AKA What to Tell the Butcher When You Have a Pig Processed

In order to tell your processor what you want when you have a pig butchered, you need a processor. There’s three categories to choose from: yourself, a custom game processor, or an inspected processor.

If you’re going with yourself…I don’t know how the algorithm screwed up enough to send you to this post, but I’m happy to redirect you over to our favorite how-to-butcher guides on YouTube from The Bearded Butchers.

A custom game processor, or just a non-USDA inspected processor, does not have an inspector on site. They usually have cheaper prices and rely almost entirely on word-of-mouth advertising. There are two major drawbacks of using one: they are always booked up during and right after deer hunting season, and you cannot offer non-inspected meat for sale.

Yes, there are some tongue-in-cheek roundabout ways of labeling “not for human consumption” and whatnot, but since you can still absolutely get sued and potentially arrested for doing so, I don’t encourage it.

Finally, that leaves an inspected facility. This is what we use, but we own a farmstead and need our meats to be properly labeled for sale–even what we use for our own family. Processors can be inspected by USDA or your state. Some states allow state-inspected meats to be sold, some don’t. Some states don’t have a state inspection option. Only USDA-inspected meat can be sold across state lines.

Once you’ve picked out a butcher, you’ll call them and set an appointment. Expect them to be booked out a good two months, so try to get your appointment set before the pig hits 200lbs.

Our rule of thumb: If the pig is big enough to knock us down on accident, it’s big enough to have a processing date.

Pig Processing Nomenclature for the Layman

Your processor is probably going to be a professional butcher. If you look up what cuts you can get, you’re going to see a bunch of words like loin, ham, shoulder, butt, and hock. Regular people don’t know that the butt comes from the pig’s shoulder or that you can EITHER have baby back ribs OR bone-in porkchops. I don’t even want to tell you how much we didn’t know, even after doing a great deal of research and being rather grill-savvy, when we took our first three pigs to the butcher.

First, there are Cuts, Trimmings, and Offal. Cuts are all of the pieces you specifically want: pork chops, bacon, roasts, etc. Trimmings are all of the bits of meat that are cut OFF of the actual cuts in order to make them shaped correctly. Offal is everything that is cut off or out of the carcass, like the ears, before it is broken down into cuts and trimmings.

When you drop off your pig, the butcher is going to ask you to fill out a Cut Sheet. It should look something similar to these:

Don’t let it intimidate you. This guide should teach you everything you need to know to order something you’ll actually be happy with. However, this is not an exhaustive list. There are really obscure cuts of meat (or cuts popular in other countries) that I am not going to include. Frankly, if you want a pork skirt, you probably know more about it than I do.

Note: you CAN ask your butcher to cut each side of your pig a different way. While it’s impossible to get bone-in porkchops with baby back ribs off the same half of the pig, you can get boneless porkchops and baby backs from one side and bone-in chops from the other. You’ll only get one rack of baby back ribs this way, but it is possible.

Pork Side Breakdown

Shoulder

The front end of the pig, not including the head. For some reason, the “butt roast” comes from the shoulder. I’m sure there is some really interesting etymology surrounding that, but I’ll save the research for a future post. For pork sold at the grocery store, the shoulder is basically all roasts.

• Neck Bones are removed from the shoulder portion before it is parted out. Most of the time, your butcher is just going to trim the meat off and add it to your sausage. However, you can order them as a cut and use it like you would a shank for soup.
• Jowl is basically bonus bacon. It is a different shape than normal bacon from the belly, but has a very pleasant melt-in-your-mouth texture that I thoroughly enjoy. It’s technically called Smoked Jowl or Jowl Bacon, but we just consider it bonus bacon. Just like regular bacon, research curing methods and ask your butcher which one he uses before you order order jowl bacon.
• Shanks are the legs. The meat is full of gristle and insanely tough, but they make the best soups and stews.
• Picnic Roast is the lower half of the shoulder. You can get 2-3 good sized picnic roasts off a half a pig. Bone-in picnics are often called Arm Roasts as they include the upper portion of the leg bone.
• Arm Steaks are thinner Arm Roasts. They come bone-in, but you may be able to ask for boneless. As the name suggests, cook them like a steak.
• Butt Roast is the upper half of the shoulder. Want pulled pork? This is where it comes from.
• Blade Steaks are slices of the Butt Roast, so for every Blade Steak you want, note that the Butt Roast will be a little smaller. You can also ask for your butt roasts to be a certain size, so while each half of the pig only has one Butt Roast, you can have it cut into multiple sections.

