Anybody ever scald thepig instead of skinning it? How hot should the water be? how hard is it to scrape? how long does it take?
We always scald. Get plenty of dried wood and heat up a large barrel- we have a half barrel- to boiling. We let it boil because there is always a oss of temperature when either dipping the pig or pouring the water. Dip the pig in (much easier said than done when you are dealing with a large pig) for about 30 seconds. Remove and scrape hair off with a sharp knife. This method works much better on a pig that is 80 pounds or less. It takes a while depending on the size of the pig. Two or three people get the job done faster. The thing is that you can't take a long time, even if you wanted to. If the water cools on the pig the hair will set and be nearly impossible to scrape off. You can do one end first and then the other also or you can dip a bucket in the boiling water and do the pig section by section if it is too piog or you are working alone. Sharpened your knifes and work with the grain rather than against it. There is a product called Hog Scald by Old Bauldy that we purchased several months ago but have yet to use. It is suppose to loosen the hair incredibly.
we`ve been skinning ours lately. seems nobody wants lard or cracklins anymore. but well as i remember the water has to be about 145 degrees (have to look for my old thermometer to see for sure) and there is a narrow margin on the temp, if it`s not hot enough the hog won`t scald and if it`s to hot you will set the hair then you`ve almost got to shave them. we`ve scalded some that would go 450 or more without any problem. before you drop him in the scalding pan dip a cupfull of hot water out and poor down inside his ear if he doesn`t jump he`ll be ok. but we have put 1 or two in that that have been killed for several minutes and they come back out giving us nasty burns from all the splashing water but never had one react that didn`t react to the water in his ear.add a little hard wood ash from the fire to the water to help to loosen some hair. leave him in rolling him back and forth with ropes wrapped around each end untill the hair starts to come off good. we used to have regular scrapers made for it but the best thing we found was old canning jar lids , the ones that were made out of zinc 4 of us could do 1 in about 20 min. or so. the main thing is be carefull not to put him in to soon and don`t get the water to hot. my grandaddy would run his hand through the water very quickly and if it burned on the third time the water was the right temp and he could judge it very well. actually i beleave we got better scalds when he done that than when we used the thermometer, but he had many years of practice to. with all that said it`s quicker and easier to skin. and you really don`t lose all that much.
we used to cover them in burlap and pour boiling water on the burlap then peel back the burlap to scrape them that way the burlap kept the heat in cause most of the time we butchered in the winter p,s. take a buther knife about 6in blade and cut at the bottom of the neck where it joins the chest straight in and you wont have to worry about the hog thrashing and you will get cleaner meat with less blood.
