“The three breeds all have excellent meat and fat. Kune keeps it a grazing pig with a good disposition plus meat quality and adds thickness to the body. Old Spot marbles well with fine marbling and also has a very good disposition. Large Black has great fat and meat but also the sows produce well and are good mothers. The Kunes are really too small for a commercial pig so I try to cross them with a larger breed. High quality feed, slower growing time and good pastures produce the clean fat for charcuterie and the dark, deep flavored meat.”
However you might think you move something this big, it’s still a struggle. Here are some photos of the process:
The hog (half with head)
After removing the head, the trotters were taken off; I did this right 2 out of 4 tries.
Here is the leaf lard from both halves
It had a clean smell and look due to being well raised. My wife was an angel for vacuum packing for the freezer all the bits as I cut them.
I cut the shoulder primal between the fifth and sixth ribs to give me a large coppa (came out to be 2.5 Kg!).
The ham was next and it was 28 #s.
I left the aitch bone in as I am hoping that might help me avoid bone sour later. One ham I’ll try to do as a country ham and one I’ll try to do as prosciutto type. Salted with 1/3 of the cure
To remove the ribs, I find it best to lean on the spine while cutting underneath to make use of gravity
Belly trimmed and squared off
Loin cut for back bacon and the outstanding backfat
I don’t think I’ll try a whole hog again, but I was glad for the experience.
