[caracroft]

Hi Everyone,

Its getting near D-day and Im nervous and looking forward to seeing the end products. We have 3 pigs and have decided to send one off now (a boar) and the other two later (gilts) for bacon.

The abattoir is booked and will deliver to a local butcher.  The Butcher has been brilliant and said I can come and watch him butcher 1/2 a pig exactly how i want it and then he will do the other half in his own time so that we can sort out the freezing etc of 1/2 at a time.  Hopefully I havent forgot anything!!

The problem is I dont really know enough about cuts of meat to tell the butcher what I want??     I know this sounds mad!  Any advice would be great for a family of four.  I know that I like cubed pork and so need some of that but where abouts on the pig is this best from also some lean mince. 

The other thing is we want to  make sausages - Ive got the sausage maker but worry about the packing of them when finished - is it important to vacuum seal the sausages or can i use the self seal freezer bags from the supermarket.  It would be for us, family and friends only.  Also anyone got a favourite book on sausage making recipes.

Thank you all.  I love this forum it is always so informative   

Cara

[Bionic]

Cara,
I haven't got all the answers but speaking from experience of sending pigs off a couple of times
The first time I was quite specific with the wording on what I wanted, having taken it from a list someone else had done but to be honest I think I just ended up confusing the butcher. As you are going to be with the bucher when he does it you are in a better position to explain. You can say just what you have said below i.e. you want some cubes but don't know where that comes from and also the mince. Let him know how many the joints are for and he should easily be able to guide you. Its what he is doing all day long.
When you make sausages do you want the butcher to provide the minced meat or are you going to mince it yourself.? I'm not sure what sausage maker you have but mincing can be quite hard work.  We had the butcher mince it and then we did the rest, although mostly we had butchers made sausages.
Either way we had to pack them ourselves. I packed in 6's in small freezer bags and then packed 4 of those bags into thicker freezer bags.  So when I gave sausages away to friends I gave 24 sausages. Its then easy to freeze and you can just take one pack of 6 out of the freezer at a time.
There will be loads of other suggestions forthcoming i am sure. Just read them all and do what suits you best.
 
 

[HappyHippy]

I think of the pig in 4 parts; loin, belly, shoulder and back leg.

We normally have the loin as chops, loin joints or back bacon (OH would have every one as chops  )
The belly tends to be one or two rolled belly joints (great for stuffing and slow roasting) streaky bacon or minced and used in sausages.
Front leg/shoulder - this is the best bit for mincing for sauages, burgers, meatballs etc but you can also get a few rolled joints too.
Back leg - pork steaks, cubed pork, left whole for curing  or minced

For yourself, friends & family - self seal bags will be fine. Our butcher does them in little trays and wrapped with cling film. On the freezing side - if your butcher can blast freeze the pork, this will preserve it far faster and better than a domestic freezer can.

Books - I love "Charcuterie" by Michael Rulhman and Brian Rolycyn and "The manual of a traditional bacon curer" but there are loads of others too 
HTH & good luck !
Karen

[caracroft]

Thank you so much for your advice Bionic and Karen.  It is starting to get more settled in my head .... just dont want to make a mistake!!  I will be sad to see him go and want to do the best with him, Im sure you all know what I mean 
Cara 

[lars64]

Our first 2 went were slaughtered last week, it wasn't pleasant, but I know they had a healthy and pampered life and a completely stress free end.  I was very lucky in that I had a very patient butcher who allowed me to "help" (probably more like "get in the way" if I'm completely honest) and so ended up learning a lot more about the cuts of meat.  If you go into it with an idea of the kind of cuts you want and your butcher is happy for you to discuss as he does the first half, that's probably even better than having a complete "cutting list".  We ended up with one or two fantastic joints that I'd never even heard of before, but that suit our large family.

The butcher was a bit horrified when I said I wanted plenty of sausages, as these were pure Berkshires.  So, all the shoulders are as joints, but he did prepare some belly for sausages.  At the same time, he showed me how to skin it properly, which was always a time consuming thing for me previously when I was making sausages.  We made a batch of 10KG sausages on Saturday and I can honestly say that they are the best we've ever made.

On the vacuum pack thing, I bought a £100 vacuum packer online and am very impressed with it.  Only time will tell how much better it keeps, but I've gone a bit mad with it and am vacuum packing everything before freezing

[Liam_86]

well worth buying hugh fearnly whittingstall's DVD 'pig in a day'

Brilliant for recipies, butchers, dry curing etc

[P6te]

On the vacuum pack thing, I bought a £100 vacuum packer online and am very impressed with it.  Only time will tell how much better it keeps, but I've gone a bit mad with it and am vacuum packing everything before freezing

We have a vacuum packer that we've used for sausages on trays ... however, there is a real knack to getting them packed without crushing to a pulp!!

Pete

[caracroft]

Thanks Lars for your experiences they were really helpful.  I have also looked at a vacuum sealer for about £100 it was recommended on Money saving Expert so although expensive everyone seems to think it was worth it for the saving of bulk purchase of meat and veg that they were talking about.

Liam - thanks for the tip of the DVD been looking at and it looks like it is definitely worth getting

And Thanks for the warning Pete!!!