The Career & Technology's amazing new chef and teacher, Chef Strother, taught her Practicum of Culinary Arts students how to break down an entire pig into loins, chops, ribs and more! Using specific knives and technical cuts, each student had the opportunity to practice butchering a full pig. This helps them acquire skills necessary for job placement in the Culinary Arts field. For those wondering at home how to exactly do this, these are the steps.
- To start eviscerating your pig, cut the skin down around each side and around the gonads or where the gonads would be. It’s very much like skinning a deer.
- Make a circle cut around the anus approximately two inches wider than the anus so that you don’t accidentally put your knife through the colon.
- Grab ahold and gently pull up and out of the way. You can use a zip tie or a rubber band to pinch this area off. You will remove this with everything else once the chest cavity is opened.
- Cut from groin to sternum in between the two rows of nipples all the way down until you reach the front legs. You are only cutting through one layer at a time to avoid puncturing the intestines. First, pull the skin layer up and slice, and then the fat layer, and then you’ll carefully cut through the pleural cavity, which contains the guts. Then, using your hands to open the cavity, you can pull open and remove the intestines. Gravity has been known to start this process without assistance, so be sure to have a bucket ready under your pig. Everything should come out fairly easily, but you may need to use your knife to cut some of the connective tissues.
- After the entrails are out, you will need to split the sternum open to find the rest of the organs. The heart and liver are commonly eaten, so care should be used to remove these intact. Be sure to chill any organ meat as quickly as possible.
- Remove the head by working in a circular direction around the throat using the jawline as a guide. You will work through the meat to the neck bone, which you will need to cut through with a cleaver. Once the head is removed, the remaining blood will drain out.
- Now you are left with the feet only attached. Remove the feet at the wrist knuckle, which is located just above the hoof. You’ll need to use a hacksaw to slice through the joint.
And that’s it! Now you just need to follow a butcher’s diagram chart to cut your meat into the right cuts. You want to make sure to get your hams, bacon, shoulder, pork chops, etc.
