butchering-msg - 1/9/08
Overview of how to butcher livestock and game animals. More comments on butchering and cleaning animals.
NOTE: See also the files: butch-goat-art, pig-to-sausag-art, p-butchering-msg, sausages-msg, exotic-meats-msg, HC-butchers-art, sausage-makng-msg, pig-heads-msg.
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:02:08 PST
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: Butchering - long (was Re: SC - Ostrich, and cruelty to geese)
: Has anyone else had to kill their meats for a feast?
:
: We were offered a bunch of rabbits for a pittance - but we would have to kill
: them ourselves.. I think the neighbors would get a wee bit upset...
:
: Morganna
As a fairly experienced home butcher, there's a lot I've witnessed and
learned over the years, so I thought I'd share my experiences, while we're
on the subject. 1st part will be general info, the rest will be specific
manners of dealing with specific challenges.
Start with a very sharp knife or three, and have a sharpener handy.
When killing and butchering, cleanliness is extremely important. Granted
when you're dealing with a hairy, smelly beast, clean butchering seems to
be an oxymoron, but the object is to cause the animal to die as painlessly
and neatly as possible, in a convenient location for processing.
( Until the day I die, I will never forget the afternoon I spent watching
some friends chase a very upset pig all over 126 acres because the killer
had "heard" that a .22 to the brain would kill him quick, if he had his
nose in the feed bucket. It's a good plan, but it helps if you know where
to shoot, and you don't miss your shot. I had sent one of the kids to the
car to get my .357 before the man finally made the killing shot, and was
NOT happy to be asked to help carry all 350 pounds of him from the corner
of the farm where he finally died.)
The object of the exercise is to kill the critter quickly, and make sure
manure and intestinal contents do not wind up on the meat- for this reason
and others, total edibility, I favor either breaking their necks, for small
animals, or cutting their throats for larger ones.
Knowing what you're doing is a big help- if you don't know, ask someone who
does!
Another consideration is the flavor of the meat. Utterly aside from humane
considerations, an animal which has been scared and run all over hell does
NOT have the same flavor as an animal which has been gently handled and
killed properly, regardless of what you've fed him for the last 6 months.
Even if he or she has been neutered, those hormones and body chemicals WILL
kick in, in a scared animal, and there is a very definite flavor
difference- it's one of the things which contributes to the so-called
gamey-ness of wild meats.
After you have sucessfully killed, hanging by the hocks to drain the blood
out is also another flavor enhancer- coagulated blood is NOT a pleasant
flavor unless properly processed as a blood sausage, or equivalent.
So you've got the animal killed, hung by the hocks, and in your processing
area, what next?
First you have to remove the hide. This is a relatively simple matter,
requiring a cut around "ankles" and "wrists", and a slit down each limb to
the center "seam". The center seam is a cut you make, starting at the anus
and genitals, having cut around them, which goes down the center of the
belly and chest of the animal, to the throat, meeting a circle cut you've
made just behind the skull. CUT VERY GENTLY DOWN THE BELLY, YOU WANT THE
INTESTINES TO STAY IN, UNPIERCED!!!!!!
Now, if your persona is Polish, at this point you will peel the skin from
the carcase from the bottom up. Otherwise, start at the top, the "ankles",
and peel down, pulling and severing connective tissue as necessary, DON'T
CUT INTO EITHER THE MEAT OR THE HIDE!!!!!!!! Just sever the membranes
between them.
Having got this far, it is now time to remove the intestines. Cut very
gently down the center seam of the belly,(having replaced the blood bucket
with a clean tarp), top to bottom, and let the innards fall as they will.
Depending on your usages, you can feed them to the animals, or rescue them
all, as period people used almost everything. I would say save the liver,
kidneys, and heart, and save the intestines to be cleaned later for sausage
casings. That's up to you. Do remove the gall bladder from the liver,
unless you wish a real surprise at dinner. Sever the head, and use it as
you would. Tongue, brains, whatever.
Specific animals.
Poultry:
As has been mentioned in this thread, wringing their necks is easiest, but
cuttimg their throats works too. Thrusting their bodies into boiling water
to loosen the feathers is nice and easy, adding parafin to the water and
letting if cool before you rip off the feathers works too. Just don't expect
to use the feathers for anything. Otherwise, skin and clean as described
above.
Small game:
With small game, such as squirrel, rat, muskrat, raccoon, beaver,
groundhog, fox, rabbit and what not, you can follow the above instructions,
but it's usually easier to just roll them out of their hides, like you'd
roll a kid out of his sleeping bag.
