My first Pig Slaughter + First Smoker Build + First Bacon Smoke... ever!

[murphy625]

So as the title says, there are a lot of firsts here..

We raised five pigs this past year and got them to an average weight between 450 to 525 pounds..    

We slaughtered our first pig..  what an adventure that was..

I built a smoker..  Never even seen a smoker in my lifetime except on websites like this one.

I smoked a 5lb chunk of bacon..   (yes, it cured for 10 days first!)

So the pig was a Berkshire(?)..  it took us about 8 hours to slaughter and butcher it...  another 8 hours to wrap the meat and start curing hams and bacon.

The smoker I built is mostly 11 gauge stainless steel inside.. including the racks..   Its 7ft tall, 42 or something wide, and about 54 inches deep..   I'm using Natural gas and a home made pipe burner with a gas mixing orifice.

I also built a quickie smoke generator from some black iron pipe and a couple of wood stove chimney sections.   We used Hickory and I only turned it on for 5 minutes at a time (twice) during a 2 hour run with the bacon.

Made a couple of mistakes..    My bacon cure was a dry powder rub in a ziplock bag and when I removed it, I soaked it in cold water for only 10 minutes or so..  I think I should have let it sit for an hour or two because the bacon is kind of salty..   some of the edges were so salty as to destroy my taste buds for at least two hours..

The other mistake I made was not enough smoke..  Since I'm using a smoke generator and not actually burning logs, I was concerned about putting too much smoke in the chamber and ruining the meat.   Looks like I can probably increase the smoke time from 5 minutes to 10 or more.

Its a good thing I only tried smoking a 5lb chunk and not the entire slab..  

Here are some photos of my smoker:

One design mistake I made was that I was surprised by the amount of extra free air needed..  I had to remove some screws in the bottom panel and pull it out to let extra air into the system.   looks like I'm going to need to remove it and cut in some large vent holes with some kind of adjustable doors to control air flow.

The smoker ran at 220 degrees and we heated the bacon to 150 degrees internal temperature and used a ThermoWorks Smoke to monitor it all..   That little thermoworks device works very very well..

Notice the snow still on top of the unit..  That's after 4 hours of running..  2 hours of adjustment and sterilization, then 2 more hours of smoking bacon..   Its well insulated..

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• murphy625
• Dec 24, 2016

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• murphy625
• Dec 24, 2016

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• murphy625
• Dec 24, 2016

 

[SmokinAl]

That's a great looking smoker build!

Did someone show you how to butcher the pig?

That must have been quite an ordeal to take 8 hours.

I wouldn't even know where to start!

Al

 

[murphy625]

 
That's a great looking smoker build!

Did someone show you how to butcher the pig?

That must have been quite an ordeal to take 8 hours.

I wouldn't even know where to start!

Al

We used youtube to learn how to do pretty much everything..   We made mistakes, fixed em, moved forward.     These aren't your average 225 pound market hogs.. these weight 450 or more and they're big..  really big!   Even after gutting, skinning, and splitting the carcass down the spine, it took two strong guys just to lift half up onto a table to start working on them.

I'm about to smoke the rest of my bacon and a 25 pound ham/half that's been brine curing for almost two weeks..  when I rubbed my finger along the meat and licked my finger, I was amazed at how salty it was.

I'm currently soaking the ham and the bacon in cold water and changing the water every 30 minutes.    I'm not making a mistake doing that am I?

 

[SmokinAl]

 
We used youtube to learn how to do pretty much everything..   We made mistakes, fixed em, moved forward.     These aren't your average 225 pound market hogs.. these weight 450 or more and they're big..  really big!   Even after gutting, skinning, and splitting the carcass down the spine, it took two strong guys just to lift half up onto a table to start working on them.

I'm about to smoke the rest of my bacon and a 25 pound ham/half that's been brine curing for almost two weeks..  when I rubbed my finger along the meat and licked my finger, I was amazed at how salty it was.

I'm currently soaking the ham and the bacon in cold water and changing the water every 30 minutes.    I'm not making a mistake doing that am I?

No, your not making a mistake. That's the only way to get the excess salt out of the meat.

Al

 

[mowin]

450# .... How old were these pigs? We would get our piglets in the spring, and butcher in the fall. Rarely would the exceed 260 in 6 months. Usually we would keep one over the winter and butcher it in the spring for sausage. Those were usually 400+.

BTW... Nice smoker build.

