So same setup as previous years, probably with some changes to location because my place is too small.
Some things remain the same :
- You need to turn up to at least one of the days – it’s all about having fun on the day – if you really really want salami but can’t make it, find someone to take your spot and have them be there on the day, and pay them – perhaps in salami ? 🙂
- Need to have transferred money into the account prior to the day – details for the account on the WhatsApp group.
Things to bring :
- Apron
- Sharp knife – boning knives are good
- Something to drink if you want, beer wine etc
- Decent shoes that don’t mind a bit of dropped pork fat
Things supplied :
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Cocktails
- Snacks
- All the salami stuff
Basic outline :
- We pickup the pork either that morning, or the day before.
- Start around 9am, and go until we finish – hopefully by 5, but has been later, and has been earlier
- Process for the day is :
- Cut the meat off the bones and dice
- Mince
- Add spices and mix
- Stuff into casings
- Hang them in the shed
- We all then come back in 6-8 weeks :
- Remove the casing
- Vacuum seal
- Divide up amongst everyone
- More eating, drinking and being merry
- Take your salami home and eat 🙂
All the previous years were that we did a 1/4 pig per share, and the pigs were around 65-70 kgs, so we got about 25-30 salami out of that ( plus lunch ribs, bones for smoking and stock, perhaps bacon too, pork skin for crackle all day ).
As a guide, last year we did 5.5 pigs, and spent :
- $4200 on pork.
- $1200 on skins, spices and vac seal bags.
- $300 on misc bits and pieces ( breakfast, sugar, wine, cocktails )
- $500 on a bench top and some tubs
We had a bit leftover from last year, and so this year we’d like to get a bench top crimper if there’s any left over, but the free range pork will be more expensive. Going with about the same cost as last year as a guess.
This year :
- We’ve split it into two options :
- “Regular Share” – equivalent to roughly the same as last year so about 1/4 pig – $300
- “Half Share” – equivalent to half of that – $150
- It won’t be exactly 1/4 of a pig, as we’ll try to get larger ones, so 120+ kgs, but I’ll work it out to be around the same as last year, kg wise.
- We may do some bacon or may not depending on how the larger pigs end up looking like, or may even add in extra so we have bacon as well.
We’re not locked into a recipe, and usually vary it a bit. Quite often traditional southern with fennel, but we also do some without, and capsicum paste was popular last year, so will do more of that.