My plan while breaking the carcass down was to demonstrate each step....but we just got busy and forgot to take pics. Remember the faster you chill the meat the better....and there's not always time to stop and take pictures when you are workin...
First are the proper tools....I have several plain white aprons that I use while butchering and processing meat. They can be bleached and sanitized....and they keep things clean. Also you need a boning knife and a small knife to help with skinning. Various sharpeners are on hand as well because with big projects they need to keep their edge....plus there is always a chance that the knife will hit bone, which dulls it very quickly. You will notice a sawzall.....since we don't have a bone saw yet...the sawzall is the next best thing. Makes short work of splitting and dividing the carcass!
We have a butchering station outside set up with the gambrel and pulleys...but when they come into the house they look like this....
The skin, head, hooves are removed and it has been gutted. We keep the liver, kidneys, and heart for making dog food. We use as much of the animal as we can. First we remove the neck. The neck has a huge amount of meat on it and has great flavor for making a pot of soup or stew....
The next step is to divide it into halves......removing any excess fat from the internal cavity.
Next we remove the hocks. This is the lower portion of the leg and it is full of sinew. Not a lot of meat there, but properly cured and smoked, they will add fantastic flavor to any pot of beans!
Here it is without the hocks, but still with the shanks....
And here are the hocks and shanks together.....you can see how meaty the shanks are compared to the hocks. We will cure and smoke all of these.....and in the end the meat on the shanks can be used like a very lean ham in casseroles, omlettes, or beans...
4 comments:
So the first thing Ellie May said when i showed her the pictures was, "Oh. Looks like he lost weight." The second thing she said was, "Poor Snippy, he has gone all to pieces." Then she started boo hooing. Thank you for doing this for us. Not sure we were up to it. We KINDA feel sorry for him.....but are looking forward to some tasty ribs!
Snippy served his purpose in life, and he had a good life! He was well tended, well fed....but yet he also got to explore and stretch his legs.
He was never sent through a sale barn or zapped with a hot shot. He was bottle fed and well loved.
He left this world much more quickly than his entry. And he never felt a thing. He was not loaded or hauled to someplace.
It is an Aweful thing to know that an animal is destined to be meat. It is and even MORE Aweful thing to know that you must do it.
Very interesting!! Thank you for the pictures. We haven't butchered one of ours (yet). What breed was Snippy? How old was he? Also, what process will you use to cure the hocks and shanks? We will probably end up butchering some of the kids next year rather than sell them all as we did this year.
Love Ellie May's comments!
Denise, all our goats are Nubian. He was a nubian wether born in March or April of this year. I use my ham brine as the cure for hocks and shanks.
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