Loin

The back of the pig down each side of the spine. This is where we get porkchops and loin roasts from. Baby back ribs sit underneath this meat, so if you want bone-in porkchops, you cannot also get baby backs.

• Pork Chops are, well…pork chops. We like ours to be bone-in and cut 3/4″ thick. They are our favorite cut of pork (after bacon, of course). Bone-in pork chops from the front of the spine are called Rib Chops, and if they’re from the back end of the spine, they’re called Loin Chops because they include a bit of tenderloin.
• Whole Pork Loin is the whole slab of meat like what you find at Sam’s or Costco. Each pig has two. This is a great thing to do if you’re unsure of what thickness of porkchops or how many loin roasts you want, because you can part it out yourself later. It’s almost always boneless, and if you want bones in it, remember that those bones are the baby back ribs, and you’ll have to specifically ask your processor not to cut them off.
• Baby Back Ribs are the ribs under the whole pork loin. If you want boneless pork chops, the baby back ribs are cut off. If you have bone-in pork chops, you cannot also have baby back ribs from the same side of the pig.
• Pork Rib Roast is basically a “rack of pork” similar to a rack of lamb. It’s the middle section of the loin cut with ribs on (so again, no baby backs) meant to be roasted.
• Loin Roasts are usually included when you ask for pork chops. The hunk of meat that is the loin itself tapers toward the hind end of the pig, so the back few inches of each side are usually packaged as a loin roast anyway. It is possible to get the entire loin cut into boneless roasts instead of chops though. Generally, if you went with bone-in porkchops, your Loin Roast will also be bone-in (which is called a Loin Butt Roast).
• Sirloin Steaks are a boneless Loin Roast that was cut into steaks.
• Country Style Ribs come from the front end of the loin and may include a little bit of shoulder blade. Each side of the pig has about 4 bone-in country style ribs AND 4 boneless country style ribs. If you don’t want country style ribs, this area will simply be included in however you wanted the rest of the loin cut (pork chops, roasts, etc.).
• Tenderloin is a long chunk of meat on the inside of the loin toward the hind end of the pig. It is usually part of your bone-in pork chops, but can be ordered separate. It will definitely be it’s own cut if you order boneless chops.
• Fatback is the fat off the back of the pig. Why isn’t it called Backfat? Good question. Next question. Most people use it to add to venison or render for lard.
• Leaf Lard, also known as kidney fat, is the fat from the interior side of the loin around the kidneys. This is what you render down for baking lard. It has very little pork flavor and is considered the purest fat for baking.

Rib and Belly

The middle of the pig, not including the back. Nothing with weird names here. Ribs and pork belly is what you get. The questions are what sort of ribs do you like to eat and do you want to make your own bacon, or have the butcher do it for you?

• Spare Ribs are the stereotypical triangle shaped rack of ribs available at pretty much every grocery store. Some processors will even remove the membrane on inner wall for you.
• St. Louis Style Ribs are the same portion of ribs as spare ribs, but they’ve had their soft bottom portion cut off so it becomes a rectangle.
• Pork Belly is pre-bacon. It’s usually a slab of boneless meat cut off the ribcage. Many people really enjoy curing their own bacon, so if you want to give it a shot, pork belly is what you want to order.
• Bacon is bacon. The king of pork. Note: before you ask for bacon, find out how your processor cures it. For one thing, curing bacon takes time–which could delay when your pork is ready to be picked up. For another, there are both natural and synthetic curing methods. Read up on the differences between pink curing salt and celery juice powder to decide which you would prefer to be used.

