Author Topic: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today  (Read 2512 times)

Fishindude

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Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« on: January 10, 2019, 06:32:00 PM »
My neighbor has a large hog operation and when they get one with a minor injury, they buyer won't take them so they either dispose of them or give them away.   I picked up two 200lb + hogs this morning and a couple friends and I skinned, dressed and quartered them and have them hanging in a cooler to butcher in a couple days.   Will make a bunch of breakfast sausage, some plain ground pork, ribs, chops and loin roasts.   Only cost we will have are the vac seal bags and some spices for the sausage.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2019, 06:33:56 PM by Fishindude »

Miss Piggy

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2019, 06:45:35 PM »
WHAT??????!!!!!!!

- Miss Piggy

Rural

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2019, 07:41:15 PM »
Two in one day. Damn, where are you getting the energy to post?

Fishindude

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2019, 07:56:44 PM »
We had them hanging and in cooler in a bout two hours.   Butchering, grinding and packing for the freezer will take a bit longer, but it's easy indoor work.

Rural

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2019, 08:08:19 PM »
Ah, okay. I thought you'd done butchering and all.

calimom

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2019, 09:49:06 PM »
WHAT??????!!!!!!!

- Miss Piggy

We need to save your bacon!
« Last Edit: January 10, 2019, 10:48:58 PM by calimom »

jnw

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2019, 06:45:24 AM »
Those vacuum seal bags are so expensive.  I find if I tightly wrap ground meat or cuts in plastic wrap (a brand/type which clings well.. we use walmart great value premium wrap) it lasts a very long time in fridge.  I wrap up say 5 pounds of ground beef/pork in 1/2 lb portions, tightly in plastic wrap, then put all those in a 1 gallon zip lock which i carefully seal before throwing in the freezer.

Are vacuum seal bags really needed? I've used meat I plastic wrapped which had been sitting in freezer for over a year.

TomTX

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2019, 07:02:12 AM »
Those vacuum seal bags are so expensive.  I find if I tightly wrap ground meat or cuts in plastic wrap (a brand/type which clings well.. we use walmart great value premium wrap) it lasts a very long time in fridge.  I wrap up say 5 pounds of ground beef/pork in 1/2 lb portions, tightly in plastic wrap, then put all those in a 1 gallon zip lock which i carefully seal before throwing in the freezer.

Are vacuum seal bags really needed? I've used meat I plastic wrapped which had been sitting in freezer for over a year.

People wrapped meat for freezing in wax paper for decades, and that's not nearly as protective as clingwrap. It's fine.

Even "freezerburned" (dehydrated) meat won't harm you - it's just a taste/texture issue.

jnw

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2019, 07:12:55 AM »
I've never had any freezer burn with plastic wrap along with zip locks.  I can reuse the zip lock as well since they usually contain wrapped portions.  I get an almost vacuum seal by tightly wrapping the cut of meat with the cling wrap.

Brother Esau

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2019, 08:00:12 AM »
WHAT??????!!!!!!!

- Miss Piggy

Mmmmmm...bacon!

radram

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2019, 08:21:31 AM »
My neighbor has a large hog operation and when they get one with a minor injury, they buyer won't take them so they either dispose of them or give them away.   I picked up two 200lb + hogs this morning and a couple friends and I skinned, dressed and quartered them and have them hanging in a cooler to butcher in a couple days.   Will make a bunch of breakfast sausage, some plain ground pork, ribs, chops and loin roasts.   Only cost we will have are the vac seal bags and some spices for the sausage.

Cutting up a whole hog is on a wish list of mine. Admittedly the slaughter part is not but I would if the price is right. The problem is the whole hog costs two to three times as much as the parts on sale. I just bought 25 pounds of whole pork loin (3 whole loins)for $.85 a pound on sale.

