Sauscutapalooza (AWSS5 - the final conflict)

20stone

Twice the pigs (that are twice the size) and half the people. Nothing like a good A$$whip/$hit$how. 



Combined weight of about 925 lbs.  I will let @The Cen-Tex Smoker describe the pleasures of loading recalcitrant hogs of that size onto a trailer. 

Tomorrow we are going to try to bang about 150 lbs of sausage, provides a weights vs volumes vs “eyeball it” war doesn’t result in casualties.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Now it’s a party. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I just put a brisket on like 2 min ago. I have not cooked a brisket on a BGE in over a year. I’m teaching a class at our local egg dealer next saturday so I figure I’d better get with the program 

Legume

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I just put a brisket on like 2 min ago. I have not cooked a brisket on a BGE in over a year. I’m teaching a class at our local egg dealer next saturday so I figure I’d better get with the program 

I am going to send some of my friends out there to heckle and ask about pellet grills.

Sea2Ski

 Bravo!  Good for you for getting them loaded! Many do not understand how difficult it can be to grab one or two out of a free range area or group. Once we tried loading one and lost hours trying to do so.   Ended up isolating and cornering it with fencing, and put in a bowl of super cheap vodka in the “pen” with it and left it alone for 45-60 mins and watched it from a distance. It found the vodka and drank it like water. It got drunk and basically passed out like some do at Butt Blast. Prior to that, it was impossible to get it to stay still for a clean shot.
Then we did the deed and loaded it on the truck with a mini excavator.


Have fun today!

GlennM

Sea2Ski said:

 Bravo!  Good for you for getting them loaded! Many do not understand how difficult it can be to grab one or two out of a free range area or group. Once we tried loading one and lost hours trying to do so.   Ended up isolating and cornering it with fencing, and put in a bowl of super cheap vodka in the “pen” with it and left it alone for 45-60 mins and watched it from a distance. It found the vodka and drank it like water. It got drunk and basically passed out like some do at Butt Blast

Wow, already marinated! ^^^^

Legume

@Sea2Ski what a great story

JohnInCarolina

These are my very favorite threads on here.  Good luck today gents.  I'm sure all of the swear words will be spoken at some point today.  

SamIAm2

^+1. Bookmarked and looking forward to the unfolding story and pictures. Have fun!

caliking

Sea2Ski said:

 Bravo!  Good for you for getting them loaded! Many do not understand how difficult it can be to grab one or two out of a free range area or group. Once we tried loading one and lost hours trying to do so.   Ended up isolating and cornering it with fencing, and put in a bowl of super cheap vodka in the “pen” with it and left it alone for 45-60 mins and watched it from a distance. It found the vodka and drank it like water. It got drunk and basically passed out like some do at Butt Blast. Prior to that, it was impossible to get it to stay still for a clean shot.
Then we did the deed and loaded it on the truck with a mini excavator.

Have fun today!

I am horrified...

... At the the thought of how many times I must have dodged ending up at the business end of an excavator.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Legume said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I just put a brisket on like 2 min ago. I have not cooked a brisket on a BGE in over a year. I’m teaching a class at our local egg dealer next saturday so I figure I’d better get with the program 

I am going to send some of my friends out there to heckle and ask about pellet grills.

I heckle back...

R2Egg2Q

Looking forward to updates on this.  Good luck guys!!

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Sea2Ski said:

 Bravo!  Good for you for getting them loaded! Many do not understand how difficult it can be to grab one or two out of a free range area or group. Once we tried loading one and lost hours trying to do so.   Ended up isolating and cornering it with fencing, and put in a bowl of super cheap vodka in the “pen” with it and left it alone for 45-60 mins and watched it from a distance. It found the vodka and drank it like water. It got drunk and basically passed out like some do at Butt Blast. Prior to that, it was impossible to get it to stay still for a clean shot.
Then we did the deed and loaded it on the truck with a mini excavator.


Have fun today!

There were times I was wishing we had a bottle
of vodka but not for the pigs. We got all set with the trailer backed into the pen, made a trail of food like we always do, and let the pigs do their thing. We had 2 pigs left- the fat one and the smart one (you will see how this plays out later). 

Last November it was time to do another and the bell tolled for big Mo. We had 3 left and he was the biggest. He was pushing 500lbs. Well, it turns out when you weigh 500 lbs, you have a say in the matter. Mo was having none of it. We had another pig that thought the trailer ride was a great idea and after we pushed him out and he jumped back in 2 more times, we decided that Big Mo would live to fight another day and Miney would get the free trailer ride that day. 

Fast forward to last Wednesday. We have 2 pigs left and it has been decided that this will be final day of our ranching operation. Time for both pigs (the fat one and the smart one) to take that trailer ride to the sky. 

We figured Mo would be stubborn as before and we didn’t know about Eenie. Even smart pigs are food-driven so the plan is always to “Hansel and Gretel” the pigs to the trailer with a trail of feed. It worked (sort of). Here is Eenie 2 minutes after we got set up. Walked right...up to the trailer, ate all the feed on the ramp then hauled ass. He smelled a rat. 



This is as close as we would get to him for the next 2 hours. 

Mo, on the other hand decided right away that no foul play was at hand this time and that a food line to the trailer seemed like a great idea. He proceeded to lay down, eat a bucket of feed and laugh at us while we chased Eenie around the pen for the next 2 hours. 

