Finally sent my two boys away. I'd been wanting them a bit bigger to get more bacon, then life had intervened and I kept them longer than I should.
First off, the good news. I have my large freezer stuffed full of loin joints (for curing, and for slicing for chops), rolled leg, shoulder and belly joints
and sausagemeat. We ate chops last night and the flavour was very very good.
Surprisingly so, as they haven't had much in the way of vegetables to eat, it's been almost all sow rolls.
I absolutely did not overfeed them, they had 4lbs sow rolls a day each from 4 months right through, with a bit of soaked sugar beet on top occasionally over winter. Very limited veg as I don't have a good supply and it was a very poor year for apples! And no whey as our neighbour wasn't making cheese due a bad hip (now replaced.)
They were way too fat - 23mm and 29mm.
Not their fault, they weren't fat at 6 months.
I asked the butcher to trim out excess fat and then roll the joints with the crackling back on. I should have clarified how much fat I wanted left on - my view of "enough for flavour" and his differ somewhat! Never mind, I hope there's enough fat through the meat to keep things moist while cooking.
I'm very pleased with how much meat I got back, how much is suitable for bacon (albeit it'll need a fair bit of fat trimmed off), and how good the meat looks - just the right amount of fat through it, in my view.
And delighted with the flavour of the chops we had last night.
So although the backfat was disappointing, I think it was perhaps worth keeping them on to a bigger size to get as much loin as we did. Now, to re-research Karen's method of curing small portions of bacon at a time...
Oh, and the boys were very easy to manage too - good-mannered, not inclined to escape, always friendly but never pushy. I know a lot of that is the early handling (thank you Karen!) but some I think must be the breed too. So on my current experience, I'd give Large Black a thumbs up as family / smallholder pigs. Not the most productive, and not the hardiest either (they needed indoor accommodation in the worst of the winter weather), but easily managed, nice sociable well-mannered pigs, good tasty meat, and won't get too fat if you don't overfeed them
and don't keep them too long. And somehow, the all-black, easygoing piggies don't quite get under your skin the way some of the 'prettier' and more 'characterful'
breeds do, so although I've liked them and enjoyed spending time with them, I was less emotionally attached and found it less difficult to send them off than some I've had. Definitely a plus for a smallholder!
Topic: Freezer full of yummy Large Black! (Read 6113 times)
