How to Butcher an Entire Pig: Every Cut of Pork Explained | Handcrafted | Bon Appetit
Summary
TLDRIn 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
🔪 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.
🍖 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.
🥩 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.
🐷 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Leaf lard
💡Tenderloin
💡Shoulder
💡Bacon
💡Coppa
💡Secreto
💡Primal cuts
💡Rillettes
💡Pork chops
💡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
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