More Than Meat

There was plenty of work to do following the butchering class discussed in my last entry. Steaks and roasts were only one of the products harvested from the animal. My brother and I spent most of Sunday working on sinew, fat, bones and hide.

I cleaned up the sinew separating meat and fat from the tendons and ligaments as my brother scraped the remaining meat from the bones.



Cleaning the sinew


There was quite a lot of sinew. The leg tendons were very long. After cleaning it, I hung it up to dry.


After about a week it was fully dry.


Breaking up one small piece gave many strands to work with. The amount pictured below is enough for many small projects.


Our class collected a lot of fat. Besides this pile we have a five gallon bucket full. We have been rendering it for the last week. There is just so much of it. It's pretty silly. Stay tuned for a forthcoming blog entry with details on rendering fat.


Here my brother boils the meat off some of the bigger bones. Barely visible in the background is a pot of fat being rendered.


We also started to work on the hide, but I'm going to save that for another blog entry. If we do another butchering class we are thinking about having a second day where we teach what to do with the non-meat parts: bones, hide, sinew, fat, organs and more.