How to Butcher an Entire Pig: Every Cut of Pork Explained | Handcrafted | Bon Appetit

Summary

In this educational video, Brian Mayer, a butcher, educator, and writer, demonstrates the art of breaking down a half pig into various cuts at Wybrook Farms. He begins with removing leaf lard and kidneys, then proceeds to dissect the pig into primal sections such as the shoulder, loin, belly, and ham. Mayer explains the traditional cuts and how they can be further broken down for different culinary uses, emphasizing the versatility and value of each part of the pig. He also touches on the preparation of charcuterie and the importance of whole animal butchery.

Takeaways

• 🔪 Brian Mayer, a butcher, educator, and writer, demonstrates breaking down a half pig into various cuts at Wybrook Farms.
• ⏳ The process begins with removing the leaf lard, a neutral fat used traditionally in pie crusts and other pastries.
• 🥩 Kidneys are also removed, often ground and used in sausages, showcasing the use of every part of the pig.
• 🍖 The shoulder section is separated by counting ribs and using the weight of the pig to joint without sawing, preserving the carcass.
• 🥓 The belly is carefully separated to ensure a good amount of fat for bacon, a value-added product for butchers.
• 🍗 The loin section is processed to produce pork chops and tenderloin, with attention to leaving the skin and fat on for flavor.
• 🍖 The ham is separated and includes the sirloin, which can be used for steaks or roasts, highlighting the versatility of pork cuts.
• 🐷 Every part of the pig is usable, from blood to skin, exemplifying whole animal butchery and sustainability.
• 👨‍🍳 Brian emphasizes the importance of using natural seams and joints to break down the pig, minimizing waste and preserving meat quality.
• 🍴 The final cuts include a variety of roasts, chops, and bacon, all of which are likely to be found in a local butcher shop.

Q & A

What is the purpose of visiting Wybrook Farms in the script?

The purpose of visiting Wybrook Farms is to break down a half a pig into cuts that you would see at your local butcher shop.

What is leaf lard and why is it significant in butchery?

Leaf lard is the most neutral of all fats, meaning it doesn't have a lot of taste to it. It is traditionally used in things like pie crusts. It's significant because it's a preliminary step in breaking down the pig and is a valuable byproduct.

How are kidneys typically used in butchery according to the script?

Kidneys are wonderful and are usually ground and put into sausage, adding flavor and nutrition to the final product.

What is the significance of removing the tenderloin and how is it done?

The tenderloin is significant because it is a high-value, tender cut of meat. It is removed by following the lumbar vertebrae to the sacral vertebrae and the h-bone, then using the natural scene to pull it off once the initial connections are severed.

Why is it important to remove the shoulder section between the fifth and sixth rib for charcuterie?

For charcuterie, it is important to elongate certain muscles, so cutting between the sixth and seventh ribs allows for a more suitable cut for this purpose.

What is the advantage of using the weight of the animal to joint instead of sawing?

Using the weight of the animal to joint avoids generating heat that could cause the muscles to oxidize quicker and prevents bone dust from being injected into the muscle, thus preserving quality.

Why is it beneficial for butchers to maximize the amount of bacon they can produce?

Bacon is a great value-added product that consumers love. By maximizing bacon production, butchers can increase their profits and meet customer demands.

What is the purpose of scoring the picnic and how does it affect the cooking process?

Scoring the picnic allows the fat to render and almost self-baste while slow cooking. This helps in making the meat more tender and flavorful.

Why is the pork brisket a versatile cut according to the script?

The pork brisket is versatile because it can be used as a slow-cooking roast, similar to beef brisket, offering a variety of cooking methods and flavors.

What is the reasoning behind leaving the skin and fat on certain cuts for cooking?

Leaving the skin and fat on certain cuts is beneficial because it helps to keep the meat moist and flavorful during cooking, especially for cuts that require long cooking times.

How does the process of frenching a rib roast enhance its presentation?

Frenching a rib roast involves removing the meat between the ribs to expose the bones, which creates a clean, elegant look that is aesthetically pleasing and traditionally associated with high-quality roasts.

