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Roscoe Headed to Freezer Camp

C chaplainbillMember
My apologies for not posting more in the past few months since my retirement. I thought I’d have more time, but that is not actually the case. Things are picking up a little on the way of Revival meetings which are of course out of town. Processing quite a few catering orders too, ranging from 50 to 150 person meat orders.

Around our Farm (Bacon Acres here in NE Oklahoma), the 8 registered Tamworth pigs have grown into fine hogs. Our youngest boar (Roscoe: 10 months) has failed to develop his reproductive equipment so will be going to freezer camp next Monday.

I’d like to start this thread to track his progress from packinghouse to smoker to table. The packing house is USDA and quite expensive at 40 dollar kill fee and .70 pp processing: Nearly double what a non-USDA processing plant costs. But if I want to resale the meat, I have to use USDA.

Initially I’m debating on how to get him sliced up: Any advice would be appreciated. He’s likely to be a little lean, so I’m thinking lots of pork chops, deli ham, bacon and grind.

I can slice the Loin into nice thick pork chops and since he’s a long ‘bacon-type’ 410 pounder, there’ll be a lot of them. The butts will stay in tact or maybe go to grind, depending how they look. If they are too lean, I’ll have them boned and they’ll be Arkansas bacon, which is cured pork butt. I’ll have the hams boned and cut into smaller roasts so I can cure them myself easier and slice into dry cured deli ham.. Once I get my smokehouse built this winter, maybe I’ll try some whole hams.

Spareribs will be separated from the bellies which I really look forward to dry curing. The plant I take them to only does vacuum brining which causes the hams and bellies to gain water weight and be very soggy and I simply don’t like it. So, I'll have them just delivered fresh and I’ll dry cure the bellies into bacon, cure and smoke the hocks and turn everything else into grind, delivered fresh in 2-pound packs so I can stuff it or season it myself.

I think my biggest struggle will be marketing. I have at least two (and probably all six) of our girls pregnant now and they will begin farrowing in late July/early august. We’ll be up to our necks in pasteurized pork before Christmas.

Here is a shot of Roscoe. I’ll add to this thread when the meat comes in and we begin to get some shots of it being cured and smoked.

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C chaplainbillMember
Well, he walked on the scales at 403 pounds at the processer and ended up at 275 hanging on the rail. They remove the head, hide, insides and feet. This brings the hanging percentage to 68.23%, not bad for a homegrown pig, not pushed hard on hot rations and allowed to graze. I think he lost a lot of weight the last two weeks, as he was depressed after being separated from the rest of the heard.

I tried to get a pic of the carcass on the rail, but they were too busy the day I stopped by. As far as cuts, I told them not to cure anything, as I'd do it myself. I ordered the butts whole and the bellies fresh. The hams I had boned and separated at the seams to cure into small hams for deli meat. One loin will become 3/4 pork chops and the other separated into a baby back rib and a pork loin, which, again will be cured for deli ham. The shoulders, jowls and everything else (except for the spares of course) will become plain ground pork in two pound packages. The Fat will be in 1 pound packs. It should be ready next week and I'll post some pics.
C chaplainbillMember
Ok, Got the meat back. Five big boxes. Lots of fat on the animal. Most of the cuts were 3/4 inch trim and we received a lot of fat back (no pun intended).

the breakdown was like this. 403 live weight. 275 hanging on the rail which became 233 pounds of packaged meat and fat. The Fat was 26 pounds, 44 pounds of boneless ham and 57 pounds of ground pork.

The 22 pounds of porkchops (28 pork chops from the one side of the animal) are a work of art. They are darker than other pork I've had with beautiful marbling and a nice fat cap, most of which I was ordered to trim off.




The other side became the boneless loin and baby back ribs. The cut the ribs short an included some of the ribs in the porkbutts, I think, as they are huge, 15 and 16 pounds. Same with the spareribs, about 7 bones each, still weighing 3.5 pounds. and of course the loin and tenderloin.




The bellies are freakishly large, 19 and 17 pounds. They are nearly three inches thick in places. The In the pic, they are sitting on a 2-foot wide table.

Had some pork chops for dinner, smoked to perfection in the FEC 100. Best I've ever eaten.
C chaplainbillMember
Pork Bellies. Well, they were pretty much thawed and I needed to rearrange items in the freezer in prep for this weekend's cook, so I went ahead and cured the two bellies. I tried to take pictures, but all of them came out blurry. Just some notes. As I stated before, massive bellies. The pics are of the 19 pound one, which was actually not the best looking of the two.



