We have been raising hogs for our own consumption for three years now and this is the first time this has come up. The bacon, and we don't know how much of it, has a very irritable smell when it is cooked. Very strong smell. We haven't changed diet or raising pasture and we bought the pigglets at the same place all three years. The bacon seems to taste ok but a friend who used to raise hogs on a commerical basis said he couldn't eat it cause of the cooking smell. He also said it could be boar meat instead of our hogs. We have the hogs butchered at a local shop and that shop was sold last year to a new butcher who now sells his own meat. The old butcher did not sell meat. Could there have been a mixup at the butcher, even tho he says no? Could the smoke curing be bad or something like that? Any help please as we don't want to waste a lot of future meat if we are doing something wrong. Also if the butcher is suspect we don't want to keep using him. BTW The piglets are castrated when we buy them. Thank you in advance.
Sorry I can't be of more help to you... We have never had a problem with our homegrown bacon, we did try some boar meat once that was pretty awful. You might want to try another butcher, see if their method tastes better. Not all butchers make their bacon the same way. Good luck to you!
If they are not killed right and they jump around ( not the usual twitching that occures) it causes the meat to taste bad.
When did you first start eating the bacon? Did it stink right away, or has the cooking odor got worse as you go along. One possibility is the fat in the bacon getting rancid. If the bacon has been frozen that shouldn't happen, but if the bacon has been at room temperature it is a definate possibility. We used to have a problem with our lard getting rancid in the middle of the summer before we had a refrigerator. That was when it went into soap.
Never experienced it- just throwing this out there in case. Could it have had an undescended testicle or otherwise not have been properly castrated/developed externally?
Thank you all for your helpful replies. The rest of our pork is just fine and smells good. the bacon is the only questionable item so I guess its from a different hog, (switched at butcher) or maybe the fat did go rancid before they froze it, or the curing process was messed up. Funny thing it tastes great. We are going to closely monitor this years hog butchering to make sure we get OUR meat back and not someone elses. Thanks again
Siryet If it is just the bacon my best guess is that it was brined with other sides. If there was one in the batch that was a boar or had one undesended testicale it can smell up the whole batch. If this guy is new it may have been an honest mistake If I was running a locker and wanted to ''switch'' meat, it sure wouldn't be a 10 pound side :no: I wold mention everything that you said here to him and see what he says. Mr Wanda Mike
I talked with the butcher today in person about the strong smell and he said he had no idea what causes that but that other customers have mentioned the same thing, I told him all the suggestions you guys gave and he said they all sound possible but that all the bacon is cut at one time and stays together so if some smells bad why doesn't it all smell bad from the same batch.? He also said that he was going to call the local cooperative service office to see what they think might be the cause. He seems genuine in his concern. He said he would e-mail me their response. So I am not the only one with the problem and I will let ya'll know the outcome. Thanks again
I agree George. We cut their throat right after killing so they bleed out quickly. Also, when they are hung to cure, the temperature has to be cold. We try to let ours hang for a week or so. It really makes the meat taste better.
We make our own bacon and one time one side had that strong smell. The other side was fine. And the bacon tasted fine. We don't know why. This spring we had a boar and a sow getting well over 300 pounds. They made an escape and began eating all the trees we had just finished planting. Lots of trees. DW called me at work and said she couldn't get them in the pen again, so she dropped both of them with a pistol. I got home an hour later and we skinned pigs. I didn't want to waste that boar so we lopped a hunk off and cooked it. Tasted and smelled just fine. We have eaten over half of him and there is zero smell and taste difference. I gave some to a friend, he loved it. I've heard others eating boars without problems. I don't know the answer.