Large animals-
Pigs, cattle, horses, etc
The instructions above were intended to cover them.
Special Note!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sheep!!!!!!!!!!!
The same techiques I described above work on sheep and lambs as well,
BUT!!!!!!!!!! they have a great amount of lanolin in their wool, and if you
touch a sheep or lamb with the same hands as touched their wool, you will
get an _interesting_ flavor. Sheep and lamb are definitely a two person
job, to do it right.
This, for all it's length, is definitely very short. Any specific
questions, please ask.
phlip at morganco.net
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 23:42:38 -0800
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: SC - SC: another chicken butchering method
Hi all from Anne-Marie
back when I was a kid on the farm, I had several 4H projects every year,
involving the production of meat for my family. We raised chickens, sheep,
goats and the occasional rabbit (though we could never bring ourselves to
off dear Bun Buns, not to mention dear Bun Buns having such an attitude
none of us kids would go near him).
For the quadrepeds, we always called The Butcher, who came out with a large
refridgerated truck and a big bolt gun (no bullet to richochet or get lost
in the carcass). Ms Pork Chop, or little Rosemary the Lamb would get a big
bowl of tasty grain, and never knew what hit her. Most impressive, though
I'd have nightmares about that winch for weeks afterwards...
For chickens, though, we;d do 'em ourselves. Hundreds of chickens
simultaneously (to this day, I strongly believe we are doing chickens a
favor by eating them). We had it down to a system...we'd take bleach
bottles and old plastic milk jugs, cut off the bottoms and the tops, and
staple them to the back wall of the barn, upside down. We'd drape plastic
sheeting from under the jug, down to a large lined garbage can.
The chicken would be taken by the feet (when you take a chicken by the
feet, they get rather quiet. All that blood to their brains, I guess).
You'd stuff them in the jugs, upside down so their heads would stick out
the bottom, and their feet out the top. At this point, they're so stupified
they're basically asleep.
Quickly and quietly, before they had a chance to see what was going on,
you'd pith them like a frog. Taking a sharp knife, pierce their brains from
below their chins. Instant, painless. At that point, you would cut the
throat and let the blood run down the plastic into the lined cans. No
flopping (they were immobilized), no squawking, no blood everywhere to
distress the dairy goats in the next pasture. We'd use the blood as
fertilizer for the fruit trees in the orchard later.
Once they were exsanguinated, we'd dip them into boiling water vats we had
going on camp stoves to loosen the feathers. Then, (and this was the prized
job..me and my brother would fight over who got to do this), we used the
AUTOMATIC CHICKEN PLUCKER MACHINE!!! Get this. You could rent this gem from
the local County Ag Extension office. There's this big drum that rotates.
On the drum were floppy rubber fingers. You would take the chicken and hold
it up to the rotating drum, and the feathers would strip off. Tons of fun,
like a big buffing wheel, but feathers everywhere!
The chickens were then de-gutted (my little bro liked this job best.
wierdo. ), and we got to use a propane torch to burn off the pinfeathers
(another prized job). They were then bagged up and put in the freezer for
later use.
I rather doubt that this was how it was done in the middle ages, especially
the automatic chicken plucker part...but if anyone wants to butcher their
own poultry, I strongly recommend the upside down pithing method. Most
civilized.
- --AM
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 07:48:48 +0100 (CET)
From: Par Leijonhuvud <pkl at absaroka.obgyn.ks.se>
Subject: Re: Butchering - long (was Re: SC - Ostrich, and cruelty to geese)
On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Alderton, Philippa wrote:
> Now, if your persona is Polish, at this point you will peel the skin from
> the carcase from the bottom up. Otherwise, start at the top, the "ankles",
> and peel down, pulling and severing connective tissue as necessary, DON'T
> CUT INTO EITHER THE MEAT OR THE HIDE!!!!!!!! Just sever the membranes
> between them.
In most cases you can put your knife away once the initial cuts are made
(at least on small animals such as sheep and deer, I've never tried on
moose, horses or cattle). Use your hands to push, pull and pry the hide
off, and whoever gets to take care of the hide will love you. I do
buckskin tanning (as a hobby), and far too many of the hides I get have
cuts in them.
Ohh, one more thing: many tie off both ends of the digestive system
(i.e. the esophagus and anus) to avoid getting the contents loose.
