Cooking Whole Hog

[Dr_Pain]

HerbcoFood Love the jowls to make guanciale…YUM! or the whole head to make hog head cheese

[YooperDog]

Dr_Pain As crazy as it may sound I enjoy processing, brings back memories as a kid breaking down primals, learning what comes from where and there uses. We learned where our food came from as do our kids.

[Dr_Pain]

YooperDog said in Cooking Whole Hog:

Dr_Pain As crazy as it may sound I enjoy processing, brings back memories as a kid breaking down primals, learning what comes from where and there uses. We learned where our food came from as do our kids.

I am with you 100% on that, even more fun when you do a Boucherie (as they call it in Louisiana) where not only are you slaughtering and processing the hog but also make all the traditional stuff (boudin, cracking, cowboy stuff, hog head cheese etc…

[Ridley Acres]

I am hoping to do my own hog similar to la caja china style in a few weeks. I’m trying to get my home slaughter situation setup.

I’ll be removing trotters and I’d like to save as much organ meat as possible. Keeping in mind that later this fall I’ll be home butchering another 3-4 hogs. The later hogs will be more typical cuts of meat but this first one will be whole hog.

So my question is what organs would be worth saving? Liver, heart, kidneys, intestines…

Also, can I freeze these for a couple months to use in sausage later on? (Note: I will be chamberless vac sealing the organs and salt packing the intestines after cleaning)

[processhead]

Ridley Acres I think you need to make a judgment call on what offal to save.
Heart, liver, tongue, kidneys, brain, head meat…absolutely. Lungs maybe.

Now if you are committed to using as much of the hog as possible, the intestines can be used for casings and the stomach can be prepared and eaten, but you need to flush them several times of their contents and that is not the most pleasant job.

For me, I will stick to buying hog casings casings.

[Ridley Acres]

processhead said in Cooking Whole Hog:

Now if you are committed to using as much of the hog as possible, the intestines can be used for casings and the stomach can be prepared and eaten, but you need to flush them several times of their contents and that is not the most pleasant job.
For me, I will stick to buying hog casings casings.

I suspect we’ll just do the fresh casing once just for the experience and then go back to buying them. Since swine aren’t rumen animals I’m not overly interested in the stomach.

[bocephus]

glen I have a friend that does one on a rotisserie, shaft was made from a large hydraulic cylinder.

[craigrice]

I grew up on a farm and worked in a butcher shop and slaughter house when growing up it was something that has stayed with me to this day

[glen]

bocephus Nice

[HerbcoFood]

I just want the cheek meat.