First time butchering questions

[westbranch]

I talked to the meat department at Winco (regional grocery store) and they set aside a few lbs of pork back fat a few days later when they were trimming meat and gave me a call when it was ready to pickup. $1/lb. I have also just bought a pork butt and trimmed myself.

 

[wytex]

Our local grocery stores sell suet all the time, you just have to ask when they have it.
Check your local fliers for grocery stores and if they have pork on sale, say pork chops , they will have suet left over after trimming.
Our Safeway and Ridley's are good sources for suet. Ridley's will sell it already ground for you to mix with.
Way cheaper than buying pork bellies or shoulders.

 

[Boarmaster]

Pork butt at Costco is probably your easiest option.

This. I pay a bit more for boneless as its just easier for my lazy butt to cut up. Bone in for smoking. I usually go about 30%. I really like fatty pork trimmings but they can be hard to find in my parts and pork butts are easy to find. If I have leftover pork butt then I make pork sausage or cut it up and put in other recipes that call for pork.

 

[shannerdrake]

Another vote for Costco pork bellies. Much higher fat content than the shoulders and the price points are very close. The belly is sometimes cheaper even.

 

[44hunter45]

A little confused by the OP. If by a "sow boar", you mean a female wild hog, what happened to the fat you got when you butchered it? Do you not get enough of it?

I learned from my West Virginian G'ma that you ALWAYS save your pork drippings in the kitchen. I pour them into a mason jar and put it in the freezer. It fills up faster than you would think. When it's about full I do a quick render by liquefying it in the microwave and pouring it through a paper cone coffee filter. You will melt a plastic pour-over cone doing this. This is why I have my own cone, Mrs45 won't let me near her fine ceramic one. This tip won't help when making 15lbs of sausage, put it's always been enough for our baking needs. If you do bacon or pork roast in the oven, make sure you have a deep pan under it, a deep pan is easier to pour off without making a mess. You can filter a pan full of oven drippings right out of the oven and skip the middle collection step.

BTW - I render suet and deer tallow as well. Deer tallow renders so pure you can leave it on the shelf like a bar of soap. I use it to lube cast bullets. Mrs has soap making friends who always want more.

Mrs has a M.Ed and says I'm, "Process Oriented"... like a 3 Y.O. Fair enough.

I talked to the meat department at Winco (regional grocery store) and they set aside a few lbs of pork back fat a few days later when they were trimming meat and gave me a call when it was ready to pickup. $1/lb. I have also just bought a pork butt and trimmed myself.

That sounds like the cheapest bear bait anywhere...

 

[Rack Daniels]

I use smoked bacon end trimmings from the grocery store, it’s sold in 3 lb blocks. I use a ratio of 22-25% to remaining portion of game meat.

I also use bacon.

 

[JohnCushman]

I talked to the meat department at Winco (regional grocery store) and they set aside a few lbs of pork back fat a few days later when they were trimming meat and gave me a call when it was ready to pickup. $1/lb. I have also just bought a pork butt and trimmed myself.

I also can get trimmings from my local little market. I prefer pork trimmings to bacon.

 

[LuketheDog]

Not sure if it’s a regional thing or what but “call your local butcher” was not a thing in Denver, Denver didn’t really have meat processing aside from a couple marginal game processors. Haven’t tried it in Boston. I have been able to do it in rural CO.

My assumption is it depends on where you live, if “your local butcher” is the meat aisle at kroger, just go to Costco and save yourself the struggle.

Tony's Meat Market!

 

[sodak]

Meat - Custom Processing | Department of Agriculture

The program inspects custom processing facilities that process domestic livestock and/or wild game animals for the animals' owners. These facilities are exempt from the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) official inspection. Facilities are in compliance with USDA BSE regulations...

ag.colorado.gov

Most places sell trim. You may have to call around. If nothing else buy a custom whole or half pig and tell them to save all of the fat.

