the femur and the exposed shank. then I put it in a pan, covered it, and put the pan with the curing bellies and jowls on top of it to weigh it down. I will flip it and drain off the liquid ever couple of days, apply another round of cure at the halfway point, and let it cure for two days for every pound of green weight. 10.5# ham = 21 day cure.

 

[vagabondat02]

I rubbed the coppa that I removed from the butt and rubbed it liberally with garlic. Then I packed as much of the following cure on it as it would hold.
110g kosher salt
65g sugar
6g cure#2
10g coarse black pepper
10 crushed juniper berries
3g fresh ground coriander
1g allspice
1g mace
Then I jammed it into a gallon sized ziplock, squeezed out all the air I could, and put it in the fridge. I will reapply cure after a week, then let sit another week. I'll post more about it when it's time to hang.

 

[vagabondat02]

In between these curing projects I was having a fresh sausage marathon with some of the trim I collected. Sausage is pretty well covered on this forum too, so I'll skip the process, and just list what I made. Spicy Italian, knackwurst, kielbasa, hot breakfast, maple breakfast, and Mexican chorizo. All of these were 2.5# batches which yielded about 12 links each Italian and knackwurst, three "Hillshire" sized ropes of kielbasa, and fifteen 1/2# packs of loose breakfast sausage and chorizo for patties or crumbling. The remaining 10# of trim is getting wrapped and frozen, and will be used for fermented and dried sausages later.

 

[vagabondat02]

Blood sausage has not been covered on here from what I've seen, so I'll go into some detail. There aren't too many pictures of this because it is really messy, and I didn't want to kill my phone. I made Irish black pudding and Spanish Morcilla De Burgos from the following recipes:
Black Pudding
500g pig blood - freshly whisked to break up any clots
250g fatback - ground through a large die
250g cooked steel cut oats - NOT rolled oats
50g diced onions - sweated in lard until soft
21g kosher salt
2g black pepper
2g coriander
1g mace
Once the oatmeal and onions are cooled, whisk in blood and seasonings. Tie a very firm knot in one end of a hog casing and fit the other end over a funnel. Ladle the mix into the casing, only filling the casing about 2/3 of the way. Tie the other end of the casing after removing as much air as possible from the inside. Lay the sausage out flat, and portion links by tying with string. Poach the sausages in 180 degree water for about 45 minutes. Any sausages with air pockets in them will float and need to be punctured with a needle or sausage pricker. When the internal temperature hits 160 degrees transfer the sausages to an ice bath. The oatmeal and blood will expand considerably during cooking, it is imperative to not over stuff.

I used a slightly modified version of the Morcilla recipe from Charcuteria, which is an outstanding book about Spanish charcuterie!
1,000g pig blood
1,000g diced onions - sweated in 300g of lard until soft
1,000g rice - mixed with onions and lard and left to sit overnight in the fridge
4g black pepper
2g cloves
2g anise
1g nutmeg
15g smoked paprika
5g cayenne
Once the rice is done soaking up the lard and onion mix with spices and blood. Use the same filling technique as above, but only filling the casings a little more than halfway. You may need something to poke the rice through the hole in the funnel. This is traditionally stuffed into hog casings and tied into foot long rings, or beef middles. Poach the same way as above.