I’ve got a neighbor who has a few “leg roasts” out of a hog he butchered last fall that he wants me to “just do something with.” I told him other than ham I dont know what else I can really do. He is very interested in whole muscle thin sliced for sandwich meat. I’m just wondering if anyone has any ideas/suggestions of something I can do to change it up; like spicy ham or asain flavoring or ? I have no idea if the meat I’ll be getting is a full bone-in leg or if he seamed out the rear leg muscles or what?

I had also considered trying pork jerky out of some of it.

Suggestions welcome.

I’ve cured a number of hams over the past few years and Im always dissappointed with how dry they come out. I know reconstituted deli ham has other ingredients added but Id love to increase the juicyness of a smoked ham so its got a whole muscle look and the soft/moist texture of a deli ham.
Any advice.

Latest adventure was a loin for candian bacon…turned out 100% like ham. Not sure what I was expecting, itll eat but not quite as round or red as commercial candian bacon.

Bacon. Bacon. Bacon …it always bacon. And a couple small chunks of meat for ham this go around. I always have between. 50-75lbs of bacon in my fridge curing/smoking.

Wowza. Thats a big bunch of meat. Awesome job.

YooperDog I have a barrel stove and a 16x30 flat pan. I did purchase an RO this year so that cut down some major time. My last boil I started the RO at 7am and started the boiling at 8. I finished about 10 that night. That was about 140gallons in one day. I woulda been there about 3days if It wouldnt of been for the RO. I had 45 taps this year. Gonna upgrade my storage system, filtering/bottling, and probably go with a 2x4 divided pan and new arch.

JoeB Midwest_kc I sold all of my “extra” to my neighbors and friends already. I was a little blown away how quickly they jumped at the opportunity to buy it from me. I’ve got quite a few return customers that buy my bacon that wanna make a breakfast pack of our eggs/bacon/syrup.

The glass flask bottles came from amazon, last year they were the cheapest thing I could find. They are re-used from last years batch. All the syrup bottles are from a little shop in a town near me that has a syrup supply area in the back corner.
processhead as far as the cap colors, there is no difference. My dog got ahold of one of the bag and chewed on some so I bought replacements; they just happened to be a different color. Most of the white caps were my first and second batch. The flasks and bigger bottles to the left side were my 3rd/4th batch. Theres very minimal difference in syrup color but the larger containers make it look darker.

Thought I would share a picture of my final product for the year. This my 2nd year doing maple syrup, last year we made right around 2gallons. My hope last year was to double my output…well I finished just a touch over 9gallons. Took about 3weeks with a few very late late nights which made work really drag on the next day. Im in North Central Minnesota, and its pretty much the end for everyone. I pulled my taps on saturday during my final boil. Im guessing I collected around 280 gallons of sap this year.

I think those that tune into your livestream are 1 of 2 types of people. 1: Im just there for the free stuff, I may not even make meat. 2: The people that are in meatgistics that are actively making different things, trying different products/recipes. Personally I fall into #2, I want to try one of the less common seasoning products or experimental stuff. Although Im sure with your co-workers you have no lack of people to try your experiments.

1. Nacho
2. Sweet Chili
3. Smoking Jalapeno
4. Beer/Onion

craigrice If I could get away with NOT cleaning behind my slicer blade I would for sure. Scares the crap out of me every time.

Mine is for sure my slicer. I have to remove the blade with 3 little screws and theres to way to hold the blade while you take it off the drive shaft. I always make sure I have my boots on that way if I was to drop the blade my toes wont fly all over the house…they’ll just be in the other half of the boot.

Tex_77 I figured a guy could do that but didnt know if there was an easier/quicker way.

For those that do beef butchering how do you get your lean to fat ratio? Or how is done in a packing house? Last fall I was apart of butchering a steer and the guys doing the trimming were pretty much cutting all the fat off. When we ground it they didnt add any fat back in; but someone made the comment that it was 95/5.

Before the Waltons Grinders arrived in stock there was talk that Jonathon was gonna do a full review video of it/them grinding meat and go over the features. Did that video ever happen and I cant find it or not happen?

I was interested in the a #32 but got word the tube that you drop meat into is the same size on the #12/#22/#32. Anyone have any insight on that? I currently have a #12LEM that I put through its paces pretty often, an upgrade a #32 wouldn’t be unreasonable but if I still have to cut my meat chunks small enough to fit in a #12 I might as well keep it till it kicks the bucket.

Very cool podcast. I really enjoyed. it.

If there vac sealed your good. I vac seal my pork bellies and I’d stack them all on top of each other if the shelf in my fridge would hold it…:( it wont; dont ask how I know

I do try to flip my bellies every few days to move the fluid around that salt pulls out of the meat, which in my mind, helps move evenly distribute my salt, cure, sugar.

As s.a.m stated above. bearded butchers have a pretty good recent video on it. I believe they have an older video on lamb aswell. .22lr should be fine for the harvest, and the rest is same. You could split it like a hog or beef but they are small enough I wouldnt bother. If you wanna practice your butcher skills nows the time to bust out the frenched rack of lamb and leg of lamb.

JoeB nah. they make a double textured bag too but they are less common and more expensive.

No the VP230 does not have a seal only button. Once you activate the vacuum process it does a full cycle even if you hit the stop button it seals and lets air back in. Closing the lid starts it and when its done the lid springs open.
What took me 40 seconds in my 112s takes me about 12seconds in the 230.

Are you using wild duck or domestic?

I find the texture/moisture content of the wild duck breast meat to be much higher than beef or venison. When I’ve tried to fine grind the duck it turns into almost a wet mush which was less desirable when making sticks. Its entirely possible I was achieving protein extraction and didnt realize it. I would use twilliams process and I would double grind 3/8th duck meat and then the pork I would do 3/8 then 3/16 that Jonathan mentioned.

Yep, they work fine. I wanna try double-sided textured bags in my machine outside of the chamber. I’ve seen videos of other machines doing it. Apparently the double textures allows enough air channels for it to draw vacuum inside the bag. Then you could do an infinite sized bag.

I buy my bags by the case of a 1000 and I buy 3 sizes. Like a quart, gallon and then about 2.5gallon size, that seems to work well for my family.