I am very jealous. Are you close to WI :) lol

JAYSLOL

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2019, 09:23:27 AM »
Wow, 2 free pigs is amazing!  I pick up a 200lb pig (dressed but not skinned or butchered) a couple times a year and split it with friends of ours.  We butcher and wrap both halves in an evening, and later on make sausage and bacon.  It's so much cheaper than buying pre-cut, I figure we are paying ourselves $50-75/h for that evening of butchering, but I can't even imagine how amazing it would be to also be getting the pigs for free!  Nice job!

radram

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2019, 10:15:30 AM »
Wow, 2 free pigs is amazing!  I pick up a 200lb pig (dressed but not skinned or butchered) a couple times a year and split it with friends of ours.  We butcher and wrap both halves in an evening, and later on make sausage and bacon.  It's so much cheaper than buying pre-cut, I figure we are paying ourselves $50-75/h for that evening of butchering, but I can't even imagine how amazing it would be to also be getting the pigs for free!  Nice job!

We have looked into this, and it is just not worth the money here. What did you pay for the hog, and how many pounds of meat did you get?

I get shoulders regularly for $.99 a pound on sale in my local supermarket, and make my own sausage(breakfast, brats, Italians). ends up being about $1.25-$1.50 per pound after waste and spices.
Just bought a 2-10 pound boneless hams on sale for $0.49 a pound. Cooked one last night in fact.

About a year ago, I bought low sodium bacon for $.99 a pound. bought 20 pounds I have about 4 left.
I already mentioned the $.85 a pound whole loins.

For about 30 years, we have been going to a friends family farm for the annual chicken processing day. When we started, it was cost effective to buy about 20 of them for the families annual chicken usage. Last years cost was $1.50 per pound and it is no longer cost effective. Is has not been for about 15 years, but it is a great weekend with true friends. There is talk of ending it. Financially, I am all for it, but I hope we can still get together. 2 weeks ago, I bought chicken leg quarters for $.29 a pound. NOT a typo. If we were no longer doing chickens, I would have bought 100 pounds for a total cost of $29!

In our area, sales are much cheaper than getting the entire animal and processing it myself, or raising it.

Fishindude

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2019, 10:28:56 AM »
Those vacuum seal bags are so expensive.  I find if I tightly wrap ground meat or cuts in plastic wrap (a brand/type which clings well.. we use walmart great value premium wrap) it lasts a very long time in fridge.  I wrap up say 5 pounds of ground beef/pork in 1/2 lb portions, tightly in plastic wrap, then put all those in a 1 gallon zip lock which i carefully seal before throwing in the freezer.

Are vacuum seal bags really needed? I've used meat I plastic wrapped which had been sitting in freezer for over a year.

I buy them in bulk and paid $19 for (100) bags.   Used to wrap in freezer paper 10+ years ago, but the vac seal systems just do such a nice job getting all the air out and keeping meat from freezer burning, lasting longer and tasting good.   You can also just drop the frozen vac seal parcel in a pan of warm water to thaw pretty quick, can't do that with paper.    Well worth the $0.19 per package to me.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 10:31:26 AM by Fishindude »

JAYSLOL

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2019, 09:28:46 PM »
Wow, 2 free pigs is amazing!  I pick up a 200lb pig (dressed but not skinned or butchered) a couple times a year and split it with friends of ours.  We butcher and wrap both halves in an evening, and later on make sausage and bacon.  It's so much cheaper than buying pre-cut, I figure we are paying ourselves $50-75/h for that evening of butchering, but I can't even imagine how amazing it would be to also be getting the pigs for free!  Nice job!

We have looked into this, and it is just not worth the money here. What did you pay for the hog, and how many pounds of meat did you get?

I get shoulders regularly for $.99 a pound on sale in my local supermarket, and make my own sausage(breakfast, brats, Italians). ends up being about $1.25-$1.50 per pound after waste and spices.
Just bought a 2-10 pound boneless hams on sale for $0.49 a pound. Cooked one last night in fact.

About a year ago, I bought low sodium bacon for $.99 a pound. bought 20 pounds I have about 4 left.
I already mentioned the $.85 a pound whole loins.

