Monday, February 1, 2010

Pork Cut Sheet

I'm having my pig processed at the Edgewood Locker in Edgewood, IA. Here's a link to the cut sheet. The main parts of the pig are the loin, ham, belly, shoulder butt, and picnic.

I got the loin mainly cut into 3/4" bone-in chops. I got them packaged into packs of 6 chops each, which I think should be just about right, I have a family of 4 and I like to bring leftovers to work for lunch. I got a sirloin roast and prime end roast on each end of the loin.

The hams I got completely smoked and cut into 1/2" ham steaks (should be mostly close to a pound a piece.) except for 1 2-3 pound ham roast on the ends. I got the hocks smoked as well.

Shoulder butt and picnic I had packaged into 3ish pound roasts. I intend to use much of this for sausagey things, so 3 pounds a shot is a good for size sausage/salami experiments.

Now the belly, which on my pig should be I'm thinking at least in the vicinity on 10# per side, I got completely uncured. Thinking back on it, I probably did 2 things wrong. I got the bellies completely uncured and had them cut the into 1 pound pieces. I probably should have had them smoke a little bacon, because their bacon is very good, and I should have at least gotten some of the belly in slightly bigger chunks. Oh well, there's always next time.

I did have to call them back the next morning and ask them to keep the jowls separate so that I can make guacianale, and to keep the leaf lard separate.

Now the only thing I'd wished I'd done is to ask them to keep the back fat either intact or in 1-2 pound chunks.

4 comments:

  1. No pulled pork from a whole BBQ shoulder??

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  2. Absolutely. The first time I gave the crock pot treatment to a bone-in shoulder from one of Lois and Bill's pigs, it tasted so freaking good, I couldn't even put BBQ sauce on it. That freaking flavorful. I was immediately sold on buying as much pork from them as I could.

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  3. Thanks for the link, Kevin. I trust you'll be reporting on what's to drink with all that piggy goodness. I'm particularly interested to hear how the guanciale turns out. Cheers!

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  4. Thanks David,

    I've been keeping an eye on your blog for a while now, enjoying both your wine adventures and your ocassional beery forays. I've been a beer geek and homebrewer for far longer than I've been exploring the world of honest wine.

    And now I'm adding piggy adventures to both.

    Cheers,

    Kevin

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