The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: TringSaint on September 01, 2017, 11:09:47 am
-
Morning All,
Thought i would sign up to some relevant forums as i am starting the long painful process of buying a small farm and have seen lots of good advice on this forum.
Plan is to build up a rare breed piggy venture with a focus on charcuterie with a very british twist, so using all of my curing expertise built up over the past few years through processing both pigs and deer for personal enjoyment!
As for the name - location = Tring, rugby club = Northampton Saints!
Cheers
Steve
-
:wave: welcome from Shropshire. Whereabouts are you buying your farm? I love piggies. :pig: :pig:
-
Hello and welcome to the forum. I have just been to pick up my pig meat today, including 19.5k of sausages.
Would be interested to hear more about your charcuterie
-
Sounds like a delicious plan! Keep us updated :)
-
Hello and welcome to the forum. I have just been to pick up my pig meat today, including 19.5k of sausages.
Would be interested to hear more about your charcuterie
it all started by accident and a bit of curiosity really - i got bored one day and decided to make some bacon (which is a doddle) and then had a crack at black pudding (also a doddle and very messy) and my own sausages and then, as a result of shooting too many deer, started curing venison. I am all self taught, and so far have only screwed up one cure in 3 years (didnt salt a pork leg for long enough and it spoiled) and not managed to poison myself or anyone else yet, so must be doing something right!!
To date i have made:
Venison whole leg prosciutto (Fallow and Chinese Water Deer)
Venison brasaeola (cured loin)
Pancetta (properly cured so you can eat it raw)
Pork Lonzino / Lomo (with a variety of cures such as slow gin, honey, port, etc)
Venison saucisson sec
Venison coppa (well nearly - its as whole muscle stuffed into a middle runner casing)
plus i make venison sausage when i have sufficient off-cuts - last batch included wild mushroom and red wine, wild garlic and port & cranberry. My dad's favourite is my rabbit sausage - its fiddly to get the meat quantity (a lot of shooting needed) and it also needs pork in the from of a small bacon joint, but tastes cracking!
Duck and goose prosciutto (canada goose is not good for this - tastes awful!!)
Duck and goose confit
Rillettes of duck and goose
Hand raised pork / game pies
all for personal consumption, but my family and friends also eat well!
If you want to give it a go then now is the time - its not too hot and the relative humidity is about right. Can recommend Michael Ruhlman's books along with the River Cottage one.
the key thing you need is a set of digital scales down to 0.1g, as some of the measurements need to be bang on, i.e. prague powder - not good to guesstimate with this!!
any questions then PM me and i will be happy to help
Cheers
Steve
-
:wave: welcome from Shropshire. Whereabouts are you buying your farm? I love piggies. :pig: :pig:
Good question!!
Given the property prices here on the bucks / herts border, it certainly wont be here (unless i win the euromillions), so likely to be in the wilts / somerset / north devon / gloucs / hereford / worcs region - basically wherever i can get somewhere with c50 acres and a house that isnt a bomb sight for c£1M
lots of places available, so hopefully get something sorted first half of 2018
-
Thanks for the info Steve.
I did make some pancetta a couple of years ago on a course and it was very easy and great for carbonara and I did cure a legs of pork and left it hanging for 9 months.
It seems that everyone but me liked it so I gave it all away.
Good luck with your property search