Did u say u were only giving the bacon 5-10 min of smoke every so often?
If so that's not enough IMO. I cold smoke mine for 6-8 hrs at a time, constant smoke. Rest a day and repeat. Usually give my slabs 18- 24 hrs of smoke.

 

[daveomak]

Murphy, morning and Merry Christmas...   Very nice smoker...  Great learning experience with the pigs...

For the bacon, to save you some taste buds....   May I suggest a dry rub that follows...

Weigh the bacon slab....  weigh out 2% kosher salt, 1% sugar and 0.25% cure #1....  or 1.1 grams cure #1 per pound...  or 1 tsp cure #1 per 5 pounds of meat....  all of those calculations give the same results.....   Mix it all together and rub into the belly meat...   or any meat that's less than 2" thick..    place in a fridge for 2 weeks...  rinse and smoke...  the salt will be close to perfect and for the next batch you can adjust to your personal preference...   brown sugar or demerrara can be substituted....      No buckets...  No over or under salting...    

Dave

 

[daveomak]

Murphy, morning and Merry Christmas...   Very nice smoker...  Great learning experience with the pigs...

For the bacon, to save you some taste buds....   May I suggest a dry rub that follows...

Weigh the bacon slab....  weigh out 2% kosher salt, 1% sugar and 0.25% cure #1....  or 1.1 grams cure #1 per pound...  or 1 tsp cure #1 per 5 pounds of meat....  all of those calculations give the same results.....   Mix it all together and rub into the belly meat...   or any meat that's less than 2" thick..    place in a fridge for 2 weeks...  rinse and smoke...  the salt will be close to perfect and for the next batch you can adjust to your personal preference...   brown sugar or demerrara can be substituted....      No buckets...  No over or under salting...    
The 2 weeks time is becuse the sugar molecules is fairly large and takes longer to penetrate the meat than the salt does...   Sugar balances the salt and is important......

Dave

 

[hoity toit]

those Berkshire hogs are "top of the line" pork. I see you had your hands full but did a great job. On the smoker,,,just remember you need that air flow,,You can only exhaust what the intake provides.

Merry Christmas to all

HT

 

[redheelerdog]

Nice post Murphy, would love to see some pics of your meat and bacon operations.

Sounds like those bacon slabs are nice and thick.

Merry Christmas and Keep up the good work.

 

[myownidaho]

Merry Christmas! 500lbs is HUGE for a Berkshire. I buy a half every year and get about 75lbs of meat. Happy smoking!

 

[daveomak]

At 500#'s, the meat will have some flavor and not taste like veal...  should be awesome...  

 

[HalfSmoked]

Glad to see some one going back to the basics home raising and slaughter your own. I've done this for years in my younger days and it was a lot of work but enjoyable food to know where it came from and how it was raise. I just posted in the forums under pork how to sugar cure your meat. Mistakes are great teachers enjoy your mistakes and in prove from what you learned.

Warren

 

[murphy625]

450# .... How old were these pigs? We would get our piglets in the spring, and butcher in the fall. Rarely would the exceed 260 in 6 months. Usually we would keep one over the winter and butcher it in the spring for sausage. Those were usually 400+.

BTW... Nice smoker build.

Did u say u were only giving the bacon 5-10 min of smoke every so often?
If so that's not enough IMO. I cold smoke mine for 6-8 hrs at a time, constant smoke. Rest a day and repeat. Usually give my slabs 18- 24 hrs of smoke.

We bought them in November of 2015 and they weighed around 50 to 60 lbs each..   The smallest of the batch was around 450lbs, the biggest was around 525 lbs.     We bought 5000 lbs of 18% hog feed from the elevator but the winter killed us... those five pigs sucked up that 5000 lbs before we even got to May 2016..   Luckily, we were able to hook up with a beer brewing operation and a local grocery store..  I had 55 gallon drums loaded with spent brewers grains and we picked up almost 300 lbs of pineapple and leafy greens every day..     I figured, as long as the food was free, I may as well grow them out big.

Yes, I only turned the smoker on for 5 to 10 minutes for two or three sessions..    I'm using Hickory wood shavings in a smoke generator and am concerned I'm going to "soot up" my meat because my smoke is thin and white rather than the thin blue smoke.    My smoke generator uses a vacuum venturi effect to keep the wood shavings burning.. not exactly the end-stage clean burn that produces the thin blue smoke most people talk about. 

