NH Homesteader's journal

[frustratedearthmother]

We iced our hogs down the last time we butchered. We put 'em in ice chests and just added more ice every day. I think we let 'em 'age' from a Sunday until the following Saturday. That was some really good pig!

I'm waiting til cool weather just because I hate to butcher anything in the heat - hot blood stinks, lol. We'll do chickens though cuz we can do them fast enough to get 'em cooled down quickly. If the weather cooperates this weekend we'll be doing 5 roos.

 

[NH Homesteader]

We skin them. I'll pass that along to my husband. He's used to doing it in a meat house with built in cooler. Meh we're about to do it the hard way! We do have a meat grinder, of course he's all whiny because he's used to using the industrial sized one. Ours is good quality but it's just plain going to take longer. He's mad we have to do it this way but hes determined so it's going to happen somehow!

We aren't the types to pay to have someone else do it for lack of facilities.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

We aren't the types to pay to have someone else do it for lack of facilities.

Me neither - I refuse to pay someone to do something I can do myself! (even if I don't do it perfect, lol)

 

[NH Homesteader]

Fortunately my husband was trained by the dude, who used to butcher professionally. So he knows pretty well what he's doing. Hey if we mess up we just end up with extra sausage! As long as we don't damage the precious bacon... We will be good!

 

[baymule]

You should do a step by step tutorial with pictures!

 

[NH Homesteader]

I'll try... My husband will likely be telling me to put down the camera and help haha.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Hubby says he doesn't care if I take pictures. We don't do all the fancy cuts though. We put a lot to ground pork (to use in place of hamburger since we don't raise cows), sausage and pulled pork. Going to buy ingredients for the brine this week. I'm pushing for starting the first week in October.

Here is what we need to do between now and Thanksgiving... Just on the butchering front...

Butcher 2 gilts
Process 42 Cornish x meat birds and 2 cull roosters (this will probably take 2 days)
Process 6 broad breasted turkeys and 2 cull heritage turkeys

Not to mention we need to finish building the winter pig house and move them to their winter area. Dry up my milker and try to breed her in November. And move all of the remaining chickens.

Plus my tomatoes are all on the verge of ripening so I have a lot of sauce to make.

We have always put whole chickens in the freezer but this year I want to do half of them as whole birds and some as cuts, then make a ton of broth with the carcasses.

Speaking of which... Ahem... How do I make broth? Seriously I have never done it

 

[baymule]

Making tomato sauce: I found out by accident how to make quicker tomato sauce without having to stand over a steaming pot, stirring, stirring and stirring some more. Ready? Quarter the tomatoes, cut out the core and any bad spots. Chunk 'em in gallon bags and freeze them. What happens is that freezing makes the water expand, bursting the cell walls. What that means for you is;

Peel plastic bag off the tomatoes and drop in a big pot, still frozen. Slowly heat on medium low heat. Here's the good part. The water cooks out first! Pour the water off, reserve in another pot. I did this with 2 1/2 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes and drained off 2 3/4 quarts of tomato water. This resulted in thicker tomatoes. I then strained out the seeds and skins (the chickens loved them) returned the sauce to a pot, heated and canned it. I could have cooked it down some more but I was happy with what I had. The point is, that I drained off almost 3 quarts of water that would have taken hours to cook off.

Remember I said to reserve the tomato water? I canned 2 quarts and used the 3/4 quart as the starting water in a pot of pinto beans. They were delicious!

Chicken broth. Cut meat off bones and freeze or can, whatever you are doing with it. Put the bones in a pot, cover with water and simmer for several hours. You can add a tablespoon of ACV to help draw out the nutrients of the bones, if you desire. I strain my broth. If it has a lot of fat floating on top, I refrigerate it over night and skim the congealed fat off, then reheat and can. You can toss in the neck, wings, and bony back pieces in your broth pot. Pick the meat off and freeze for chicken salad or can a jar of it.

I think I already told you how to make broth with the feet, if not, let me know. Home made broth from your own chickens is the BEST!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Yes! I love shortcuts! That's perfect because my tomatoes never ripen at the same time.

So every recipe I have found for making broth calls for adding vegetables. Does that make a difference at all? Yes it seems absurd to raise all these chickens and buy broth. No more!

Does anyone make pork broth with the bones? Want to try that too!

 

[NH Homesteader]

And yes thanks for the reminder, I'll go back and refresh my memory on that too