Home Pork Making :: CHAPTER V. DRESSING AND CUTTING.

CHAPTER V. DRESSING AND CUTTING.

When the carcasses have lost the animal heat they are put away till the morrow, by which time, if the weather is fairly cold, the meat is stiff and firm and in a condition to cut out better than it does when taken in its soft and pliant state. If the weather is very cold, however, and there is danger that the meat will freeze hard before morning, haste is made to cut it up the same day, or else it is put into a basement or other warm room, or a large fire made near it to prevent it from freezing. Meat that is frozen will not take salt, or keep from spoiling if salted. Salting is one of the most important of the several processes in the art of curing good bacon, and the pork should be in just the right condition for taking or absorbing the salt. Moderately cold and damp weather is the best for this.

AS THE CARCASS IS DRESSED

it is lifted by a hook at the end of a swivel lever mounted on a post and swung around to a hanging bar, placed conveniently. This bar has sliding hooks made to receive the gambrel sticks, which have a hook permanently attached to each so that the carcass is quickly removed from the swivel lever to the slide hook on the bar. The upper edge of the bar is rounded and smoothed and greased to help the hooks to slide on it. This serves to hang all the hogs on the bar until they are cooled. If four persons are employed this work may be done very quickly, as they may divide the work between them; one hog is being scalded and cleaned while another is being dressed.

FIG. 11. EASY METHOD OF HANGING A CARCASS.

Divested of its coat, the carcass is washed off nicely with clean water before being disemboweled. For opening the hog, the operator needs a sharp butcher’s knife, and should know how to use it with dexterity, so as not to cut the entrails. The entrails and paunch, or stomach, are first removed, care being taken not to cut any; then the liver, the “dead ears” removed from the heart, and the heart cut open to remove any clots of blood that it may contain. The windpipe is then slit open, and the whole together is hung upon the gambrel beside the hog or placed temporarily into a tub of water. The “stretcher,” a small stick some sixteen inches long, is then placed across the bowels to hold the sides well open and admit the air to cool the carcass, and a chip or other small object is placed in the mouth to hold it open, and the interior parts of the hog about the shoulders and gullet are nicely washed to free them from stains of blood. The carcass is then left to hang upon the gallows in order to cool thoroughly before it is cut into pieces or put away for the night.

Where ten or twelve hogs are dressed every year, it will pay to have a suitable building arranged for the work. An excellent place may be made in the driveway between a double corncrib, or in a wagon shed or an annex to the barn where the feeding pen is placed. The building should have a stationary boiler in it, and such apparatus as has been suggested, and a windlass used to do the lifting.

HOG KILLING MADE EASY.

In the accompanying cut, Fig. 11, the hoister represents a homemade apparatus that has been in use many years and it has been a grand success. The frames, a, a, a, a, are of 2x4 inch scantling, 8 ft. in length; b, b, are 2x6 inch and 2 ft. long with a round notch in the center of the upper surface for a windlass, d, to turn in; c, c are 2x4 and 8 ft. long, or as long as desired, and are bolted to a, a. Ten inches beyond the windlass, d, is a 4x4 inch piece with arms bolted on the end to turn the windlass and draw up the carcass, which should be turned lengthwise of the hoister until it passes between c, c. The gambrel should be long enough to catch on each side when turned crosswise, thus relieving the windlass so that a second carcass may be hoisted. The peg, e, is to place in a hole of upright, a, to hold the windlass. Brace the frame in proportion to the load that is to be placed upon it. The longer it is made, the more hogs can be hung at the same time.

THE SAWBUCK SCAFFOLD.

Figure 12 shows a very cheap and convenient device for hanging either hogs or beeves. The device is in shape much like an old-fashioned “sawbuck,” with the lower rounds between the legs omitted. The legs, of which there are two pairs, should be about ten feet long and set bracing, in the manner shown in the engraving. The two pairs of legs are held together by an inch iron rod, five or six feet in length, provided with threads at both ends. The whole is made secure by means of two pairs of nuts, which fasten the legs to the connecting iron rod. A straight and smooth wooden roller rests in the forks made by the crossing of the legs, and one end projects about sixteen inches. In this two augur holes are bored, in which levers may be inserted for turning the roller. The rope, by means of which the carcass is raised, passes over the rollers in such a way that in turning, by means of the levers, the animal is raised from the ground. When sufficiently elevated, the roller is fastened by one of the levers to the nearest leg.

FIG. 12. RAISING A CARCASS.

PROPER SHAPE OF GAMBRELS.

