How to Cut Up a Slaughtered Pig

How to Cut Up a Slaughtered Pig
 
Last December 31st, a family friend gifted us with a whole freshly slaughtered fattening pig from her pig farm – but already scalded, hair removed, cleaned, and all blood and entrails taken out. They delivered it to our Manila home.

It was a terrific gift but how do we store it to keep it fresh? We have a regular fridge with the freezer section all stocked up. Also a partially filled upright freezer with some space left. But how can we store a 40 to 50 kilo pig in there? We also have an old fridge that has a large freezer section but it had been retired so we can save on electricity bill. That old fridge gave us an idea. Why not use it temporarily? Yes, why not?

So we had no choice but to cut up the whole pig carcass into pieces! My wife suggested we hire a butcher. But we thought it would be better if we cut it up ourselves. It would be a good learning experience. 

So we quickly browsed through some DIY pig butchering videos on the web.

Later, armed only with some rough notes in my note pad and some nice quick-fix video lessons, we took out the following tools and materials, and started work.

· An outdoor round table, which we set up in the kitchen

· Several pieces of freshly cut banana leaves, which we laid on the table

· A couple of our old chopping boards from a sampaloc tree

· A common hacksaw – in absence of a meat/bone saw

· Cleaver

· Boning knife

· Long knife

· Sharpening rod

· Freezer bags and plastic storage bags

· Masking tape and ball pen

· A large plastic basin

· A temporarily reactivated fridge

Being novices, we considered it an adventure more than a task. But we had to be extra careful not to cut ourselves. 

Cut Head

First the pig’s head. we cut the head from the body just behind the ears. We put the entire head piece in the plastic basin.

A pig's head

Cut the Carcass into Two Halves

Next step was to cut the carcass lengthwise into two symmetrical halves. The idea was to cut across from the neck down to the rump. We needed the hacksaw to cut through the backbone (Note: made sure that the frame and blade were washed and scrubbed clean). As a result, we got two identical sides of the carcass - each with the shoulder section (with front leg), the midsection, and the back leg (ham) section. We took out one side and placed it aside temporarily in the plastic basin.

 

Pig carcass cut into two symmetrical halves

Cut Each Side into 3 Major Sections

With one side of the carcass laid out on the table, We took out the hacksaw, one long knife, and one boning knife. We first cut the side into 3 major sections: back leg, shoulder, and midsection.

1. Back Leg

· Marked the cut line by locating the aitch bone (it’s the rump bone located in the pelvis).

· Measured three fingers off the bone toward the midsection.

· Cut the body crosswise using the cut line as guide. Used a long knife to cut through the meaty part of carcass. Then used a hacksaw to cut through the backbone.

· Set aside the entire back leg (ham) section.

2. Shoulder

· Checked out the ribs.

· Counted to the 5th rib.

· Marked the cut line between the 5th and 6th rib.

· Used a long knife to cut through the carcass crosswise using the cut line as guide.

· Used the hacksaw to cut through the backbone and ribs.

· Set aside the entire shoulder section.

3. Midsection – this is the section that remained after we cut off the back leg section and shoulder section. It consists of two subsections: loin and belly.

Repeated Steps 1, 2, and 3 above to cut off the other side into its 3 major sections (also known as primal cuts).

Store the Major Cuts in the Freezer

Luckily our idle fridge with a large freezer section was still working after we plugged it in. So we packed the seven major cut parts each in a large plastic bag and put them temporarily in the freezer. These were the:

· Head

· 2 shoulder sections

· 2 midsections

· 2 back leg (ham) sections

Cut Up Each Major Section into Primals and/or Sub-primals

1. Head – We decided keep the entire pig head intact in the freezer and not process it. I plan to take the entire head to our fish farm in Binmaley, Pangasinan where my farm cook will do the following:

· Clean it up thoroughly and remove any hair, remnants of dirt from ears, etc.

· Debone the head from the chin, around the jaw up to the rest of the head until all the meat is free (cheeks, ears, snout)

· Split the skull with a hacksaw into two to extract the brains

· Keep the skull pieces for boiling/roasting for stock
 
We planned to use the head meat for making sizzling “sisig” or “dinakdakan” (Pangasinan and Ilocano version of "sisig”) (to be covered by a future blogpost later). It’s a popular local dish which involves boiling pig head parts, grilling, hand chopping, mixing with chopped onions, chilis, calamansi (fruit of native Philippine citrus tree) and even coconut cream and cooking the mix in a hot plate. It’s delicious!

