[Tamsaddle]

What is the correct way to vac pack recently butchered pork joints?   We normally butcher a side at a time, and immediately put the joints in loose plastic bags back into the fridge until there is more time to pack them properly.  Even 30 minutes later, there is a lot of blood seeping out, and if we vac pack within 2 -3 hours after cutting there is a lot of liquid/blood pulled out of the meat by the vacuuming process which sometimes stops the bag sealing properly.   Does this matter - I know with vac packed lamb from New Zealand the joints are swimming in blood, but is this OK, or desirable, for pork?
 
Would it be better to hang the joints and let the juices drain out a bit - if so, for how long?  Or would this result in very dry meat when it is eventually cooked?   Has anyone tried partially freezing the joints to temporarily stop the oozing and then vac packed very cold, semi-frozen meat?   Would this be a bad idea if the joint was due to be sold and eaten fresh, rather than destined for the freezer anyway?
 
Any info or advice would be much appreciated - Tamsaddle

[robert waddell]

how qiick after slaughtering are you vac packing

[Bionic]

Tamsaddle, I can't help much as we didn't do our first pigs ourselves. All I can say is that they were slaughtered on Wed morning and butchered on Friday morning. We picked it all up vac packed on the Fri afternoon and I didn't see any pools of blood in the bags.  Not sure if this helps with your timings.
Sally

[Tamsaddle]

Robert - they get slaughtered on Monday, then they stay hanging in the abattoir chiller till Friday, then they get delivered here in a refrigerated van in half carcasses.   We place them on their sides in a large, spare, chest freezer chilled to cool fridge temperature only, then butcher a half pig at a time.   The carcasses are nice and firm and completely dry when we start the butchering.  Tamsaddle

[Riversdale Free Range]

Hi Tamsaddle, not sure if you butcher by hand or with a bandsaw, but this is what I do, but using a bandsaw
Whole carcasses are cut in half then into quarters, quarters are then rapped in plastic and put into a freezer on a chiller setting till the next day (24 to 48hrs) the qaurters need to be completly stiff before cutting, cooling to fridge temperature only is the problem.
I will then remove say 2 loins, cut and vacumm pack straight away and put back into chiller, then move on to the next maybe belly etc and repeat, this way I get no blood showing in the bags and there is very little moisture to prevent the bag from not sealing properly, also just make sure that the sealing tempereature setting is set correctly according to the micron thickness of the bag being used.
Doing it this way I can do about four 55 to 60kg carcasses in a day on my own but having a second pair of hands certainly makes things easier.
All my pigs are slaughterd on one day and collected the following day.
 

[Tamsaddle]

Thanks very much RFR - that is most helpful.  Unfortunately the Monday slaughter Friday delivery is our abattoir's fixed timetable;  last year they had Tuesday slaughters Thursday delivery but this year they have changed to Monday and Friday.   We will definitely try it next time with much colder meat at the point of vac packing to stop the bleeding;  there are 2 of us to do it but we always find the packing takes much longer than the cutting anyway.   Here's hoping - Tamsaddle