Gambrels should be provided of different lengths, if the hogs vary much in size. That shown in Fig. 13 is a convenient shape. These should be of hickory or other tough wood for safety, and be so small as to require little gashing of the legs to receive them.

FIG. 13. A CONVENIENT GAMBREL.

GALLOWS FOR DRESSED HOGS.

The accompanying device, Fig. 14, for hanging dressed hogs, consists of a stout, upright post, six or eight inches square and ten feet long, the lower three feet being set into the ground. Near the upper end are two mortises, each 2x4 inches, quite through the post, one above the other, as shown in the engraving, for the reception of the horizontal arms. The latter are six feet long and just large enough to fit closely into the mortises. They should be of white oak or hickory. At butchering time the dead hogs are hung on the scaffold by slipping the gambrels upon the horizontal crosspieces.

ADDITIONAL HINTS ON DRESSING.

Little use of the knife is required to loosen the entrails. The fingers, rightly used, will do most of the severing. Small, strong strings, cut in proper lengths, should be always at hand to quickly tie the severed ends of any small intestines cut or broken by chance. An expert will catch the entire offal in a large tin pan or wooden vessel, which is held between himself and the hog. Unskilled operators, and those opening very large hogs, need an assistant to hold this. The entrails and then the liver, heart, etc., being all removed, thoroughly rinse out any blood or filth that may have escaped inside. Removing the lard from the long intestines requires expertness that can be learned only by practice. The fingers do most of this cleaner, safer and better than a knife. A light feed the night before killing leaves the intestines less distended and less likely to be broken.

FIG. 14. SIMPLE SUPPORT FOR DRESSED HOG.

HOW TO CUT UP A HOG.

With a sharp ax and a sharp butcher’s knife at hand, lay the hog on the chopping bench, side down. With the knife make a cut near the ear clear across the neck and down to the bone. With a dextrous stroke of the ax sever the head from the body. Lay the carcass on the back, a boy holding it upright and keeping the forelegs well apart. With the ax proceed to take out the chine or backbone. If it is desired to put as much of the hog into neat meat as possible, trim to the chine very close, taking out none of the skin or outside fat with it. Otherwise, the cutter need not be particular how much meat comes away with the bone. What does not go with the neat meat will be in the offal or sausage, and nothing will be lost. Lay the chine aside and with the knife finish separating the two divisions of the hog. Next, strip off with the hands the leaves or flakes of fat from the middle to the hams. Seize the hock of the ham with the left hand and with the knife in the other, proceed to round out the ham, giving it a neat, oval shape. Be very particular in shaping the ham. If it is spoiled in the first cutting, no subsequent trimming will put it into a form to exactly suit the fastidious public eye. Trim off the surplus lean and fat and projecting pieces of bone. Cut off the foot just above the hock joint. The piece when finished should have nearly the form of a regular oval, with its projecting handle or hock.

With the ax cut the shoulder from the middling, making the cut straight across near the elbow joint. Take off the end ribs or “spare bone” from the shoulder, trim the piece and cut off the foot. For home use, trim the shoulder, as well as the other pieces, very closely, taking off all of both lean and fat that can be spared. If care is taken to cut away the head near the ear, the shoulder will be at first about as wide as long, having a good deal of the neck attached. If the meat is intended for sale and the largest quantity of bacon is the primary object, let the piece remain so. But if it is preferred to have plenty of lard and sausage, cut a smart strip from off the neck side of the shoulder and make the piece assume the form of a parallelogram, with the hock attached to one end. Trim a slice of fat from the back for lard, take off the “short ribs,” and, if preferred, remove the long ribs from the whole piece. The latter, however, is not often done by the farmers. Put the middling in nice shape by trimming it wherever needed, which, when finished, will be very much like a square in form, perhaps a little longer than broad, with a small circular piece cut out from the end next the ham.The six pieces of neat meat are now ready for the salter. The head is next cut open longitudinally from side to side, separating the jowl from the top or “head,” so-called. The jawbone of the jowl is cut at the angle or tip and the “swallow,” which is the larynx or upper part of the windpipe, is taken out. The headpiece is next cut open vertically and the lobe of the brain is taken out, and the ears and nose are removed.

The bone of the chine is cut at several places for the convenience of the cook, and the task of the cutter is finished. Besides the six pieces of neat meat, there are the chine, souse, jowl, head, fat, sausage, two spare and two short ribs and various other small bits derived from each hog. A good cutter, with an assistant to carry away the pieces and help otherwise, can cut out from 50 to 60 hogs in a day.

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