Example Pork Custom Butcher Cost - November 2022

This was our family’s recent custom butcher order. It may give some idea of butchering costs. We got a lot of bacon and link (not loose) sausage made but no ham. Curing, slicing, and stuffing sausage casing all take extra time and money, so if you just get fresh pork meat your cost will be lower.

Our half hog was 109 pounds

Our total custom butchering cost was $247.34. That consisted of $40 for the pork harvest fee, $119 for cutting and wrapping, $57.25 for curing and slicing 25 pounds of bacon, and $30.19 for making 11.84 pounds of Oktoberfest sausage.

Here is the exact text of my email to the butcher, less the “Hello” and contact info:

Butcher paper wrapping is fine

Shoulder

Shoulder bacon.

Make the rest of the shoulder/picnic into steaks, 3/4 inch, 2 per package. Bones are fine, we often cook these steaks in the slow cooker as it's easier than making pulled pork from a big roast.

Loin

Tenderloin whole

Pork chops bone in one inch thick 2 per package. As always I like a good layer of fat left on the chops.

Cut the sirloin into stew meat.

Belly

Regular bacon

St Louis style ribs

Ham
Grind it for sausage. Grind whatever you can of the hock, I have plenty of smoked hock already

Sausage: I think I remember you can do a pork Oktoberfest, is that right? [The answer was yes.] Make half Oktoberfest (4 links per package - if you can't do pork-only Oktoberfest then make bratwurst) and half plain ground pork in 1 pound packages.

Make jowl bacon please!

Soup bones, liver, kidney, heart, tongue, leaf lard fat - yes.

No skin, tail, ears, or back fat [This was because we have plenty of these items already.]

Our half hog cut list 2018

No matter how you slice it

The time has come and the pigs are soon heading to the butcher.  If you're wondering how to order a half hog custom butchered for your family, here's what we're doing this year.  Maybe you'll get some ideas!  

From the front of the pig to the back:

Shoulder: 5 pound roasts, leave a very generous fat cap of at least an inch.

Picnic Shoulder: 5 pound roasts, leave plenty of fat.  

Tenderloin:  Pull off and cut in half.

Bone-in pork loin chops, double-thick (1 1/2 inches thick), 3 per package, leave a generous amount of fat on the chops.

Country ribs (these are "button ribs").  3 per package.

Cut fresh pork belly into 3 pound roasts.  (Bacon is good too, but we get plenty of bacon.)

Spareribs: half racks.

Ham: cure.  Cut 1 inch thick center-cut ham steaks, one per package.  

Ham hock: smoke.

Sausage:  Half breakfast sausage, half plain ground pork.

Keep the extra trimmed fat (we'll make lard.)

Keep the offal (liver, kidneys, heart)

Keep soup bones

Keep the head to make head cheese

Our pig cut list December 2017

Just a quick update with a list of what we decided to do with our with our whole hog.  More updates to come soon!

Head: Kept to make head cheese.

Tongue, Jowls, Neck, Backbone: Kept to make sauces or to braise.

Offal, Lard, Soup Bones: Kept.

Shoulder: Cut as roasts (Boston Butt boneless roast and picnic shoulder roast).  Cut off some of one side as country-style ribs.

Loin: Kept one crown rib roast and cut the rest as pork chops one inch thick and frozen in packages 3 chops to a package.

Ham: Cut one fresh ham in half.  Cured another ham and center-cut for ham steaks.

Belly: Kept one fresh pork belly cut in half for roasts.  Cured and cut the other as bacon sliced and packaged in 1 pound packages.