/UlfR
- --
Par Leijonhufvud par.leijonhufvud at labtek.ki.se
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 19:31:31 PST
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: SC - Butchering, Part 2, long again.
First, I want to thank Par and Anne-Marie for their commentary on the first
post. I had meant to mention tying off the ends of the digestive tract, but
it's something I do automatically, and forgot. Also, I'm a leather worker,
and am very conscious of not cutting the hides, but I've found that the
connective tissue is tough enough in some areas that a knife will save a
lot of arm strain. I had heard of the gallon jug method of butchering
chickens, but had never seen it done or done it, so thought it wise to keep
my mouth shut. Thanks, folks!
The following is addressing large animals primarily, so if all you want to
butcher is rabbits or guinea pigs (that's for Lord Ras!) or poultry, you
may not want to continue. But if you quit here, at least I got my
thank-yous in ;-)
So now you have your animal hanging, innardless, and skinless, what do you
do? Basicly, nothing for at least 12 hours. Period people butchered in the
fall for several reasons- to save feeding the animals other than breeding
stock through the winter, to put food by before winter, and because it was
cool enough to allow the meat to chill and age for better flavor. All you
need do at this point is to remove the feet, wash the animal down for any
extraneous hair, etc, cover with cheese cloth to discourage flies, and
depending on temperature, let it hang for a day or two. To help the cooling
process, some friends of mine split the animal down the spine and breast
bone, using a standard cross cut saw, others wait until they're ready to do
the rest of the cutting. I've done it both ways, and while it did cool
faster, there was no appreciable flavor difference. In warmer weather, I
usually make a cheese cloth tube by tying it over a wooden or plastic hoop
and draping rather like how you hang mosquito netting so the cheese cloth
doesn't touch the meat- this keeps flies at a safer, in my mind, distance.
I know the ideal is a walk-in cooler, fly free, but most farms don't have
one so you cool the meat in a not-necessarily-fly-proof shed.
Once the hanging meat is cooled and aged to your satisfaction, you
dismantle the beast. This is done in a manner similr to sectioning a
chicken. First take off the fore-legs at the shoulder, and lay them on your
table and cut to your satisfaction. If you have trouble at the joints, your
crosscut saw will help. Next (having split the animal lengthwise), take a
cut across the spine and free the shoulder, chest and neck. This section is
very heavy and awkward in a cow, so have a clean drop cloth below in case
of accidents, and a friend to help. Cut this section up to your
satisfaction. Then, take the lower back of the animal away from the hip
joints, and finally remove the hind quarter. If you're slicing things into
a lot of steaks, a band saw is a big help. I use a friend's, and he has a
blade for his he uses strictly for meat. If you DO use power equipment,
please watch your fingers! Otherwise the crosscut saw works well.
At the cutting table, I usually have 3 5 gallon buckets handy- 1 for trash,
1 for fat, to be later rendered into lard and cracklings, and one for
odd-shaped bits to be made into burger or sausage or jerky- I prefer most
of my meat as steaks or roasts. I have, however, butchered whole pigs into
chunks for whole hog sausage.
Special notes:
Don't discard bones! They can be made into wonderful stock, salt free,
unlike the stuff you get at the store. Marrow is nice, too, and can be
found in any of the long bones.
Don't leave any fat on or in deer meat unless you KNOW you like the flavor-
it's definitely an acquired taste. Instead, substitute beef or pork fat for
burger, or plan on using other fats or oils to cook it with, or wet-cook
it. It does NOT freeze well. And, if you're butchering a deer, after the
liver, the most special treat I know is one of the the back-straps sliced
across-grain while fresh and fried in a cast-iron skillet with just a dab
of salt and pepper. It's also known as the tenderloin, or basicly filet
mignon.
BEFORE YOU SECTION THE ANIMAL! If you have a friend who is a Buckskinner
or leatherworker, there is a very tough, silvery ribbon which runs down the
spine of all large animals into the hip. If you wish to make your friend a
special gift, slip a dull knife under this ribbon and run it back and forth
until it comes loose, cut it away at the ends, clean, and dry. You have
just produced real sinew, and although there is plenty of the artificial
stuff around, someone into authenticity will love you for it. You may lose
a little bit of solid meat, but it won't (it shouldn't ! ) be much, and it
goes into the burger bucket.
CAUTION !!
In the neck section of any large animal are the thyroid glands. If you
have bled the animal right, they should appear as whitish. REMOVE them!
