Radio interview (luckily is was only on AM radio...)

http://www.wnbz.com/NorthCountryToday.htm
If you would like to hear more about life at North Branch Farm, check out my interview on North Country Today (click above link) with by friend Chris Morris from WNBZ.

Jowl bacon and sausage making with the family!

Joe's family stopped by just in time to help out!

Here joe and his father butcher the pig. When they are finished the freezer is stuffed with racks of ribs, tenderloin, chops, bacon, and hams! Turns out the butt of the pig is actually a part of the shoulder...live and learn. I also learned that the jowls (or cheeks) make the best bacon. See diagram below for details.

Sausage is made from the pieces of fatty or lower quality pork cut away from the nicer cuts of meat. Ground pork is made from the nicer leaner cuts of meat that are left over. Below is a picture of me feeding the meat grinder. Very satisfying machine. We were lucky enough to have an electric meat grinder on hand. Joe's mom wraps all the cuts of meat and ground sausage in freezer paper. Everything is dated with the month and the year. The cuts of meat are then put in a plastic bag with a salt water solution to cure. In a couple of weeks the meat will be ready for smoking. I'll post more about meat preservation and smoking when the time comes.

How bacon is made....and other yummy pork products. (Skip this post if you don't want to read about or see photos about pig butchering

RIP Lunch and Dinner!

I won't get into details but they died a quickly and painlessly. 

Hanging weight was about 160 to 175 lbs each. That's a lot of pork! 

Most people send their pigs to the local butcher shop. Joe butchered his pig in the barn. 

 Many people choose to scald and burn the hair off their hog and scrape the skin clean. Joe chose to skin his pig. The process took some time, but the skin came off in one piece. Once the pig is hung up by it's back legs (between the bone and tendon) it is skinned. Once the skin has been removed, he removes the head, and splits the carcass by cutting a clean line down the center of the belly, all the way to the breast bone. Be careful not to cut the stomach or intestines open. After splitting the carcass he removes the ainus, bowls, intestines, stomach, lungs, heart, liver, etc.. once you have the ainus removed everything else can be cut away fairly easily. 

Joe then removes most of the fat from the outside of the carcass. We will render the fat to make lard (for delicious pie crusts!).  He then butchers and quarters the pig. This involves sawing the pig is half by cutting right down the middle of the backbone with a bone saw. We had an interesting time figuring how to get the pig from the hook to the cutting table without dropping it on the floor. I had to bear hug the carcass at one point...great fun let me tell you. This whole process takes about 3 hours, so he puts the meat on ice until the morning.