Help we just had our first pig slaughtered ,and I have alot of questions.

1)How do I render the lard ? 2)do I cure the hams and bacon before I smoke them ? 3)Can I freeze them to be cured and smoked later? 4)What should I use for a cure ? Whats your favorite ? 5)What should I use to smoke it ?Hickory ?Corncobs? What ? 6)What the heck does 230 lbs of meat look like all at once ?

In advance thanks for all your help. Patty

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), January 11, 2000

Answers

Ah, Patty, you're joking, right? who slaughtered your pig? It would be well worth the money to have them continue processing the meat if you had some sort of butcher shop do it. They'd already be set up for smoking the hams and bacon. Tell me you're joking.

Wow, Patty, if you've got 230 pounds of meat coming that was a big ole pig. Hopefully, 230 was live weight and you'll get less. If who ever did your slaughtering can't process the meat for you, start calling around. Find somebody to help you. Get to the nearest library and now. Look for books on putting up food. You can smoke the hams and bacon in smokers as simple as a 55 gallon drum or an old fridge-BUT-you kinda needed to have that ready to go first. While you're in town swing by the grocery store and look in the spices/salt aisle. Somewhere down among the big bags of salt there hopefully there will be a bag of curing salt, most likely from Morton. Buy it, follow the directions on the bag. Don't flame me about the nitrites.

Find somebody to freeze all the other meat for you. Your home freezer can't do it. Deal with as little of the meat as you can right now. It doesn't sound like you are at all prepared for this. Find a butcher who will do most of the work for you and just render the lard or smoke one ham or some such. I'd hate for you to lose all that meat.

The books on putting up food will have specific info on rendering lard and smoking. Some general cookbooks will also have lard rendering information. You can smoke using hickory, or corncobs, or apple, or actually a lot of things. Some of which simply work, others which have their adherents just as apple and hickory do.

Everybody does their rendering and smoking differently. Read and ask questions. Follow the one set of instructions that seems most complete, sensible, and do-able under your conditions. Next time, with some experience, you'll be able to try other ideas.

Good luck, you've got a lot of work ahead of you. Gerbil

PS 230 pounds of meat looks like A LOT. PPS remember to keep the tail. People would grease their fry pans by heating the pan, rubbing the cut end on the cooking surface to release the grease, and swirling as needed with the brushy end. (If you try this, let me know, I haven't tried it myself. ACK!)

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

Did you send your hog to the butcher shop? Or, did you have someone come and butcher it for you there at home? Two pretty different scenarios which will determine whether you will be curing any meat.

If the hog is at the butcher shop: Unless you left specific instructions to keep out the hams and sides, it will be cut into standard packages of sliced meat, labeled "Fresh ham" and "Fresh side", and you won't be curing any of it. In which case, just plan to do it next year.

If the hog is hanging there at home, you have plenty of time for a crash course on curing and smoking. (Since it will take four to six weeks to cure the hams, you have plenty of time to read up on the smoking part. - First cure - then smoke). If the weather is cold, -but not freezing - you can take your time in working up the hog.

Do you have a grinder to make sausage?

Our curing recipe is: 1 1/2 cup Brown Sugar 2 cups salt 2 tsp black pepper 1 tsp cayenne pepper

If the hog weighed 230 pounds, don't be dissappointed in the pile of meat it makes. It will be considerable less than the live weight.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), January 11, 2000.

Patty,

Now that I have finally LOADED my hog I will let the butcher do the rest. He cures the hams for me so all I have to do is put on my smoker/grill from wal-mart when I am ready to eat. He also cures the bacon and makes the sausage. Yes it costs me about $100 more for all of this but it is worth it. I know it will turn out right and I dont have any of the headaches. It takes my butcher about two weeks to cure the meat. Dont know what method he uses but I always pick up the cured meat 2 weeks after the fresh. It is not salt cured because it has no salt flavor. I would call the butcher and tell him to cure the meat for me. As far as rendering the lard Im sure you can do it but it is a lot cheaper and easier in the crisco can. I know maybe this is not the true homestead spirit but im just being practical. If you work for a living like I do the time and effort just aint worth it. 230# of meat is about 4 or 5 large feed sacks but normally that includes the head, feet, tail, skin and all the other goodies. Oh yea....home made head cheese is good but it also is a heck of a lot of trouble compared to the cost in the supermarket....Ive stared down several hogs heads on the kitchen table before deciding it aint worth the effort.......

-- brian r (brian3006@msn.com), January 11, 2000.

