Brothers, Sisters and lovers of fine food and free ranging pigs. The day is fast approaching when we shall make our wonderful pigs into some exquisite creations. Here are a few pointers for our activities on Saturday.
Directions, if you need them, will be via e-mail. I will send those out this week.
Timeline:
07:30 I will trotter along to Mr Humphries' fine store and pick up our harvest.
08:00 unloading as much as I can into the double fridges.
08:30 from about 8:30 onwards people will start arriving, unloading their gear, drinking coffee eating flapjacks etc
09:00 we will try to get going. I suggest splitting into platoons of sausage makers, bacon makers and ham curers
13:00 break for lunch. Lunch will be a leg of Wilshire cured ham with new potatoes and salad. A glass or two of wine and then back to the grinder
14:00 onwards, finishing off sausages. Tying up roasting joints. Bagging and labelling. Experimental salami cures. Washing up and all that good stuff.
In our first year, we finished around 1am. We're much more expert now. I hope to be done in time for tea.
What to bring:
If you show up with just yourself and a happy smile then you can't go too far wrong. Among the other people there on the day you will find plenty of kit go around as we all share salt, sausage skins etc. However, it is always nice to bring a few bits to the sharing party and it is obviously helpful to take your produce home in your own plastic pots and freezer bags. Below is a list of things you might consider bringing along but by no means is any of it essential.
Your sharpest boning knife
A cutting board
Plastic pots and tubs for brine cures and meat
Cooler box and ice packs for finished goods
Freezer bags and cling film
Herbs and spices for your sausages
A pre-prepared sausage mix
Rusk for sausages
Some sausage skins
A pre boiled up brine cure in the brine tub
A dry mix for your ham cures
Some bacon cure
A mental list of the recipes you are going to inflict on your pig
For supplies, these two have proved pretty reliable.
http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/
http://www.sausagemaking.org/
Don't forget your winning smile, it can be a long day of standing up cutting meat. Children are welcome to poke their heads in to see sausages being made but it isn't a good place for them to be hanging around very long. Too many sharp knives and not enough space to dismember more than 10 bodies in one day.
Parking. Hopefully there should be plenty of room. 4x4s on the grass, ferraris and lambos on the tarmac.
Jamon Libre.
Showing posts with label food processing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food processing. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Chicken #5 your time is up.
Last August I begin hatching Ixworth chicks from 4 different sources. The Ixworth chicken is supposedly a 'Rare Breed'.
I think the breed is interesting for two reasons. It was the first serious attempt in the UK to develop a proper commercial breed that was both an excellent layer while retaining good eating qualities. Developed in the early 1930s by the now modestly famous Reginald Appleyard his efforts were somewhat over-shadowed by the war in Europe.
The second reason it's an interesting breed is because the plucky Brit failed. While he succeeded in creating an excellent table bird with good laying qualities this wasn't enough. The larger and more scientifically based poultry industries of the United States had made his product obselete. The American food industries had better genetics and the advent of large scale incubation meant hatcheries could churn out thousands of chicks per day and male chicks became disposable. It was now possible abandon dual purpose breeds . The industry bifurcated into specialist breeds for the table and for laying.
And this is where we are now. Hybrid layers will lay 325 eggs per year and a factory farmed supermarket chicken will go from hatching to chiller in less than 8 weeks. Mr Appleyard's Ixworth is good for neither which I guess puts it on the RBST (Rare Breed survival Trust) endangered list. (200 eggs per year and 4 months to table weight.)
Endangered is a bit of a stretch though. I've got a freezer full of them and had no trouble finding 4 different breeders. So back to last August. I hatched out 4 dozen eggs and reared them in the stables through 'till December. Having leg banded them and weighed them at intervals I could plot their growth rates and identify the lighter girls. After some weeks out in the snow and rain the boys were gathered up and have become curries, casseroles and chicken portions. The two prize cockerels were kept for breeding purposes. n The hens are to become my main layers of cream coloured eggs.
This should have left the girls happily mingling with their cousins (the Copper Marans) out in the field. However, on return from from our recent trip to India there was one cockle-doo-do-loo too many. It seems an undersized male had been masquerading as a lady hen and dodged the deep freeze. Chicken #5 is now on his way, God bless him.
I think the breed is interesting for two reasons. It was the first serious attempt in the UK to develop a proper commercial breed that was both an excellent layer while retaining good eating qualities. Developed in the early 1930s by the now modestly famous Reginald Appleyard his efforts were somewhat over-shadowed by the war in Europe.
The second reason it's an interesting breed is because the plucky Brit failed. While he succeeded in creating an excellent table bird with good laying qualities this wasn't enough. The larger and more scientifically based poultry industries of the United States had made his product obselete. The American food industries had better genetics and the advent of large scale incubation meant hatcheries could churn out thousands of chicks per day and male chicks became disposable. It was now possible abandon dual purpose breeds . The industry bifurcated into specialist breeds for the table and for laying.
And this is where we are now. Hybrid layers will lay 325 eggs per year and a factory farmed supermarket chicken will go from hatching to chiller in less than 8 weeks. Mr Appleyard's Ixworth is good for neither which I guess puts it on the RBST (Rare Breed survival Trust) endangered list. (200 eggs per year and 4 months to table weight.)
Endangered is a bit of a stretch though. I've got a freezer full of them and had no trouble finding 4 different breeders. So back to last August. I hatched out 4 dozen eggs and reared them in the stables through 'till December. Having leg banded them and weighed them at intervals I could plot their growth rates and identify the lighter girls. After some weeks out in the snow and rain the boys were gathered up and have become curries, casseroles and chicken portions. The two prize cockerels were kept for breeding purposes. n The hens are to become my main layers of cream coloured eggs.
This should have left the girls happily mingling with their cousins (the Copper Marans) out in the field. However, on return from from our recent trip to India there was one cockle-doo-do-loo too many. It seems an undersized male had been masquerading as a lady hen and dodged the deep freeze. Chicken #5 is now on his way, God bless him.
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