So because of that, I'm worried I might ruin my meat by using white smoke instead of blue smoke.   What do you think?   While I'm not an expert on the terminology, I don't think what I'm doing is considered cold smoking is it?    My smoke box is at 225 degreesF even though I'm using a smoke generator like the cold smoke folks do.      Not sure what I'm doing yet so advice is welcome.

Thanks,

 

[murphy625]

 
Murphy, morning and Merry Christmas...   Very nice smoker...  Great learning experience with the pigs...

For the bacon, to save you some taste buds....   May I suggest a dry rub that follows...

Weigh the bacon slab....  weigh out 2% kosher salt, 1% sugar and 0.25% cure #1....  or 1.1 grams cure #1 per pound...  or 1 tsp cure #1 per 5 pounds of meat....  all of those calculations give the same results.....   Mix it all together and rub into the belly meat...   or any meat that's less than 2" thick..    place in a fridge for 2 weeks...  rinse and smoke...  the salt will be close to perfect and for the next batch you can adjust to your personal preference...   brown sugar or demerrara can be substituted....      No buckets...  No over or under salting...    
The 2 weeks time is becuse the sugar molecules is fairly large and takes longer to penetrate the meat than the salt does...   Sugar balances the salt and is important......

Dave

Thanks for the info Dave..  I think I used a recipe that was similar.. I got it from a website called AmazingRibs.com    The bacon was a dry rub.. and rub we did..  we rubbed that dry mixture into every nook and cranny we could find.

The hams were a wet brine method using a 5 gallon bucket and large ziplock back..  we also used a needle to inject the brine into the 25 lb hams in about 2 dozen spots to make sure there were no untouched areas.  

We tried a piece of ham today after it cooled down from smoking last night..  it was reddish-pink and tasted very good!  I was surprised it worked!

More advice is welcome..  its really helpful so thank you!

 

[murphy625]

 
those Berkshire hogs are "top of the line" pork. I see you had your hands full but did a great job. On the smoker,,,just remember you need that air flow,,You can only exhaust what the intake provides.

Merry Christmas to all

HT

I misspoke..  they're Hampshire's (with the white band just behind the front legs) and NOT Berkshires. 

I'm going to be cutting some breathing holes in the floor of the smoker right below the burner pipe..   I'll weld a door on a hinge so I can seal it up when not in use to keep the critters out.

 

[murphy625]

 
Nice post Murphy, would love to see some pics of your meat and bacon operations.

Sounds like those bacon slabs are nice and thick.

Merry Christmas and Keep up the good work.

I don't have pics of any of the bacon or hams yet..  maybe when we slaughter the next two I'll get the energy and time to take some photos..

But here's part of the processing operations..  

My welding and fab table is a 1/2 inch plate of steel so we laid down some vinyl sheeting and turned it into a meat processing table.   The meat grinder is a Cabela's 3/4 hp model and it does a fantastic job..  Grinds fresh or frozen meat and makes great sausages with the stuffing tube.

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• murphy625
• Dec 26, 2016

This is the "bar" of pork chops before they are actually cut into park chops.   We put these in a chest freezer to firm them up a bit for the band saw..

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• murphy625
• Dec 26, 2016

Here are the pork chops after being cut on the band saw.   We sliced them about 1 inch thick.   Makes for one heck of a meal.

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• murphy625
• Dec 26, 2016

Not counting the space for freezers, our work area ended up being a 12 x 12 foot square that included a 38 inch x 9 foot cutting table, the band saw, buckets of hot water with bleach, and a packing table with saran wrap and waxy coated freezer paper.  

I bought the band saw this past summer.. it was beat up pretty bad but it was pretty much all stainless so I knew I could fix it up.   Tore it all apart, replaced bearings and all wear items, bead blasted the dingy parts, and polished the rest with a special stainless buffing drum.  I also converted it from a 3phase unit to run on single phase 220.   It cuts through frozen meat like a hot butter knife.

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• murphy625
• Dec 26, 2016

We processed our pigs when the outdoor temperatures were around 25 degree's..   Once we got the carcass cooled down a bit, we were able to warm up the shop with the wood stove so we could work comfortably.  

For reference, a 500 pound pig will fill up a 10 cubic foot chest freezer almost completely.    

Hope you enjoyed the photos..  I'll try to post more if there's interest and I have time to take them..   Chopping up a pig is a lot of work.

 

[HalfSmoked]

Great looking job on first time around.

Points for all the work you put into this.

Warren

 

[birdman080]

Nice work. It was a very interesting read.