I hope you are kidding too! If you had it home butchered, a meat packer is not likely to take it. Be careful about home smoking it if you don't know how, you might end up throwing it away. Unless you do a salt cure and old time hard smoke, you will still have to freeze it, the old salt/smoke is not your run of the mill, go to the store, ham flavour, it is smokey and salty. Before you do a big time smoking, try somthing like chicken, slab bacon....read the books.

-- Mudlover (redgate@echoweb.net), January 12, 2000.

Thanks for all your input ,to clear up a couple of things.We had a butcher slaughter the pig ,and flash freeze it except fo the bacon and hams .We have done alot of smoking , just not of fresh pork .I also have many of the books you all suggested .I like to hear from people who have actually tried it. I would hate to experiment with all that meat .Any further input would be appreciated.

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), January 12, 2000.

Patty,we just had a 515pd. hog slaughtered,got about 375pds. of meat back.Our butchers around here don't cure or smoke meat so you have to do your own.We bought our cure mix at a local hardware store and added sugar to it.The hams need to cure about 2 days per pound before smoking.If you want your bacon to be mild-flavored like store- bought,you need to cure it for about 7-14 days before smoking.You need to cold smoke these meats at about 90 degrees.We use a barrel that sits over a trench that runs about 6ft to a fire pit.We use boards to cover the trench and pit to direct smoke to the barrel.Two holes drilled at the top of the barrel support a broomstick from which the meats hangs.Our bacon has cured and we just rinsed it this afternoon and left it hanging to dry and will start smoking it Sat morning if it's dry.We'll smoke it until Sun morn or afternoon.We use charcoal with soaked hickory chunks in the firepit.Bacon fixed this way has got to be frozen after smoking.Hope this helps!

-- Barbara (conlane@prodigy.net), January 13, 2000.

I would love to smoke ham and bacon but cant ever seem to get the darn things lit......

-- brian r (brian3006@msn.com), January 13, 2000.

Just wanted to let you know Patty,we ate our first smoked and cured bacon tonight and we impressed ourselves.Don't let anyone scare you off of home-curing your own meats,it really is easy.

-- Barbara (conlane@prodigy.net), January 16, 2000.

Just noticed that no one addressed the lard angle. You have, or should have, gotten the "lard" fat back from the butcher. There are 2 types. The "leaf" lard is that that surrounds the kidneys internally. This is the good stuff. The rest is the ordinary fat that is just below the skin, and which you can render or use for salt pork. Most people, (not including me) prefer some lean meat in their salt pork. You probably won't have any lean in yours unless you specified it, but it still makes passable salt pork for beans. To render, it is best to run the fat through an old fashioned meat grinder. If you don't have one, just cut up the fat into quite small pieces. I keep the leaf lard and side lard separate because I like to keep the superb stuff separate from the good stuff, but you can combine them. Put enough of the fat in a large pot and begin the process over low heat. (I must tell you a good friend places the fat in a large pan and places it in the oven at low, maybe 200, heat. This doesn't require as much watching. You don't want to burn it, but watching it has never been that much of a problem for me.) When you have enough liquid fat, add more, and continue cooking until all the fat is liquid, except for the "cracklins" - the non liquid parts - which will float. These are a great snack, but that's another story. Take the clear fat and pour it into a container of your choice. I use cleaned cans, and seal them with freezer paper and a rubber band. I then freeze them, although lard will last a long time even at room temps. We find that there is no comparison between using lard and ANYTHING else to make pie crust. 2 cups flour, 2/3 cup lard, enough water to make it right, and you have a crust most "modern" folks have never tasted. Anybody else out there have refinements to that recipe?

-- Brad Traver (homefixer@mix-net.net), January 17, 2000.

Patty, You should try and save some of your lard in the freezer so you can use it to "fatten" up sausage you make later in the year from deer, goat etc. I always forget. Also ground pork used in the same way you use ground beef works great. I don't make pork burgers but with taco meat or lasagna etc. it is perfect. Good luck and their is nothing compared to you own meat. Now next year you can butcher your own and be assured that the meat you are putting away is in deed your own. Sincerely, Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.

We had apig butchered this fall and being new at this didn't know that we had to request them to save the lard. The butcher said nobody wants that any more! What a waste! My granny's biscuits are the best with lard. Here is the recipe 4c. flour,1/2c.lard,2Tbsp.baking Powder,1 and 3/4c. milk. mix together, place on wax paper or floured surface,pat just til 1" thick,cut out and bake 450 til done about 10- 15 min. also our pork is the best we've tasted. the kids devour this where they turn their noses up to the grocery store meat. good luck.

-- Julie (nelson3@bright.net), February 05, 2000.