 

[RG_Adult_Onset_Hunter]

There are a heck of a lot of options when it comes to adding fat to a sausage. I've used everything from bacon ends, to rendered beef suet (which is awesome by the way). Pork shoulder is probably the most accessible and cheap right now. If you have a butcher that processes whole animals they are worth the extra price to have a chat with, you'd be surprised how many different options they have for you and I've never met a good butcher I did not like.

 

[Boarmaster]

A little confused by the OP. If by a "sow boar", you mean a female wild hog, what happened to the fat you got when you butchered it? Do you not get enough of it?

I learned from my West Virginian G'ma that you ALWAYS save your pork drippings in the kitchen. I pour them into a mason jar and put it in the freezer. It fills up faster than you would think. When it's about full I do a quick render by liquefying it in the microwave and pouring it through a paper cone coffee filter. You will melt a plastic pour-over cone doing this. This is why I have my own cone, Mrs45 won't let me near her fine ceramic one. This tip won't help when making 15lbs of sausage, put it's always been enough for our baking needs. If you do bacon or pork roast in the oven, make sure you have a deep pan under it, a deep pan is easier to pour off without making a mess. You can filter a pan full of oven drippings right out of the oven and skip the middle collection step.

BTW - I render suet and deer tallow as well. Deer tallow renders so pure you can leave it on the shelf like a bar of soap. I use it to lube cast bullets. Mrs has soap making friends who always want more.

Mrs has a M.Ed and says I'm, "Process Oriented"... like a 3 Y.O. Fair enough.



That sounds like the cheapest bear bait anywhere...

Where I hunt wild hogs FL and AL there isn't any much good fat on them to save. They aren't fat like a domestic hog. That might differ in other locations but what fat is on them around here is not that great tasting in my opinion.

 

[Boarmaster]

I gave up years ago trying to get fat or pork trimming from the local grocery stores Around here anyway.
I would prefer to use fatty pork trimmings rather than pork butts but its just too easy to go to GFS or Costco and pick them up when I need them.

 

[np307]

So you can definitely buy stuff like pork belly or shoulder to cut in with your deer/wild hog/etc but here's the thing to remember: as fatty as those cuts are, they're still more meat than fat. You will not be able to get a good fat ratio without your meat basically just being the store meat. 80/20 is a good mix for burgers and 70/30 is a good mix for sausage. Guess why pork shoulder is used for sausage. Yep, because it's usually about 70/30. You might as well just grind the commercial pork shoulder and do other things with the wild hog or deer.

Maybe it is a local anomaly (I do happen to live in a pretty big pork producing and consuming state) but everywhere I've lived around here has some sort of meat supplier or a grocer with a true meat department that you can buy fat trimmings from. If you can't find an option like this, don't bother with burger or sausage. It's just not worth it in my opinion and there are plenty of great things you can do that don't require fatty ground meat.

This year though, I've got a friend who has 8-10 hogs he's going to kill that I'll be helping with and you can bet I'll be taking fat from them. I took some last year and rendered lard from it and it was snow white and perfect.

 

[CJnGA]

I usually keep an eye out for pork butts or shoulders going on sale. Can usually catch them for $.99/lb a few times per year and I'll grab 2-3 of them to keep in the freezer in anticipation of mixing with game meat in the fall/winter.

 

[WATERMAG]

I can get pork or beef fat ground from my local butcher for $1 a pound. Just make sure to keep it nice a cold/almost frozen when grinding. I like it ground rather then just cut off/cubed so I can mix it in as I grind.

 

[2rocky]

Not sure if it’s a regional thing or what but “call your local butcher” was not a thing in Denver, Denver didn’t really have meat processing aside from a couple marginal game processors. Haven’t tried it in Boston. I have been able to do it in rural CO.

My assumption is it depends on where you live, if “your local butcher” is the meat aisle at kroger, just go to Costco and save yourself the struggle.

Ask at the meat counter of an Independant Grocery.

Wllm did you try these:

 

[RaiderRich]

I have to +1 on the pork belly. One of my favorite grind recipes for venison is 50% venison, 25% ground chuck and 25% pork belly. Makes for great ground meat for burgers, spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, etc.