Note the deep red color. All of the hundreds of bellies I've bought over the years have always had pink meat. My guess is this has a lot to do with how he was fed. He was 11 months old.



They were thick, nearly three inches in some places and I had to cut them both off to fit into a meat lug for curing. I coated them with a super sweet dry rub, which consisted of 1/2 ounce of the commercial 'sweeter than sweet' cure (available at southern Indiana butcher supply) and 1/2 ounce of brown sugar per pound.



At glance, they seem to have a big fat cap. I can't imagine how thick they would be if the skin was still on them. They have more than ample meat for pork bellies, but they are just so thick. I will cure these for two weeks, maybe more, as my temp in my curing fridge may bob below freezing, as I'm thawing a lot of meat out for this weekend's cook. (120 pounds of porkbutt and 32 racks of babybacks).



My plan is to cure these for two weeks, give them a good rinse and get them as dry as I can in the fridge, probably letting them hang in the fridge for at least two weeks, then smoke them up in the FEC. More pics come slicing time.
C chaplainbillMember
OK, smoked the bellies up, after letting them dry for 10 days in the fridge. Here's a couple of shots of them in the smoker.




and this one about 3 hours in. Did pecan pellets at 170 until internal 155 or so. Also used some green hickory branches on the log burner. Smelled nice.




Finally got to slice some up. Let me just remind everyone, that this was one big hog. 403 pounds. There is a lot of fat on these bellies. Also, you can see the 'tamworth' trademark 'streakiness' in the bellies. I'm really curious to see how a normal 250 pound market hog will look, compared to these bellies.






By the way, the slices were a good 12-13 inches long. You can see them draped over the paper plate.







The fat is a lot different than any bacon or pork I've ever seen. It's very white and is like it almost melts at room temperature. It definitely melts in your mouth. Not sure if this is good or bad, but it's different. The smoke flavor came thru nice. By the way, I cut some slices 3/4 inch thick to roll in brown sugar and peppercorns and slow smoke and cut in bitesize pieces for appetizers.
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B bigwheelMember
Looks mighty good. Fat is where the flavor is at as some folks say. The two bottom shots appear a bit leaner than the others or maybe just the way the light was shining on it.That is a whopper of a butt..storebought models seldom break 8 around here. I snagged a 15 pound picnic at Albertsons one time. Figger that was somebody's prize 4 H show pig. Never could find the butt which matched it. Got have been pretty darned big. Would take two grown men to carry the hams.
B bigwheelMember
Piglet bigwheel is the astute cute model with the intelligent looking ears..middle of the pack next to the bottom row. Thought anybody would have figured that out. When can we start calling them Choates? Pigs have some creative synonymous names huh? Is there also puppies mixed in there?

PS Edit: Ok Bill we are eagerly awaiting the detailed how to make bacon at home for fun and profit tutorial. Now since some us aint got much free ice box space or room for self made blast chillers..we prob need the get ir done fast and cheap method. Thanks.
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C chaplainbillMember
Ok, time to smoke up that massive Pork Butt. 16.08 pounds. I thawed it and did a 1/4 inch trim. Here's what it looks like setting a large tub.






Nice red meat with great marbeling. I almost cried as I sliced the butter-like 1 inch fat cap off the top.

By the way, this was shaped different than traditional Pork Butts. bigger square and thinner. It will be interesting to see how it cooks.

Here's picture of me holding it up so you can get some perspective.




I rubbed it down with Yellow mustard and gave it a thick coat of Fast Eddy's Championship Rub. Put it in a cold smoker set on 180 for 6 hours and hold temp of 225 until complete, which I'm guessing somewhere around 18 hours or so. I also put a small hickory branch on the log burner and loaded the FEC 100 with pecan pellets. Here a shot of it on the rack. There is no way I could have gotten two of these on one rack.




Well, Everything went well overnight as it smoked, looked great at the 12 hour mark.



But, dumb me, I forgot to check the hopper and we departed for church and returned that afternoon about 2:30 to find the smoker temp at 100 as it ran out of fuel. I quickly checked the internal Temp of the meat at it was at 167, so I figured it was fine. I fired it back up and set it on 250. It was up to an internal temp of 195 in the meat in about 2 hours. It was great.




My only regret is that I did not weigh the finish product. We were busy with company. Bottom line, it was fantastic. Far different texture than any pork I'd ever had. More like roast beef, but with a great pork flavor. I did snap a pic of the blade bone which pulled cleanly out of the pork butt. Biggest one I've ever seen. It is pictured on a full size (8 7/8 inch) Styrofoam plate for perspective.



