Bringing Home the Bacon

Well I finally got one. This picture was taken shortly after the kill. It was an interesting experience. I used cartidges that I had just reloaded that afternoon. We are estimating it weighed about 200 lbs. It took about 2 hours to skin, gut, and clean the hog. Luckily the temperature was 40 degrees, so we were able to let it hang overnight. I butchered it the next morning, another 4 hours to cut up, clean, package and ice it down. It rendered about 100 lbs of meat. Two large hams, two shoulder roasts (one we cut out a Boston roast), two large pork loins (we cut some into loin chops), two spare ribs, two back ribs, bacon, canadian bacon, and about 10 lbs of trimmings to make into sausage. We've never made sausage, so that will be another new experience. We smoked the spare ribs at the property and brought them home. They were great. No gamey taste at all. Just good, smoked ribs taste.