Butchering Days

As the sun was rising in the sky early last Saturday morning, the water was boiling in the old copper and we were in full pig processing mode.

After killing, the pig is immersed in this bath of hot water before lifting onto the trestle table where we scrape all of the outer layer of skin and hair off the carcass.
When it is clean, it's time for Brian to take the innards from the pig. We saved the heart and liver, which will be made into a stew for the dogs. The head was also saved for the meat in the cheeks, but the other parts of the head will also be made into dog food.
Yes, I did try to make brawn once or twice. It was a lot of effort, but we really didn't enjoy it, and the dogs need to eat too.
In fact nothing at all has been wasted, except the squeal..! (Sorry, you would have heard that many times before but I just had to put that in.

After cutting the carcass in half for easier handling, we hung it in our cold room for a week.
When we had cleaned up and put everything away, Brian slaughtered an old wether (male desexed sheep) which hung next to the pig in the cool room all week.
We planned on making pork and mutton sausages with some of the fatty parts of both animals.

Yesterday morning (Saturday, one week later) we cut up the pork into roasts and chops. There is a lot of meat on one of our home grown pigs and we will take ten to twelve months to get through it all. To avoid freezer taint, I pack most of it with the vacuum sealer, and the remainder is packed in plastic freezer bags, making sure we consume those bags first.
We saved the bellies for making sausages.
Then we repeated the whole process to cut up the mutton, although there is not so much meat on a sheep and we will get through that in the next month or so. I saved on the cost of bags by packing the mutton roasts and chops into recycled bread bags and cheap freezer bags.
We saved the flap for making sausages and while I was packing the meat into freezers, Brian was de-boning meat for the mincer.

First we minced the pork meat which contained a perfect amount of fat for sausage making where we aim for a 25% fat ratio. Then we minced the fatty flap meat from the mutton before returning all of the minced meat to the cold room in separate large stainless bowls. For sausage making, everything has to be kept super chilled.

We made a few different varieties of sausages using all of our own blends of spices and home grown herbs, sun-dried tomatoes and onions.
We love sausages, but don't love the commercial (and mostly artificial) ingredients that they contain when purchased from a butcher or supermarket.
The casings were purchased on line and are made from pig intestines.

We started at 9am and by 5pm we had the freezers packed and the sausages hanging in the cold room to "set" overnight. It was a huge day, but so very rewarding. We even had fun!
My facial expressions whilst perfecting my sausage winding skills were apparently quite amusing and a photo or two was clicked. No way they are going onto this page though!
This morning I've packed all of the 21 kilograms of sausages into meal size packs. Some in plastic freezer bags and some in vacuum seal bags, which we will eat last.
I wonder how long these will last?
Do you re-use your vacuum seal bags? I do.
They are quite expensive, although I buy them much cheaper on-line. I can usually get two or three uses from one bag by cutting open carefully at the very end, close to the seal.  Wash carefully in warm soapy water, rinse well, allow to dry. They get smaller with each use.
The varieties we made are;
Bratwurst,
Hot Italian,
Sundried Tomato with onion and herbs,
Sally's Special with caraway seeds, chives etc,
Sweet Curry.

Guess what's for dinner tonight?