Butcher Shoppe

The following cuts require basic knife skills. Nothing fancy, at least not yet.

Your butchered hog should be allowed to chill over night. It is best to cut pork while it is cool. You need a bone saw, a butcher's knife and every other serrated knife you have. We don't all have the perfect knife sets, and we are going to need to make do. I find that a sturdy bread knife actual works wonders with large, curving, cuts of meat, like pork chops.

Below is you basic hog chart.



I had some decent pictures of us cutting things up, and pictures of other select meats, unfortunately it looks as though my computer ate them.

Here is a picnic ham with the hock still attached. You will need a bone saw or a sawzall to cut the two apart. We are using a wood blade. Dewalt! Are you reading? I would love it if you would make a blade for meat and bone. If you make one already, where can I find it? It sure isn't local.

I digress. The wood blade cuts easier than the metal pipe blade we were using to break the hog down for transporting.


How we had the hog broken down, meant we had to cut the butt (which isn't an actually butt (look at the chart people) Away from the ham. It was too large for me to store, and I ended up cutting it in half.


Next came the torso (chest if you will). Using your sawzall, meat saw or bone saw, you want to cut it in half. You will end up with two pieces like the ones below. On the left we have the spare ribs and bacon, on the right we have the loin chops (loin, pork chops, sirloin)



Follow the end of the ribs to remove the bacon from the spare ribs.


Cutting close to one side of the bone, follow the bones to cut your pork chops. You might need your bone saws to cut through the spine. However once the spine seems to widen, you will be at the end of your pork chops, and into the beginning of what is labeled at the grocers as loin.

You will have a small loin, darker in color than the rest of the meat. Carefully follow the lines to cut it out. You should see it when you look at the chunk of meat. This would be one of the pictures that the computer seems to have eaten. After removing the small loin, you will have the sirloin cut left. Follow the bone and remove it from the spine and backfat.

Jere we have the back ham. HUGE! You can smoke, brine, salt or store away fresh (you can do that with the picnic ham as well)



Or you can cut it down into roasts and smaller, more manageable hams


These are roasts. Follow the bone while cutting. We vacuum sealed all the meats, before freezing. You can flavor your hams and roasts ahead of time. I have a brown sugar mini ham, a couple of small grilling hams and a rosemary, onion and red wine roast sitting in the freezer. Vacuum sealing helps the marinades invade the pork cuts before freezing and will remain there as you thaw. (brown sugar hams, 1 cup of brown sugar, dash of allspice, dash of cinnamon, pinch of clove, 1 teaspoon ground mustered and black pepper to taste mix well and rub hard. Grill roasts, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup salt, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, mix and rub hard.)

I haven't cut up the bacon yet, and have not weighed them, the short ribs nor the sausage as of yet. Sausage will need it's own post. Without weighing all those items yet, we have 161 lbs and 3 oz of meat.

If you are wanting me to post on fancier cuts of meat, please let me know. And I will talk about them as I pull them out of the freezer for dinner this coming year.