THE
MIRROR BROOK HERD
01905 21500
07815 182506
The End is rapidly approaching for our merry, muddy band of happy pigs, its time to decide how you want yours. The next batch is going to meet their maker this Thursday 6th August which means they will be ready for collecting/delivery early next week.
Please see the attached photo. The price list for butchering curing and processing refers by letter to this diagram.
CURING
We have decided to only consider dry curing of the bacon and hams; it’s a much slower process 3/ 4 weeks. Having nurtured and hand fed the little blighters with only the finest ingredients, including tonnes of brewer’s grains it seems a shame to spoil the meat with water and horrid chemicals. I hope you agree.
For your information Duchy free range dry cured bacon retails at£19.52/kilo!
Wet curing is a matter of a couple of days but you gets loads of water and those horrid bits in the pan.
THE BUTCHER.
We have made contact with a local butcher /pig farmer who specialises in supplying farmers markets. He is experienced in making his own sausages hams and bacon.
He is also willing (at a cost) to do almost any thing!!!!(Within reason and good taste) to your allotted beast. His premises are fully inspected and certificated and he has a level 3HACCP in butchery.
Having said that, for some, you may wish to adventure along the route of butchering, curing and making your own sausages. We certainly are. A tip here you can freeze and then defrost in a frige, cure and re freeze
We would recommend Hugh Fearnley eat it alls book.”The river cottage meat book.”
For those who missed “Pig camp” You missed an absolute treat . Hours of endless fun, mincing, mixing stirring, tasting and eventually stringing the sausages. This was not too easy after a little too much of the StGeorges brewery’s finest ale. (They supply the brewers grain).
Many thanks to Billy the Brisket ,Moose, and Tom for all their effort. We must do it again.
So onto the options, these are by no means an exhaustive list but it’s a start.
For those with a whole pig you may consider curing half for bacon/gammon and having half for fresh ,those with half a pig we could team you up with a” pig half buddy” and you can decide between you how you want it curing .
PIGGY PRICE LIST OPTIONS
Basic price £3.95/kilo dead weight
This is for a whole pig halved; un butchered, head on with heart liver, kidneys. The larger bacon pigs are going to be around 80/100 kilo the smaller ones around 60/70 kilo. This is the base price from which all of the following are options
Butchering.
Price for whole pig £ 69.00
Price per half pig £ 36.00
This is for the fresh pig boned out joints rolled and divided into individual joints of your choice. It will all be bagged up and the sausage meat taken from the head and gathered from the trimmings and bagged up for you to mince.
Dry Curing.
One half side area “F” £ 39.00
The bacon will be sliced and packed.
One side area “H”
The leg/ham/gammon
Whole £ 20.00
Sliced into gammon steaks £ 25.00
Sausages.
All sausages are made with a minimum of 85% meat content.
The flavours available as standard tried and tested recipes are.
You can easily generate 20/30lb of sausage meat off a pig.
Apart from the head (area A) we recommend a combination of area G and “ B” The fat content
Traditional plain. £ 1.75/lb made
Leek £ 1.75/lb
Herb £ 1.75/lb
Chipolata £ 1.75/lb
Stilton £ 2.00/lb made
Generally there are loads of combinations .Just ask!!
Those who have non specific pigs like Penelope, or Percy and want the big bruiser baconer’s that are going first please let me know as soon as you can.
PIGGY FORUM
Finally im not sure quite how it works but should we start a “Piggy forum”? This would be where we can swap recipes ideas for curing and smoking. Im particularly interested in building a smoker if others are interested.
For example Radar Roy has sourced a 2000 watt Mince and sausage making machine for well under a hundred pounds from China.
Half pig owners could interact with one another.
Let us know.
Happy “porking” from the chief and under herder.
Andrew and Bev.