curing meats

[cfelton]

When I was young my uncle and I raised hogs (around 300 at a time) and farmed. Every year around the 1st week in January we'd kill and dress 25. My dad had the smokehouse and smoked all the meat.
We killed them, scalded the hair off and gutted them the first day.We would hang them up and in the cold the meat would firm up overnight. Next day we cut them up, hams, sides and shoulders. We'd grind some of the meat, backstraps and such for sausage and air dry and smoke that. The shoulders, sides and hams we packed in rock salt for about a month. Then we'd pull them up, wash with Boraxo and hang them in the smokehouse. My dad would collect Apple, Persimmon and Oak wood during the year for the smoking. He would build a fire in the yard and fill old metal lard stands with the burning wood, punch holes in the cans with an oyster knife and set them in the smokehouse till they went out. this process went on for a week. That was the best country smoked meat youll ever eat. Some of these new processes are pretty good too! I miss those days! I'd get out of school for two days as I was the ham trimmer.