# skinning a pig



## longshot38 (Dec 19, 2006)

instead of scalding and scraping a pig or burning the bristles off what about just skinning the pig like any other animal?

what are the drawbacks of this, any plusses? what are the pros and cons of the "traditional" way.


dean


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## chrisbev (Mar 14, 2012)

I ran a butcher shop for a few years. we always skinned our hogs. I will tell you an overview if you have any more questions just ask. The pros of skinning is that you dont have to skin the bacon again before you smoke it. ITs a faster process once you get it down. 

the cons that i can think of is that if or when you cure your ham you will not have the skin to help hold it together. you also will not get any cracklings with it. 

I will tell you that if you are gonna skin for the first time i would make sure that you have a good curved skinning knife. the first time you might have some bacon bits until you get used to it. That is the hardest part of the animal to skin. 

I hope this helps


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## Ed Norman (Jun 8, 2002)

Skinning is faster in the frigid months when they have long hair and water takes forever to heat up but cools fast.

On the downside, there is no crunchy skin on a roast or ham. 

We do it both ways.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

I've done it all three ways.

Burning - easy but very messy. I don't recommend this method.

Skinning - easy but wasteful of fat, skin, trotters, head, tail and results in lower quality meat. This is what I would recommend for the occasional hog.

Scald & scrape - harder, best done with special equipment, best done several hogs at a time, retains valuable skin, fat, trotters and head can then be sold. Results in significantly higher quality meat. Some chefs want skin on for cuts. This is what to do if you're doing a lot of hogs.

We bought a scalder/dehairer because the machine will save us time and let us sell more of the pig nose-to-tail. I figure it will easily pay for itself in added sales in a couple of years. See:

site:sugarmtnfarm.com baumann - Google Search

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
ButcherShop | Sugar Mountain Farm

Check out our Kickstarting the Butcher Shop project at:
Butcher Shop at Sugar Mountain Farm - Pastured Pigs by Walter Jeffries &mdash; Kickstarter


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Just one note. Skinning a pig is unlike skinning any other animal. The skin does not have an easy separation plane like other animals. It's tricky business but anyone can learn it. There was a thread here years ago about skinning from the head down in strips. I will try to find it.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Bumped it up for you.

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/li...51718-butchered-our-first-hog-today-pics.html


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## Rogo (Jan 1, 2006)

Con -- as was said, no cracklings. Gotta have them!!


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Our family never "skint" a hog. To this day, I still love to sit and chew the skin from an old style smoked ham. Hocks for bean soup must have the skin for proper flavor. And bacon without that rind isn't the bacon that I grew up with. Weren't into cracklin's but I know that none of the skin went to the dogs. A few short bristles to sort out were a small price to pay for those high-energy chunks in soups and stews. Still have same mentality when I can my annual 3 or 4 batches of pork & beans. Heavy on the pork and it's mostly skin and fat from hocks. 

Martin


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## Whisperwindkat (May 28, 2009)

We wound up skinning our first hogs this past winter. We actually were trying scald and scrape and apparently our water temp was not quite right and the scrape didn't go very well on the first one, so we skinned after scalding. The skin just peeled right off, easy peasy. So the next one we didn't even try to scrape, just scald and skin. Again it was like peeling an orange and we rarely even needed the knives. The third is when we found out that our water temp just 2 degrees cooler than what we were getting it to made scraping a breeze. If you skin then you can't have cracklings and such like others said. It also makes it hard to clean the trotters and the head. We lost a lot on the heads of the first two trying to skin them and the trotters were a bear to skin. Hope that helps, Kat


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

I would much rather skin a pig as to try to scrape the thing.
I can't imagine wanting to eat fat soaked fat globs and as for all the other "losses" I can't say that I miss those either....


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## Hooba39 (Feb 16, 2010)

While nothing looks nicer than a scalded and scraped hog we skin ours. Takes far less time especially once you get a little practice. Short of pig roasts I don't have the market around here for a skin on hog.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

For the fast way of skinning I use knives on the belly and legs. Then hang and just pull off the rest.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
ButcherShop | Sugar Mountain Farm

Check out our Kickstarting the Butcher Shop project at:
Butcher Shop at Sugar Mountain Farm - Pastured Pigs by Walter Jeffries &mdash; Kickstarter


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