Ham

The hind end. Hams are made up of the hip and the upper back leg.

• Hocks are basically another word for shanks, they just come from the back leg instead of the front leg. The use is identical, so see above.
• Whole Ham can be bone-in or boneless. Like it’s name implies, it’s the whole kit and caboodle. The boneless version has the hip and femur removed (and will give you a bit more sausage) while bone-in is what makes the stereotypical “Christmas ham”. Generally, whole hams are cured, so see my note about curing methods in bacon above. Most processors will let you order hams cut in half or presliced as well.
• Ham Roasts are what you get if the whole ham is cut into sections and not cured.

Trimmings

The meat left over when the pig is cut into desired pieces. Often, this is ground and packaged as ground pork or turned into sausage. Most processors will have a minimum order requirement of 25 or 50 lbs to flavor the sausage. If there is anything from the pig you don’t want (i.e. two hams), you can ask that the portion be used as trimming. Usually, the more boneless cuts you order, the more trimmings you’ll get.

• Stew Meat is trimmings that are left as bite-sized chunks. Most, if not all, of the gristle will have been removed.
• Ground Pork is exactly as the name implies: trimmings that were ground up. You should be able to ask for a fat content, but not every butcher has the time to make sure you receive exactly 7% fat and 93% lean. If you don’t ask, expect to get 85-90% lean. The industry standard is to package Ground Pork in 1lb packs, so if you want something different, you’ll need to ask for it specifically.
• Sausage is ground pork that has had some sort of flavoring or spices added. This is where the minimum order requirement comes into play. Every butcher has different options, so just look through the cut sheet and decide what you want. Breakfast Sausage is sometimes called Country Sausage and can be in links or logs. Note: more processing means more expense. Ground Pork will come as part of the normal charge to butcher your pig, but smoked bratwurst will have an upcharge due to it being in links and smoked.

Everything Else

All the parts of the offal that are technically edible. Either the cut sheet will have a checkbox labeled something like “Organs” or “Offal” or they’ll just ask whether you want all the other bits and bobs.

• Heart is self explanatory. It pumps the blood.
• Liver is also self explanatory. It filters the blood and breaks down the harmful stuff the pig ingests.
• Melts are actually spleen. Similar in texture to liver but tough as a boot.
• Kidneys are kidneys. They also filter the blood. And produce urine. Eat at your own risk.
• Ears make great dog treats.
• Feet also make great dog treats, though some people do eat them.
• Tail is actually pretty tasty. It may be a little annoying to eat around the bones, but there are lots of great recipes for pig tail.
• Testicles. I think I’ll leave this one alone. Use your imagination.

If you want to see what we do with some of these items, drop me a suggestion! I have several recipe posts in the works, so keep an eye out.

Packaging

Your butcher will probably ask how you want things packaged. It may even be listed as an option on the Cut Sheet. The answer is entirely up to you. We ask for all trimming options to be in 1lb packs, but when it comes to pork chops, we want four per pack, regardless of weight.

A Visual Guide

This medium may not be the best for you to really see what cuts come from the same part of the pig. Luckily, The Bearded Butchers have you covered. They have created a fantastic educational video that really showcases exactly how a pig can be parted out. I strongly encourage watching it before taking your pig to the processor.

What to Write on the Cut Sheet

Better start with your information. Make sure your name, phone number, address, etc. is accurate. If you misspell something, or your handwriting is illegible, you’re going to have a bad day in about two weeks.

If the Cut Sheet includes a spot for things like Weight, Hanging Weight, or Label #, ignore that bit. That’s for the business to fill out.

Then go through the Cut Sheet and check or circle (whichever the Sheet requires) the things you want. In the even that your processor uses a Sheet that doesn’t have options and instead just says “Shoulder:” and has a blank space for you to write whatever you want, bring this guide back up and write as you go.

Finally, remember that you can ALWAYS ask the office staff for assistance. Any processing business worth its salt will be more than happy to help you fill out the Cut Sheet. They want repeat customers, and they see new farmers all the time. If you feel judged for asking, just pick a different processor next time.