As I was in class this morning I was looking at the bellies we had cured and that were getting ready to dry before smoking it to make bacon. As I looked at it I noticed how lean it was and how little fat it had. This came from a Yorkshire-Cross pig that I had cut with my students at the college. It got me thinking about the heritage pigs that I had recently gotten in for Single Barrel from TD Niche Pork and so I looked up a picture of a couple of bellies that we had cured from a Red Wattle a few weeks back. Big difference in appearance and the bigger difference will also be in the yield.
Both of these bellies were cut off the hog by me and I never trim off any of the extra belly fat because I like it cured and smoked. All I did was remove the spareribs off of each and I always cut the spareribs lean because I want maximum yeild on my bellies.
Just another reason why I am such a huge supporter of Heritage Breed Pork and the way that it is raised outdoors versus the lean por or as my friend Travis says "show pigs" that you get from the commodity raised pigs.
Commodity
Red Wattle/Heritage
Brandon
Your right there is a huge difference, bottom picture looks way better than top one.
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