They contain various hormones that will cause no problem in small doses to
a healthy adult, but can have interesting side effects when ingested as
part of burger, which is what most people use necks for.
Any questions or further commentary is, as usual, welcome.
Later,
Phlip
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 22:23:55 -0800
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Butchering, Part 2, long again.
> : phlip at morganco.net writes:
> : << while it did cool faster, there was no appreciable flavor difference. >>
> :
> : The above statement suggests that there is "some" detectable flavor
> : difference in the flesh. A question....If m'lady knew that she were going to
> : be serving the meat to the King; and, you had ample time, which way would
> : you cool the carcass?
> :
> : Ras
>
> If it is detectable, I couldn't detect it. Depending on time, I'd leave it
> hang entire- less chance for bacteria to find its way to the meat. Given
> insufficient time, I'd either cut it into roasts and steaks and cool it
> that way, or roast the thing entire, depending on what and how I was
> intending to serve. There's a lot of heat in a cow or horse or camel
> carcass, and it takes a while to dissipate. It's also a lot easier to
> handle the cooled carcass.
>
> phlip at morganco.net
Hi all from Anne-Marie.
In addition to being Dairy Acheivement 4H Girl for 1982 :) I also was
pre-vet for a while, and so have had some experience with meat processing,
etc. Anybody need their eggs graded? :)
It was my recollection that the hanging process served a number of
functions, primarily though, it gave the meat a chance to "de-rigor". In
other words, the animal dies, goes stiff, and then rictus goes away again.
That's when you carve it up and eat it. I believe its an enzymatic process,
I know for sure it's not "decomposition".
To this end, the "cooling period" isnt' so much a reduction of temperature
(or else we could just freeze it and be done with it), but a period so the
meat will be less tough. So for my King, I would want to age the meat
carefully as long as possible, but in an ice house...
- --AM, a woman of much obscure information.
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 13:38:31 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Beef redaction-An opinion
> <<Chop up the brisket and add back to the water. (is there any real reason I
> can't just cut up the beef before hand?) -Beatrix>>
>
> <<The original seething was for rybbes so I would suspect that after the first
> seething , the meat was picked from the bones and then added back to the pot.
> The bones would add some flavor to the dish but I suspect that if you used
> boneless beef it would turn out just fine without preboiling. - Ras >>
>
> If you cook the meat as a whole piece, then cut up, the resulting chunks of
> meat will retain more of their flavor-- rather than it going into the stew
> water. This is the reason modern recipes for stew often instruct one to sear
> the meat chunks before stewing them-- to keep in the juices.
>
> ~~Minna Gantz <KALLYR at aol.com>
FWIW, depending on medieval butchering techniques versus the details of
modern techniques, the original recipe calls for the meat of the ribs of
the forequarters. So, we know that a forequarter contained some of the
rib meat. Modern cutting techniques in the U.S.A. call for one rib to
be left on the rear quarter or loin/round structure. My suspicion is
that while it might be reasonable to use any of the front ribs, it might
have been looked on as wasteful even to the medieval cook to use the
"prime rib" cut.
What we're left with are the frontmost ribs, which, in modern butchers'
parlance at least, are really part of the chuck, and, if cut separately,
are commonly known as Club or Delmonico steaks. Yes, definitely a
braising cut. Now, we can't necessarily assume the cutting techniques
are the same, but I'm not aware of any real evidence to indicate they
methods used today are really much different from period cutting
techniques. In the case of hogs, we know that the definition of the loin
has changed somewhat, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that is
true of beef.
For the recipe I'd suggest brisket, chuck, plate, short ribs (yum!) or
Club steak.
As for the question of whether to cook it before cutting it up, I can
only suggest that it depends whether you want a flavorful stock, or a
flavorful meat. As has been said by others, cooking the meat whole keeps
more of the juicers and flavor in the meat. The meat, BTW, is almost
certainly parboiled before cutting up so that its medical nature will be
changed from hot and dry to warm and moist.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 00:33:35 -0500
From: a14h at zebra.net (William Seibert)
Subject: Re: SC - Butchering for beginners
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, LYN M PARKINSON wrote:
> Thank you, Charles, for a very clear explanation. I don't expect to
> butcher a goat, but if I get a deer the general process should be much
> the same. I've wondered what I'd do if I had to butcher it, myself.
Deer have a musk gland on the inner side of the rear legs that
must be carefully handled to avoid tainting the meat.