[HappyHippy]

Spent 5 hours today with the other half butchering our pigs, only got through 1.5 pigs, wow it takes more effort than I realised but the meat looks great.

Yup, it's sooooo time consuming! We did one ourselves - took a whole day! We got a butcher friend to come and help with another - it took him less than 40 minutes to do an entire pig and we had less than a bowlful of waste... Still took the best part of 4 hours to weigh, package and label everything though 
I just let the butcher do it now, he's spent years doing it and has a level of skill I'll just never be able to achieve - worth his weight it gold 

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Thanks,


            Bionic. I did my sausage making yesterday and have made some simple sage, salt and pepper ones and some coverdale cheese and ale ones using a fruity traditional beer from a micro brewery.


           I also have some drycure cheek in the fridge and some drycure panchetta with it. I plan to make a fre scotch eggs with some of the mince too.

[Bionic]

Thanks,


            Bionic. I did my sausage making yesterday and have made some simple sage, salt and pepper ones and some coverdale cheese and ale ones using a fruity traditional beer from a micro brewery.


           I also have some drycure cheek in the fridge and some drycure panchetta with it. I plan to make a fre scotch eggs with some of the mince too.

I like the sound of the cheese and ale ones 

[greengumbo]

Pancetta curing tonight. Looks a bit fat on the belly but I am sure it will be fine.

I froze all cuts after butchery and then take them into fridge to defrost and then cure them.

Still not plunged into the air dried ham yet  -not sure if I need to lard it all over or not / curing salt etc etc.....so many choices.

[Bionic]

I had some pancetta that was quite fatty but if you cook it slowly the fat renders down quite a bit.

When I did my air dried ham I didn't have a clue what I was doing but it turned out well. I just used ordinary salt and made sure every little bit was well covered in salt.

[Eve]

Air dried ham: we also use ordinary salt and the lard is smeared on every little bit of exposed flesh (so none on the skin).


Worked out really well.