For about 30 years, we have been going to a friends family farm for the annual chicken processing day. When we started, it was cost effective to buy about 20 of them for the families annual chicken usage. Last years cost was $1.50 per pound and it is no longer cost effective. Is has not been for about 15 years, but it is a great weekend with true friends. There is talk of ending it. Financially, I am all for it, but I hope we can still get together. 2 weeks ago, I bought chicken leg quarters for $.29 a pound. NOT a typo. If we were no longer doing chickens, I would have bought 100 pounds for a total cost of $29!

In our area, sales are much cheaper than getting the entire animal and processing it myself, or raising it.

Those are crazy good prices, unfortunately I'm in Canada where everything, especially food is waaaay more expensive than in the US.  I pay $1.50/lb CDN for the whole pig and you can't get anything made of pork in the grocery store for less than double that, and bacon is more like 4 times that. 

jnw

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2019, 10:15:08 PM »
Sam's CLub has whole pork loins (by the case) @ $1.38 /lb.  Bought a case of htat recently along with case of pork butt for $1.28/lb.

radram

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2019, 06:13:26 AM »
Sam's CLub has whole pork loins (by the case) @ $1.38 /lb.  Bought a case of htat recently along with case of pork butt for $1.28/lb.

Those are very good everyday prices. How big of a case?

The butt(most likely the shoulder) makes GREAT pulled pork. It also freezes well cooked and in smaller portions.

JSMustachian

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2019, 10:14:53 AM »
Those vacuum seal bags are so expensive.  I find if I tightly wrap ground meat or cuts in plastic wrap (a brand/type which clings well.. we use walmart great value premium wrap) it lasts a very long time in fridge.  I wrap up say 5 pounds of ground beef/pork in 1/2 lb portions, tightly in plastic wrap, then put all those in a 1 gallon zip lock which i carefully seal before throwing in the freezer.

Are vacuum seal bags really needed? I've used meat I plastic wrapped which had been sitting in freezer for over a year.

We bought our bags from Amazon for our Vacuum Chamber sealer. Each bag is $0.04

jnw

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2019, 02:14:06 PM »
4 cents a bag!  that's a good deal :)

Gone Fishing

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2019, 04:02:57 PM »
Nice!  I've got a Red Wattle destined for the freezer. I've never had Red Wattle before, I can't wait to try it!  We tried butcher paper, but settled on plastic wrap and generic zip locks for the most part.  I really need to get a small walk in fridge built so I can hang the meat.  Makes a world of difference when cutting the meat.  One of these days I'll get brave enough to age some beef or venison 30-60+ days.  Just can't bear the thought of it possibly going bad.

Fishindude

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2019, 07:57:31 AM »
Finished the butchering yesterday.   We finished out with 40 lbs of breakfast sausage, 50 lbs of plain ground pork, and another 70 lbs of; roasts, loins and ribs.   Total expense $40 in spices for sausage and $30 in vac seal bags.  The three of us each took home 50+ lbs of meat apiece for $24 each.

I've got some ribs in the crockpot now for supper this evening.

MishMash

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2019, 08:48:03 AM »
Finished the butchering yesterday.   We finished out with 40 lbs of breakfast sausage, 50 lbs of plain ground pork, and another 70 lbs of; roasts, loins and ribs.   Total expense $40 in spices for sausage and $30 in vac seal bags.  The three of us each took home 50+ lbs of meat apiece for $24 each.

I've got some ribs in the crockpot now for supper this evening.

Not sure if you are familiar but check out Butcher Packer for your spices.  Amazing prices.  We do 100 lbs of sausage a year and they are consistently the best priced.

JAYSLOL

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Re: Two Pigs for the Freezer Today
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2019, 10:26:23 AM »
Finished the butchering yesterday.   We finished out with 40 lbs of breakfast sausage, 50 lbs of plain ground pork, and another 70 lbs of; roasts, loins and ribs.   Total expense $40 in spices for sausage and $30 in vac seal bags.  The three of us each took home 50+ lbs of meat apiece for $24 each.

I've got some ribs in the crockpot now for supper this evening.

That's awesome, we did ribs the other night too, they tasted amazing but I'll bet they would have tasted just a little sweeter if the meat was free, haha.