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C chaplainbillMember
quote:
PS Edit: Ok Bill we are eagerly awaiting the detailed how to make bacon at home for fun and profit tutorial. Now since some us aint got much free ice box space or room for self made blast chillers..we prob need the get ir done fast and cheap method. Thanks


Bigwheel. I've splained this many times on the forum elsewhere, which you could probally find. But it's pretty easy. Get a 5 pound slab of fresh side meat AKA: Pork Belly. It's a little hard to find, so ask around. Get you some bacon cure from Southern Indiana butcher supply, or other website and use the prescribed amount. You can do a brine or a dry cure. I prefer the taste of the dry cure. Rub it into the meat for the dry cure. Seal it up in a 2.5 gal ziplock and put it in the fridge for a week, flipping it every other day. It will extract lots of moisture out of the meat, which is exactly what you want.

At the end of the curing process, rinse the meat and slice off a little bit and cook it to test for saltiness. If it's too salty, soak it in cold water for an hour and taste it again. Keep this process up till its just right. Let it air dry overnight in the fridge. Longer is better if the womenfolk don't yell at you. then smoke it up at the lowest temp you can muster till an internal temp of 150ish. Put the smoked bacon back in then fridge for a couple of days and then slice it up. By the way, it does not even have to be pork belly. You can cure pork butt and have Arkansas bacon or what they call buck-board bacon. You can cure pork loin the same way and you have Canadian bacon. You can cure a leg of pork and get your own ham. The possibilities are endless. In fact, I had Roscoe's hind quarters boned out and split at the seems. So I have 44 pounds of boneless fresh ham to cure. I'll begin thawing it tomorrow and cure it all at once. Below are some shots of a bacon run I did some years back, I think it was 90 pounds. Enjoy.








wow, this was old. That's my old scales. I've got a fancy digital one now that's great. I use this old one out in the barn to weigh piggy food.
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C chaplainbillMember
Well, It's country ham time. I had the processer just bone the hams and break them at the seams which left me with 8 individual muscles, totaling about 42 pounds. I cured them using Golden Brown Sugar Cure, available at southern Indiana butcher supply online at the rate of 1/2 ounce per pound. I just rubbed them down and put them all together in a meat lug with a lid and refrigerated them, turning them every few days for two weeks. I triple rinsed the meat and hung on bacon hangers in the fridge to dry/equalize for a week.


I smoked the hams in the FEC 100 using 100 percent hickory pellets and some green hickory branches on the log burner at 170 degrees until internal 140-145 which took about six hours or so.



I sliced some today, amazing flavor and rich color. I wound up with about 30 pounds or so of ham for a pretty good moisture loss.



C chaplainbillMember
Oh, I guess I need to talk about my sausage endeavor. I’m determined to master sausage. I took the plunge and ordered 3 hanks (900 feet)of 32-35mm natural hog casings and 45 strands (2250 feet) of 21mm smoked collagen casings from Syracuse Casing Company. The collagen casing will be used for snack sticks this winter with deer meat.

I’ve been experimenting with sausage due to the 50 or so pounds of ground Tamworth pork I received back courtesy of our belated Boar, Roscoe. Let me talk a bit about the grind. There is fine and course grind, and I usually grind on my home grinder two passes on a course plate. All the ground pork I received back was finely ground, not my preference for Italian sausage or brats.

I experimented with some Jimmy dean sage breakfast sausage clones, which contained MSG in the recipe which were really good, but I don’t like the MSG in the mix. I did come across a couple of recipes, one for breakfast and one for Italian, which I expanded on the following charts.





I mixed 10 pounds of Italian per the above instructions and let it set overnight to bind. I then stuffed it in the natural hog casings and let it set another 12 hours.



I smoked these in the FEC on 180 until internal of 165 or so using pecan pellets and a small branch of green hickory on the log burner. I think I put too much water in the mix, as the casings shrunk a little too much. They tasted great.






There is nothing like taking the left/over sausages and slicing them in about one-inch pieces and putting them in then spaghetti sauce.

The fat on this Tamworth pork melts so easy, it almost requires a cold smoke to do perfectly. They say it’s because of the way the animal is fed.



My next plan is to mix venison with pork fat and grind it, stuffing it into natural casings. I’ve been saving porkfat and have about 40 pounds on hand for this winter’s sausage escapades. I'll use the smaller collagen casings with just venison for snack sticks. We'll keep ya posted.
Last edited by chaplainbill
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