Outlines

00:00

🔪 Butchering a Half Pig at Wybrook Farms

Brian Mayer, a butcher, educator, and writer, demonstrates the process of breaking down a half pig into various cuts at Wybrook Farms. He begins by removing the leaf lard, a neutral fat used traditionally in pie crusts. The kidneys are also removed, often used for sausage. Mayer then focuses on the shoulder section, explaining the importance of jointing without sawing to preserve the meat quality. He discusses the significance of leaving enough tail and rib bone for pork chops while maximizing bacon yield. The primal cuts of the pig are identified, including the shoulder, loin, belly, and ham, along with the tenderloin, leaf lard, kidney, and head.

05:00

🍖 Detailed Breakdown of the Pig Shoulder

The video continues with a detailed dissection of the pig's shoulder, which includes the butt, picnic, and trotter. Mayer removes the trotter and separates the shoulder by locating the joint between the ulna, radius, and humerus. He then cuts the picnic and butt in half, explaining the importance of not sawing through muscle. Various cuts like pork rillettes and chicharrones are discussed, along with the versatility of using different parts like the skin for stock or pet treats. The focus is on maximizing the use of each part of the pig while minimizing waste.

10:01

🥩 Loin and Ham: Prime Cuts and Preparation

Mayer moves on to the loin and ham sections, detailing how to remove the loin from the vertebrae without sawing and turning it into a boneless loin roast. He creates pork chops with the chine bone attached and discusses the various muscles within the loin that contribute to different textures and flavors. The process of frenching the ribs for a traditional holiday roast presentation is also covered. The tenderloin, being the most tender but less flavorful cut, is prepared with attention to leaving fat on for flavor. The video concludes with the preparation of the ham, including the removal of the rear trotter and the separation of the sirloin for steaks or roasts.

15:02

🐷 Utilizing the Entire Pig: From Head to Trotters

In the final part of the video, Mayer addresses the utilization of the entire pig, including the head, which is often overlooked. He demonstrates how to remove the ears and skin from the skull, which can be used for charcuterie like 'porqueta de testa'. The head meat is highlighted as a valuable part for making head cheese. The video concludes with a comprehensive overview of the various cuts that can be obtained from a pig, emphasizing the pig's utility in whole animal butchery and the potential for creating a wide array of products from a single animal.

Keywords

💡Leaf lard

Leaf lard is a type of fat found inside a pig’s abdomen, around the kidneys. It is highly valued for its neutral taste, making it ideal for pastries like pie crusts. In the video, it is one of the first parts removed during the pig breakdown process.

💡Tenderloin

The tenderloin is the most tender muscle in the pig’s body, located along the lumbar vertebrae. While tender, it lacks flavor compared to other cuts, so it’s often left with fat to enhance its taste. In the video, the butcher removes the tenderloin by following the natural seam of the pig.

💡Shoulder

The shoulder is one of the primal cuts of the pig, which consists of the butt, picnic, hock, and trotter. The shoulder is broken down into these sub-cuts during the butchery process, with each section being useful for different culinary purposes, such as roasts or sausage.

💡Bacon

Bacon is made from the belly of the pig, which is cured and often smoked. It is a high-value product for butchers because of its popularity. In the video, the butcher carefully separates the belly to maximize the amount of meat that can be turned into bacon.

💡Coppa

Coppa is a cut from the shoulder of the pig, specifically the longissimus muscles. It is often used in Italian charcuterie. In the video, the butcher removes this muscle from the shoulder and ties it up to create a roast or cut it into steaks.

💡Secreto

The secreto is a highly flavorful, fat-rich cut of pork, typically found in the abdominal muscle. There are different opinions on its exact location, but in the video, the butcher identifies it as part of the belly and pulls it away from the ribs during the breakdown.

💡Primal cuts

Primal cuts are the major sections of the pig that are initially separated during butchery, including the shoulder, loin, belly, and ham. These cuts are further broken down into smaller, more recognizable cuts in butcher shops. The video focuses on dividing the pig into these primals before refining each one.

💡Rillettes

Rillettes are a type of spreadable pork dish made by cooking meat and fat together, then shredding the meat and storing it in fat. In the video, the butcher mentions using bones and fat from the shoulder section to make rillettes, highlighting a traditional use of pork off-cuts.

💡Pork chops

Pork chops are a popular cut from the loin section of the pig, typically bone-in or boneless. In the video, the butcher cuts various types of pork chops, including ones with the chine bone attached, ensuring they have enough fat and a portion of the rib for flavor.

