Here Piggy Piggy........

So, for the last long while Boss Hawg has been out at Mom's helping fertilize her garden, and root up the weeds.

He taped out at 260 lbs on Saturday when we went out and did the deed. We shot, skinned and gutted the big boy, and cut him into sub-primals because we do not yet have a cold room to hang our animals, so they need to be in parts small enough for our refrigerators, and in our case, the coolers we take in order to transport them BACK to our refrigerator.

Yesterday, I went back out to mom's, sub-primals in tow, to cut him into usable parts for our family freezer. With the help of videos from Ask the Meatman, Mom and I puzzled out how to cut the big boy down into meal-sized portions. It took the better part of 5 hours, but the result was 169.9 pounds of usable parts.

This might be a good time to identify our definition of usable. The hide and head and offal from last weekend to Mom's LGDs...so, while they weren't accounted for in the "usable" parts numbers above, they certainly were "usable." Bones from boned out roasts, or steaks were put in the "Strider" tub. Strider is our LGD, and will get these as a treat. Other bones, that had significant amounts of meat left, were relegated to the "soup bone" tub. These will be used to flavor beans, and soups, and to make pork stock. All pure fat will be rendered into lard, but we only got 3.3 pounds of the stuff. That is not to say that Boss was a skinny boy, just that when I was trimming, I had to make sure there was enough fat going into the "trim" bucket for the ground meat. The "trim" bucket only contained, maybe 4 pounds of trim when I made the decision to take one of the Boston butt portions and turn it into ground meat. We like sausage, but I tend to make it as we need it, so that I can adjust seasonings depending on what we need, and also so that we aren't stuck with 25 pounds of a sausage we don't like.

So, what wasn't usable? The quarter sized part of the ball joint that I sliced off when cutting through a ham. And 2 other less-than-1/2" pieces of cartilage that ended up in the trim bucket.

What I brought home (or will, once the bacons are cured and smoked) was 169.9 pounds of dog bones, soup bones, bacon, ground pork and "regular" cuts of meat. All from one 260 pound pig. We wasted nothing. This is the way things should be done.

The other option for the offal, if you don't have dogs to give it to, is to put it in the compost pile, completely surrounded by 18 inches of carbonaceous material. 18 to 24 inches of carbon, surrounding the offal, will keep the varmints away.

So, guess what's for dinner!