the lonely butcher boy

[L.W. Baxter]

yeah, it's good. put your teeth in, mabel.

topical tie-in: thinking to make pastrami with the port brisket.

[John B]

Red gold right there. Very impressive.

[Tom from Rubicon]

Round here, Holstein's are inseminated with Angus to through an easy birth calf. Most all are not finished for prime. Crock pots are real popular around here.

[epoxyboy]

you hawkeyed gentlemen are correct that moose has less intramuscular fat than might be expected of one so plump.

i believe we can put that down to the fact that he had an undescended testicle. which made him (probably) useless for breeding purposes but which caused him to grow a massive skull and entitled disposition.

i say undescended but really i expect that i pushed it up when i banded him. which, together with randy the accidental (fully equipped) bull calf means that my first season of banding bullcalves was an abject failure. i might should have had a thread, "the lonely castrator", and had i supplied video we could have had a laugh watching stiff and out-of-shape late-middle-aged me tackling and banding bull calves single-handed. to no avail.

Sounds like a complete ballsup, tbh.

[McMike]

Very cool. Thanks for posting. I'm more than a bit disappointed that I'll likely never get to experience this process.

[L.W. Baxter]

Very cool. Thanks for posting. I'm more than a bit disappointed that I'll likely never get to experience this process.

day ain't over yet.

if you ever do get the chance to harvest a beeve, i recommend a yearling in the 700lb range, on the hoof. that is what i did last christmas and it was perfect for my household, and spreading it out to neighbors and extended family, in a year.

this beast i am doing now is simply too big. should have sold him for locker beef midsummer (processed in an inspected facility), and taken another yearling for personal use come midwinter. live and learn.

[McMike]

day ain't over yet.

if you ever do get the chance to harvest a beeve, i recommend a yearling in the 700lb range, on the hoof. that is what i did last christmas and it was perfect for my household, and spreading it out to neighbors and extended family, in a year.

this beast i am doing now is simply too big. should have sold him for locker beef midsummer (processed in an inspected facility), and taken another yearling for personal use come midwinter. live and learn.

Yeah, it ain't but I'm your age and I'm no where near the ability to have the land, the time and the resources to dedicate to doin it. I'm not trying to call you entitled, I know you worked your a55 off to get here and I'm glad to see someone doing it right, and with such care for the animals.

[L.W. Baxter]

bone broth is all the rage these days. half a dozen brands on the supermarket shelf, where there used to be a few rows of boxed bouillon cubes.

i was raised on bouillon cubes myself. norma, too. she still uses it in many dishes. any stewed meats or chile sauces. chicken bouillon, consomate.

interesting to think about the post ww2 20th century as a time in which tastes were overwhelmed by convenience and productivity. maybe taste comes back?

welcome to flavor country.

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pressure canned bone broth.

[bluedog225]

Crazy healthy stuff.

[Breakaway]

Tibia pain in the rump, which bones work best for broth?


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[bluedog225]

At the local food coop, they are charging something crazy for frozen bones from grass fed cattle. Something like $20/lb. Just bones.

[L.W. Baxter]

Tibia pain in the rump, which bones work best for broth?

to my understanding, all of them.

the primary contributors to the broth are collagen from connective tissue, and marrow. so i dropped a couple knuckles in the pot, and cross cut some marrow bones.

simmered for about 10 hours, and when cooled overnight there was a thick layer of fat congealed on top, which i removed. and the rest was relatively clear and gelatinous. i warmed it up again, allowed the fat to congeal on top again, but did not let the broth congeal, so i could ladle into jars without disturbing the meat and cartilege dregs settled on the bottom.

i didn't filter though, so there are some minor shreds of meat etc in the jars. pressure canned at 10psi for a half hour, i am confident it is safe. i added a bit of salt during simmering but it is low sodium, about a quarter teaspoon per quart.

[L.W. Baxter]

At the local food coop, they are charging something crazy for frozen bones from grass fed cattle. Something like $20/lb. Just bones.

yes, it is in the irrationally priced fad stage.

remember the old nightmare videos of cattle skeletons being pushed into piles by bulldozers?

i reckon within a year or two the prices will come way down.

[L.W. Baxter]

marrow bones.

but then, some of your marrow bones can skip the bone broth process, go directly to the stew pot

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brown a couple chunks of bone in shank, add a quart of bone broth, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, cabbage...

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and with that i have "processed" half of the beast. 240lbs, mostly boneless, in the freezer by my catalog. that's plenty, really. but tomorrow i will start all over again....

[Robbie 2]

Oh great........I love Shin bone soup done just like that.

[TomF]

You could make some glue. I've just bought some hide glue, to start experimenting with - but you've got the raw materials. Bones, skin, gristle...

Some YouTube folks suggest making hide glue out of dogs' rawhide chew toys. But why mess with Fergus' head that way...

[L.W. Baxter]

i soaked in lime, and tried to scrape the hide of my previous subject. wore myself out. it's a seriously strenuous job without the mechanized tools of the commercial tannery.

and hereabouts, nobody buys a hide unless they have done the removal themselves, and even then it is a pittance. typically in exchange for a deer hide, for example, a game processor might give a ten dollar pair of deerskin gloves.

[John B]

The finest leather , ladies gloves and the like , was cured using a special component that once was harvested as a job. Yes, collecting the pure from the streets of London was a full time occupation so as to produce that very high quality leather.
Perhaps our very own WBF energiser might make some of that next.... All one needs is a copious supply of that which falls from the tail of a dog.

[webishop14]

Tibia pain in the rump, which bones work best for broth?

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Not humerus!

But I was half expecting a comment on a Thomas Perry novel. Misplaced from the What Are You Reading thread.

[LeeG]

Crazy healthy stuff.

no kidding. Just had some soup made w beef bone broth.

[L.W. Baxter]

The finest leather , ladies gloves and the like , was cured using a special component that once was harvested as a job. Yes, collecting the pure from the streets of London was a full time occupation so as to produce that very high quality leather.
Perhaps our very own WBF energiser might make some of that next.... All one needs is a copious supply of that which falls from the tail of a dog.

energiser will, uh, take that under advisement!

ok, so, i peeled off the other brisket...made a brine with kosher salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, coriander seed, bay leaf...dumped some stuff out of norma's big tupperware, we are in business.

next weekend, we smoke pastrami?

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[Tom from Rubicon]

The way you are going Lee, that Gourmand SoCal is looking like a slacker. Do you wash dogs and cats in your spare time? Home made pastrami! The adventure continues.

[Breakaway]

Not humerus!

.

Know why the skeleton could not look at the hand-tamped beef?

He did not have the stomach for it.

Kevin

[Fitz]

Thank you for posting this.

My pig friends that spent the summer grazing in Minuteman National Park are suddenly gone. Methinks they went to market.

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[L.W. Baxter]

trudged my way through the second half of the beast, just wrapping up dog bones today.

meanwhile, my brisket brined all week. last night i soaked in clean water to remove some surface salt. this morning sprinkled with a dry rub to give it some crust, and hung up to dry.

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plan is to dry for the week, cold smoke next weekend.