💡Charcuterie

Charcuterie refers to the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as bacon, ham, sausages, and pâtés. In the video, the butcher discusses how different cutting techniques can influence the final product, such as elongating certain muscles when breaking the hog for charcuterie.

Highlights

Introduction to breaking down a half pig into cuts at Wybrook Farms

Removal of leaf lard, its traditional uses, and its neutral taste

Preliminary step of removing the flank section for easier tenderloin access

Technique for removing the tenderloin by following the lumbar vertebrae

Explanation of removing the shoulder section and its impact on carcass life

Importance of not sawing through the carcass to prevent muscle oxidation and bone dust

The process of separating the belly from the loin section for bacon production

Detailing the four primals of a pig: shoulder, loin, belly, and ham

Breaking down the shoulder section into butt, picnic, and trotter

Use of the skin for making chicharrones or adding to stock

Technique for removing the spine from the shoulder for pork rillettes

Utilization of every part of the pig, from blood to offal, emphasizing whole animal butchery

The process of trimming and cleaning cuts for presentation in a butcher shop

Different cuts from the loin section, including tenderloin and pork chops

The art of frenching the ribs for a traditional holiday roast presentation

Final cuts from the ham, including sirloin steaks and various roasts

The utilization of the head as the fifth primal, including removing the ears and skin

