Mangalitsa butchering

looking for the right words to use, as i am a recovering vegetarian now butchering my own hogs.

we butchered last year and did basic cuts: ham, bacon, ribs, chops, shoulder, butt. just real basic. we missed a lot of stuff in the neck, head, hocks.

eating through the ham steaks and other “mystery meats” i found we were not cooking properly as they ended up tough and just not what we expected.

can anyone point me in the direction of specialty processing? is that a thing? graphs, videos, articles? the goal right now is to grind everything besides the chops, bacon, loins, pulled pork. is there better cuts in there that are not “commercial” cuts? stuff worth smoking, drying, anything? i just cant seem to find much information besides places selling their own meat.

in Butcheryby coolasagiraffe

6

88%

5mo

View all comments

3

5mo

There are better cuts that require 'specialty' processing. As another commenter said, Bryan Mayers video is good.
If you are interested in selling at a farmers market, or online, I would study this video a couple of times and then reach out to a local butcher shop. Ask them if you can bring them skin on, split pigs for them to process, then ask if they can 1. breakdown whole animals 2. Have the knowledge of extracting steaks that processors usually dont take the time to(flat irons, denvers, pork skirt steaks, etc.) If they dont know how, move on.
You can research local mobile butchers that can come to your farm to slaughter and break down on your property, having the same discussion as the butcher shop though.
Getting all of those steaks from pigs does take more finesse and time so it might be a bit more expensive than some USDA plant, but thats because your getting more options/ niche cuts.
As we all know pure bred Mangalitsa's tend to have large amounts of fat. Grinding this may not be ideal. Youll either grind it all and have a very fatty grind mix, or youll have to get a 70/30 lean/fat ratio, which wont yield alot of grind and it will leave you with fat that you will want to turn a profit on (turning into lard for cooking, making cured lardo, lotions, freezing for future grind batches).