Thanks to Bill & Ashton Arnold, who came over today to show us an easy method for skinning a hog by using a shingle cutting blade in a utility knife to cut the skin into manageable strips, then using a pair of vise-grip pliers to pull the strips of skin away, leaving the beautiful fat unscathed. Bill admitted it had been years since he used this method, shown to him by a local “ol’ timer,” and he forgot a crucial initial step of not cutting too deeply on the initial cut around the hog’s neck. You’ll see in the video how that forgotten step made it a little more difficult to get the stripping started, but we had no real difficulty overcoming that and succeeding. We will certainly be using this method from here on out.
By the way, some will say “Well that works great on a young hog!” It’s true that the hog we processed today was only 11 months old, but Bill said they used it last on a giant old boar and it worked just as well (better, actually, since the initial cut was correct!).
Our thanks to Bill and Ashton for their help and fellowship. They’ll get to enjoy the fruits of their labor this coming Sunday at our Church Christmas dinner – we are quartering the hog, allowing it to age in ice and water for a couple days (today is Wednesday), and will go into the smoker on Saturday. My mouth is watering already!
[Background music provide by Dave Tough / Pond5.com]
Post time: May-19-2017