Overview of the many cuts from a side of a pig and their various uses

Transcripts

my name is brian mayer i'm a butcher

educator and writer today we're here at

wybrook farms where we're going to break

down a half a pig into cuts that you

would see at your local butcher shop

so the first thing that we're going to

do is we remove the leaf lard leaf lard

is the most neutral of all fats which

means it doesn't have a lot of taste to

it traditionally it would be used in

things like pie crust and stuff like

that before the advent of shortening so

right here i'm just kind of removing a

bit of the flank section this is just

sort of a preliminary step we'll come

back later in terms of removing the

sirloin section but that just kind of

gets it out of the way and also it makes

it a little bit easier to pull the

tenderloin off so along with the leaf

lard one of the first things we'll do is

also remove the kidney kidneys are

wonderful i usually grind them with my

grind and put them into sausage

so here i just follow along the lumbar

vertebrae right to where it turns into

the sacral vertebrae and right into the

h-bone and i just follow along a very

natural scene and you can very easily

pull off the tenderloin once you sever

those first connections it almost comes

off by hand

so here we're gonna remove the shoulder

section for our purposes today i was

counting between the fifth and the sixth

rib and that's traditionally where a

butcher hog would be broken if we were

cutting it for charcuterie we would want

to elongate certain muscles so we would

cut between say the six and the seven

for charcuterie

and what i'll be able to do is basically

joint so i'll be able to remove this

section without sawing and what that

does is that helps the life of the

carcass i'm not sawing through something

so i'm not generating heat which will

cause the muscles to oxidize a little

quicker and i'm also not injecting a

little bit of the bone dust into the

muscle

so now i'm going to remove just a little

bit more of that flank section and you

can see back here with that skin this

hog is hung for about seven days so it's

really dry so that skin is pretty tough

to break through so i'm just moving it

out of the way because what i want to do

is expose this last vertebrae in the

lumbar section and what i'll be able to

do here is the same thing i'll use the

weight of the animal to joint and not

have to saw and that piece comes off

fairly easily

and then so the last cut is to separate

the belly from the loin section and here

we want to make sure that we get a nice

enough of a tail and nice enough of a

rib bone on our pork chop without

cutting our bellies incredibly short

bellies get turned into bacon bacon is a

great value-added product for butchers

everybody loves bacon so it's definitely

within the butcher's best interest to

have as much bacon as possible

so these are the four primals your

shoulder loin belly and ham along with

your tenderloin leaf lard kidney and the

head and then from here we're going to

break them down into other cuts

so we've got the shoulder section here

which consists of the butt the picnic

and then a hawk and a trotter here what

we're doing is removing the trotter from

the rest of the arm bone i was planning

to do zamponi but with the skin being as

dry as it was i thought maybe we'd joint

the leg instead

so first the trotter comes off

then we're going to locate the joint

between the ulna the radius and the

humerus we'll cut across and then we'll

use the weight of the entire shoulder to

break that piece off

and so we're going to saw the picnic and

the butt in half right along this

natural curve in the spine you don't

want to saw through muscle so we'll stop

we'll make a cut and then again a bit of

the scapula is still in there so we'll

stop we'll saw again

make our way through that bone

once we're through that bone we'll

continue to cut through again so now we

have our two sections we have the top

portion which is the butt and the bottom

is the picnic

so here i'm just removing the spine and

that's a really great cut to use if you

are making something like pork riettes

and so what you would do is you would

take those bones along with some fat

some spices and some alcohol cook those

things down drain off the fat peel the

meat off the bone put that meat in a jar

pour the fat on top of it wait for it to

solidify grab a baguette and beat

here what i'm doing is i'm seaming out

the lunches miss muscle and some of the

other shoulder muscles and i'm just

following right along the shoulder blade

there's a very natural seam there that

it can just peel right away

and there i'm just pulling off a little

bit of that excess fat that fat will get

used in sausage that fat will get

rendered to cook with later and the skin

is really great we can take skin and

turn it into things like chicharrones or

we can just add it to our stock

so here i'm just following this very

natural seam and i'm removing the

longissimus muscles which will make up

the coppa from the bottom portion of

