13 thoughts on “Putting Up A Year’s Worth Of Pork Without Refrigeration”

  1. That guy would fit right in here in north AL. I come from a hog killing family. I couldn’t wait till I was old enough to help. Then figured it was work, but it was the kind of work that paid hefty rewards. Hardly a day went by without at least bacon, sausage, or ham (along with everything else). Some days we’d have all three meats along with biscuits, eggs, grits, and gravy. My granddaddy use to say “November’s meat will never ruin”. Then one November it did. Right after we killed the hogs (usually 4-6 on “hogkilling day”) it turned off warm like now and it began to rain. For the next two weeks the pattern continued. Still, the meat spoiled in the salt boxes. He said it never happened before or after, but I remember we were just sick about it.
    We skipped the ashes part mentioned for our curing process. After the salt did it’s magic we would hang the meat up in the smokehouse and keep a smoky Hickory wood fire going for a couple of weeks. I miss back then.

    • there are many ways to store pork long term. smoke it, can it in jars. a hundred years ago they would pack it in with the lard in cans, it would keep for a long time in a cool place like a root cellar. canning is my choice. i can get several years out of mine.
      and yea, it has to be cold weather to kill hogs, we don’t do it here in the deep south until Jan.

  2. I somehow don’t think that any vegan, soy latte coffee with almond milk and organic pumpkin spice grits cafe would last more than a week in that part of the world.

    He’s not wrong, though. >};o)

  3. These skills are invaluable and are constantly being lost, made illegal, or frowned upon. Which is just plain stoopid.

  4. I did enough of that growing up on a cousins farm and when I moved to LA, would help the church members and neighbor folks with their hog butchering (got some nice loins, ribs, roasts for helping) Those in LA where sure surprised a Oregon Yankee boy sure knew how to help butcher and shave a pig and help cut it up. They didn’t think Northern boys knew anything about processing hogs, steers, goats or sheep.

    • I did 4 pigs just last Thursday on top of 4 lambs the week before. I am currently brining my hams, jowels (bacon), and loins (Canadian bacon). After smoking they get frozen or canned.
      I end up with alot of the organ meats which we turn into dog food. Might be something Guido would enjoy!
      The only thing we don’t do any more is the dunking and scraping. We find skinning is just easier.
      Here in Oregon “harvest season” starts around late October and goes until mid November. After that we run the risk of snow….
      Can’t beat the quality of home grown food.

      • Growing up in the Canby area and Oct was when we started. When I moved to Lower Alabama it was middle of November and January due to the humidity. Sure nice having a fresh smoked ham for Christmas! I haven’t done much of that since 2008, but it is kinda like riding a bicycle, ya never forget. I am trying to find some fresh pork around Roseburg and not knowing the right people and offering to help with slaughter and processing for a cut has been difficult. Never tried organ meat with Guido. I bet she would like it. She sure loves barbeque steak, ribs, pork loins etc…

        • About six years ago, we “obtained” two wild hogs. We put them in a stock trailer for a couple of weeks until they settled. Then we moved them to a pen where we fed them out on corn before taking them to the slaughterhouse (which all in north AL seem extremely busy). They had a curing process my folks wanted to try, but I asked for one “green ham” (plain, untreated anyway). I salted it down and kept it cool in the fridge with good results.

  5. In my seventies now, but had a homestead operation for almost twenty years when younger. Butchered all manner of animals from sheep to rabbits and ate the results. Did three hogs a year and always found it easier to just skin them and not deal with the boiling and scraping. Pork is different when it is home butchered, I’ve read that it is changed when pigs are transported long distances before slaughter.

  7. The Killin season is later due to not enough cold in November. A couple days of warm, even in the salt box, would spoil the meat and thats a nogo. After the salt box, the meat was wire brushed and then scrubbed with black pepper and a lil borax, especially at the shank, to keep the skippers out.
    My uncle would jack up the truck rear and build a “grinder” out of 2- 5gallon buckets, slab of wood and a hand crank meat grinder. The handle was attached to the right rear(truck in reverse)wheel and he fed that thing with lean and fat most of the day to make loose sausage.
    The women folk cooked the tenderloin and liver for the men and kids got turns scrapping that hog with a jar lid as we were too young to run a knife.
    Most young folks dont know squat about this stuff…..shame.
    R

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