2. Shoulder Section A – We took out one of the two shoulder sections from the fridge and laid it on the round table to cut it up further into sub-primals. Here’s what we did:

· Cut off the trotter (foot part of the front leg) at the joint between the forefoot and lower limb (much like our wrist joint). Commonly called the pig’s foot.

· Cut off the hock (lower part of front leg) a bit above the elbow joint between the upper arm bone and lower arm bones.

· Removed the rib bones, part of spine, and feather bones.

· Cut off the so-called Boston butt ("paypay" or also the more general term "kasim" in Tagalog) lengthwise to remove the meat part from the shoulder blade.

· Cut remaining shoulder meat lengthwise from arm bone toward the shoulder blade. Cut off what we called “Picnic 1” (also called "kasim" in Tagalog) from the left part.

· Cut off “Picnic 2” from the top portion of the right part.

· From the remaining meat portion, removed the shoulder blade bone and also the upper leg bone (humerus).

· What remained is what we called “Picnic 3” after the bones were removed.

· Packed the sub-primals of the Shoulder Section A each in a plastic bag.

· Labeled them using masking tape: trotter, hock, Boston butt, Picnic 1, Picnic 2, Picnic 3, and shoulder blade bone and upper foreleg bone.

· Stored the above packed cuts in our upright freezer.

3. Shoulder Section B

· Took out the second shoulder section from the fridge and did same steps as in #2 above.

4. Midsection A – Took out one of the two midsections and laid it on the cutting table. Did the following steps:

· Separated the loin from the belly. Cut the midsection lengthwise following the curve of the spine (so belly is wider than the loin). Use a long knife and also hacksaw to cut through the ribs.

· Removed the ribs off the belly. Set aside.

· Cut using long knife the belly almost in equal parts crosswise – to get two parts – bacon belly (the flatter more level part) and fresh belly (the lumpier uneven part).

· Cut the loin crosswise into two almost equal parts (at about the last rib) to get two subprimals: loin roast part and porterhouse chop part (which still contain the tenderloin).

· Packed the resulting sub-primals of the Midsection each in a plastic bag.

· Labeled them using masking tape: ribs, bacon belly, fresh belly, loin roast part, and porterhouse chop part.

· Stored the above packed cuts in our upright freezer.

5. Midsection B – same steps as in #4 above.

6. Back Leg Section A – This is one of two back leg (ham) sections still in our old fridge. So, we took out one and laid it on the cutting table. We went on to cut it up into its sub-primals as follows:

· Cut off the trotter (lower part of back leg) at the joint between the forefoot and lower limb.

· Cut off the hock (upper part of back leg) a bit above the elbow joint between the upper arm bone and lower arm bones.

· Removed the aitch bone (rump bone located in the pelvis) and detached it from the socket of the upper back leg bone.

· Using the socket and the entire leg bone as guide, peeled off the top part of the meat (so called top round).

· Cut off the part of the meat at the left side of the leg bone (I called this Ham Roast 1).

· Peeled off the portion at the right side of the leg bone (called it Ham Roast 2) by slicing with a knife along the length of the bone.

· What remained was the upper back leg bone.

· Sliced Ham Roast 2 some more into two smaller parts lengthwise and labeled them Ham Roast 2a and Ham Roast 2b.

· Packed the resulting sub-primals of the Back Leg Section each in a plastic bag.

· Labeled them using masking tape: trotter, hock, top round, Ham Roast 1, Ham Roast 2a, Ham Roast 2b, and aitch bone and upper back leg bone.

· Stored the above packed cuts in our upright freezer.

7. Back Leg Section B - did the same steps as in #6 above with some slight changes to correct the careless mistakes we made in the cutting of the trotter and hock of the back leg.

In Back Leg Section A, we made a mistake and cut above instead of at the joint of the trotter (much like our ankle) and also erred in cutting the hock (we cut just below the elbow joint instead of at the elbow or slightly above elbow).

When we cut off the trotter and hock for Section B, we got it right this time.

So there you have it guys! We succeeded in butchering our gift pig into its primal and sub-primal cuts and had them all stored in our upright freezer to preserve their freshness.

Thanks to the 3 part series “How to Butcher a Pig” featuring Camas Davis of Portland Meat Collective – these You Tube videos were our main reference guides in doing what we did fairly decently despite being novices.

Later on, we will take out each sub-primal cut, thaw it and fabricate it into smaller cuts for roasts, steaks, chops, cutlets, stews, barbecues, ground pork, and others depending on what meat part my wife needs for a specific dish.

Sub-primal (picnic from the pig's shoulder section) cut into smaller pieces (later turned into ground pork)


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