that muscle which is the serratus which

will get cut into the pork denver

so here i'm just removing a bit of the

scapula that's still left in

traditionally this would get turned into

sausage and i think it's really great

that we pulled the top half of this

section away and used this for steaks

and for roasts and we're really trying

to minimize the amount of trim off here

so here i'm just following along the

natural seam and i'm going to remove a

little bit of the skin and what we can

do is we'll just turn this into a

boneless skinless pork roast

these mussels in this particular part

are pretty tough so they're going to

need low moist heat to break down all

that connective tissue and collagen

here i'm following the natural seam and

what i'm moving would be what is

considered the short rib or spare rib

these i'll leave whole or what i can do

is cut them into individual spare ribs

one of the really great things about pig

is every bit is usable from the blood

from the skin from all the olfal that's

allowed to be used i think the the only

one that we're not allowed to use are

the lungs but really everything gets

used and i think that pigs really

exemplify whole animal butchery

what i'm pulling off here is something

that you don't normally see and it's the

pork brisket and again it's just another

way to have a sort of more usable

versatile a slow cooking roast

i'm gonna take the remaining section and

i'm gonna tie that up into a full roast

and here i'm just basically squaring it

off just making it into a sort of a more

manageable useful cut

so here's a breakdown of the shoulder

and now what i'm going to do is trim and

clean these cuts in a way that you might

see them in a butcher shop

so i'm just removing silver skin maybe

if there's excess fat i'm getting rid of

it maybe if there's some oxidized areas

one of the things that i love to do with

hawks is to pierce the skin and what

that's going to allow is some of the

moisture to escape while it slow cooks

so that'll get that really puffy skin

here i'm taking the spare ribs and all

i'm doing is just separating them right

between each rib

so that's the pork brisket i'm just

gonna remove some excess fat again

something that you don't normally see

but it's a fun cut to try

here we're just kind of removing some of

that excess fat and that'll go into

getting rendered or that'll go into

sausage and then again the skin gets

used in stock the skin you can make

chicharrones which is wonderful and

great but is a long arduous process

another great thing that you can do with

skin is pet treats and it's a really

really healthy snack for them

so now i'm working with the picnic that

we have left after we remove the brisket

so here i'm scoring it and i'm going

down a little bit into the fat because

what i want is that fat to render and

almost self-baste while i slow cook this

and again i can smoke this or i can just

very easily just put it in the oven at a

very low temp and let that cook it's

going to take a substantial amount of

time

so this is the section of the shoulder

where we removed the scapula i'm scoring

it just to make it nicer visually and

here we'll just tie this which will keep

the shape more consistent so it'll cook

more evenly

so we'll take the trotter and we'll

split it in half

we'll expose the center of that trotter

and that collagen will render much

easier into our stock

next up we have all the longissimus

muscles and those are the longest muscle

group in the body and so it'll be the

eye in your pork chop or it is the coppa

and that's what we're going to do here

is we are going to tie a copa roast but

then also cut coppa stakes

so here are the final cuts from our

shoulder

some of these cuts if not all you'll

find in your local butcher shop

so the next section that we have here is

the belly

so here i'm just following along the

spare rib bones long sweeping strokes

trying to leave as much muscle as i can

on the belly side and trying to remove

the spare ribs and as few strokes as

possible because the belly turning it

into bacon is a great way for butchers

to have a value-added product

so here i'm just going to follow along

the natural seam and you can see that

the socreto or this abdominal muscle

easily pulls away from the remainder of

the belly there's lots of opinions as to

where the secreto comes from i like to

pull it from the belly because it's the

most easily accessible and it's got

great flavor and a lot of fat

here i'm removing a little bit of the

gland in the flank section unfortunately

glands are one of the things that we

really can't use very bitter in taste so

something like this you don't want to

have a gland in

so the main part of the belly would be

the bacon and bacon really is just salt

and thyme and then maybe a little bit of

smoke belly can be turned into many

different kinds of bacon from streaky

bacon or slab bacon canadian bacon

rasher jowl bacon so many different

kinds of things

and these are the cuts that you can get

off a belly

so next up we have the loin section

which includes the tenderloin

[Music]