(big Mo following the feed trail to that big wallow in the sky)




Taking a nap and laughing at us chasing
Eenie 



Well, as far as Eenie goes, it turns out when you weigh 411 lbs, you also have a say in the matter. We pulled out all the tricks. Food, food, and more food. Bananas, cheese, bread. He loved  all of them. Right up to the trailer ramp. He worked us like a rented mule. Ate all the food but wouldn’t go in the trailer. We had gates, panels, people all running traps but he would either outsmart us at the last second or just run us over when he felt cornered.  He was like Neo in the Matrix. He could see all our moves before they happened. 

Finally he just layed down and gave us the pig version of “the double bird”. Basically saying, “I’m not going in. I know it, you know it, and I know you know it”. 



We had had to call in reinforcements (the neighbors). They showed up with a sack of cheese bread and a rope. The cheese bread did not work but the rope eventually did. Once we got him lassoed you would have thought we shot him. All hell broke loose and the noise was out of an Alien movie. You could hear him a mile away. We got a leg tied up and no matter how much he protested, the jig was finally up for Eenie. He didn’t go easy, it took all 4 of us to wrangle him in but we got it done. 

For all the screaming, bucking, pulling pissing and crapping, once in the trailer he was like “hey, look at all this food! Why didn’t you just say so”. He was happy to be with mo again (for now) and having a bucket of feed to munch on 


And thus ends the saga of Eenie, Meenie, Miney, and Mo.

Fare thee well, fine pigs. May your hams hang in a climate-controlled vessel for 24 months and your sausages seductively sizzle on my 18” ceramic grill. 

JohnInCarolina

@The Cen-Tex Smoker   you tell a great story man.  I fully enjoyed reading that.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

JohnInCarolina said:

@The Cen-Tex Smoker   you tell a great story man.  I fully enjoyed reading that.

If this bean bag gig does not work out, my fallback is to write for Hobby Farmer Magazine. I think print is the future of journalism. 

Sea2Ski

That is a great story. As you know, pigs can be smart. We have a kill pen that we try to herd the next chosen one and isolate that one out of sight of the others. We too usually are successful at bribing the chosen with food. That one we could not bribe for anything in the world. So since she would not go in the pen, we brought the pen to her.

Good luck today. Lots of work ahead of you! Well, you already know that.

Have fun! 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Sea2Ski said:

That is a great story. As you know, pigs can be smart. We have a kill pen that we try to herd the next chosen one and isolate that one out of sight of the others. We too usually are successful at bribing the chosen with food. That one we could not bribe for anything in the world. So since she would not go in the pen, we brought the pen to her.

Good luck today. Lots of work ahead of you! Well, you already know that.

Have fun! 

I’m not able to join the manufacturing part of the process today so the wrangling was my contribution to this effort. I would say they boys got their money’s worth out of me

The Cen-Tex Smoker

They should be ramping up here pretty soon. I would fully expect to see some pics rolling in shortly

Foghorn

I’m looking forward to updates as well. Sorry I can’t be there to help. Due to a family obligation I had to wake up to this view this AM. 

Foghorn

I take it from the lack of posts that you boys are working hard. 

20stone

Dude, the Day one of AW/SSV lived up to its name. 

I’ll throw up a few pics, but didn’t really get enough. 

We we started late because the slaughter house was running behind. We started behind because they were supposed to cubs all the sausage meat, giving us a huge head start, but they left that for us.

Tub o’ roasted bones now in a stock pot


Dinner (smoked beef ribs) just getting started in the AM


Scott manning the grinder 



@caliking and @20spawn1 mixing up cali’s currymasalawurst, which is awesome. 


Just a few spices. If only we had a recipe for next time. 


“New” fridge in action, full of sausage to be.


Ham hocks coming out of the smoke. 

Lots to do tomorrow and we’ll be better with picks. Stuffing and charcuterie for the most part. 

Time to to kick back a bit. 

bgebrent

Outstanding brother.

Foghorn

Enjoy the kicking back. Sorry I wasn’t able to send beer. 

DMW

This dude

Is a good dude, I don't care what the rest of you say.

20stone

Foghorn said:

Enjoy the kicking back. Sorry I wasn’t able to send beer. 

No worries.  Part of the 20 => 17 stone plan involves not drinking.  Some of us don't have quite so much verticality to stretch out the BMI

bgebrent

DMW said:

This dude

Is a good dude, I don't care what the rest of you say.

The goat slayer dew rag back end brother.  He is a great dude.

caliking

I will say that I felt a twinge of sadness as the day's shenanigans rolled on . Sad that our little ranching operation has come to an end of sorts. A lot of work was done today, and not much of it by me, but I did try to commemorate the events appropriately.

caliking

And I need the do-rag bcoz I sweat like a muthafuckah.

20stone

Another day of AW/SSV, and I think we are all whipped puppies. 


Mike and Scott banging out the Masalawurst. 


We had some extra lamb shoulder, so we banged out about 7 lbs of merguez as a bonus. 


The glamour job..vac bagging cubed fat (about 60 lbs of it). 



Experiment 2 for the weekend was making our first emulsion sausage (like Bologna), mortadella. Ideally, I’d have a buffalo chopper or a Robot Coupe (and surprised the crowd by not buying anything. We got through about 1/4 of it before the Ninja started smoking. So the mortadella will be great, but not fully “emulsed”



Folding in the peppercorns and pistachios. 

It made a great looking 6lb loaf of lunch meat. Hopefully @caliking will toss up a pic. 


A freezer full of sausage.  We are at capacity. 

More pics when we get the curing cuts going. 

caliking

I didn’t get the hanging glory shot of the mortadella, but here it is in the making (or stuffing):




I pan fried a sample of the masalawurst, and ermagerd... it’s farkin good. 

Foghorn

You guys rock.

Thanks in advance.