so there's lots of different cuts that

we can get off the loin bone in bone out

roasts steaks

so what we're going to do here is we're

going to remove this section of the loin

from the rest of the loin which is

basically cutting between the vertebrae

and then removing all the muscle without

having to saw through it we'll later

turn that into a boneless loin roast

so here what i've opted to do is cut a

different style of pork chop with the

chine bone attached so i'm splitting

between each vertebrae sawing through a

bit of the rib section and then just

following along the natural path of the

rib and so i'll remove a full pork chop

with the china on and the other thing i

like to do with these is leave all the

fat on as well as the skin

they have a few different muscles

included in there that are going to

change the texture and that texture is

going to change the flavor a little bit

so to counter that nice and fatty with

the skin on as well

for the remainder of the loin what i'm

going to do is chime i'm lining my saw

right at the base of the spine and just

a couple of quick bursts and once i'm

through that section i'll take the tip

of my blade and i'll work around each

little piece of the vertebrae so here

i'm just following down the feather

bones that are on the back side of the

spine and will remove the section of the

vertebrae and again i'll save this for

stock things like that

so here i'm just following the rib bone

and cutting through the vertebrae and

just cutting some bone in pork chops

here the skin will be off as well as the

chine bone being off

so this is a part of the loin towards

the rear of the animal back towards an

area where there are finger bones and

not rib bones so i've removed the spine

and finger bones i've skinned it and

here i'm just removing excess fat it's

always a balance between too much fat

too little fat me personally i love a

ton of fat but it's something that we

slowly have to initiate customers into

buying

and then here i'm going to just score it

again just for some presentation and

then i'll tie it and that tying will

keep it in a more uniform shape and that

will aid in a more even cooking

so the last part we're going to tie

something that's sort of traditional

holiday roast if you will so we're going

to tie what is essentially a pork

standing rib roast skin off leave a good

amount of fat on not too much and expose

or french the ribs

and really this is all just presentation

personally i love to leave all that fat

and meat on the bone but for

presentation's sake it looks really nice

to go ahead and french a bone first you

want to scrape between the bone and

remove any of the intercostal meat so

that's the meat in between each bones

and then really it just depends on how

you feel like doing it i kind of do a

version where i scrape off as much meat

and then i'll take a clean rag and use

that rag to pull off

some people really want to see clean

clean bones i think i'd leave some meat

on there just because i'm so

anti-frenching things

so here we're gonna remove the skin

and again we're left with some fat and

some skin all of which will be utilized

so the tenderloin is the most tender

muscle in the body what that equates to

is a lack of flavor so to help mitigate

that i leave a good amount of fat or as

much fat as i possibly can but one of

the things that we will have to remove

is the silver skin so that fascia isn't

going to break down when you roast it

normally

here are the final cuts from the loin

that you'll likely see at your butcher

shop

so here we have the final traditional

primal the ham with the sirloin attached

so much like we did on the front arm

we're going to do on the rear removing

the rear trotter is very similar to

removing the front rotor we're going to

look for that joint we're going to look

for articulation in the tarsal bones and

we're going to cut around and then use

the table to help us separate that from

the

hock we're going to do is we're going to

de-bone around the sirline so first

we'll remove part of the sacral

vertebrae and then we'll remove part of

the hip that's still attached to the

h-bone

and what that allows me to do is make

sure i just remove the bone and not pull

muscle with it so it's a much cleaner

way of removing those bones

so i'll cut between that cartilage

remove a bit of the hip

and then i'll work around the remaining

section of the hip

into the h-bone around the femur and

then pull out that section the h-bone is

a fairly tricky bone to remove there is

a tendon that's attached to it so it's

one of the reasons why you don't

dislocate your leg

the rear hawk is a little bit different

from the front arm in that the rear hawk

has a stifle joint so it's almost a

straight cut through that section so

we'll remove the tibia from the femur by

locating an area just below the patella

and the kneecap and that area right

below the patella allows us to sever

that section very easily

so now we can remove the sirloin section

so we follow right on top of the tip of

the femur and as you can see we get a

much more full piece of sirloin great

for cutting steaks or turning it into a

roast as well

so here's the breakdown of the ham next

i'll cut them down even further into

parts that you might see in your butcher

case

so here again i'm just skinning and

taking off some of that excess fat we're

going to cut some bone out sirloin

steaks a lot of flavor there's a lot of

muscle groups in there so that texture

is adding to the flavor i like them much

better than a pork chop

so next up we have the ham and the four

primary muscles that are included in

that the top round the sirloin tip the

eye around and the bottom round for our

purposes first we're going to skin it

leaving as much fat on as possible you

want to see the shadow of the blade

underneath the skin and that's how you

know you're getting a really clean piece

so here we're following the natural seam

and i'm just scoring and following right

around the femur there's a very natural

scene there that connects the top round

to the bottom round and we'll remove the

top round along those lines

so here what we're doing is removing

this top cap this is the gracilis muscle

the cut that you'll see in butcher shops

in the beef case but you can totally use

this in the pork case as well it's very

thin it's quick cooking and definitely

just a great cut for a couple of

portions there's a good amount of fat on

it so we'll trim that off as well as

removing any of the silver skin or

fascia on there

so with the remainder of the muscles on

the leg what i'd like to do here is just

debone it so i'm just following the bone

and then that femur bone is going into

stock

so the remainder of the muscles the

bottom round the eye round and the

sirloin tip traditionally would either

be left together for a ham cut into

cubes for stew or going into sausage but

i figured the utility of this is that we

can turn all of these into really great

roasts

i'm gonna pull off a little bit of that

excess fat i'm gonna pull off the

patella the kneecap which is still in

the sirloin tip and then i'm going to

tie each of these into individual roasts

and what we'll wind up doing with the

top round is taking that and cutting

cutlets or schweinschnitzel

and then the remainder of the pieces

that are left on the leg i cut those up

for stew

so when you're pounding the schnitzel i

use two pieces of saran wrap and you

want to make sure that you don't hit

directly straight down you want to push

away so as not to push through the

muscle

these are the final cuts from the leg

that you might find at your butcher's

case

and then we have the head which i like

to call the fifth

primal so first things i do is i remove

the ears you can leave them attached but

traditionally what will happen is those

will get sliced into strips they'll get

cured along with the head and the tongue

and those will get put into the skin and

rolled up and cooked along with it so

i'll remove those what we're going to do

here is something that's very typical in

charcuterie which is removing the entire

skin along with the muscle from the

skull into something that's called

porqueta de testa or fromage de tete and

here i just follow around the skull i

start at the top of the head and then

working down along the sides of the

skull

so i work in sections i work one side

loosening it up and then i'll flip over

to the other side joining them in the

middle right around the forehead and

then peel down the snout of the animal

just like organ meats that people have

this sort of negative connotation with

head you know it has a face and so i can

understand that it makes it really

difficult for people to even think about

consuming but again talking about pigs

and their overall utility it's just so

great that you can take every single

part of this animal and turn it into

food

even when you're done the skull has a

lot of meat left on it so you can

totally throw that into a pot and that

can be your head cheese

and these are the cuts you get from the

head

and finally these are just some of the

many cuts that you can get from a side

of a pig

you