THRIVING after the FALL

The Index · A subject

Slaughter and butchery

The day of the slaughter, done with care, and everything after it, from the cuts to the fat and the hide.

17 documents · 2 chapters · 3 dishes · 67 rows

In the chapters

Documents 17

On the Menu

Lard and tallow Blood sausage and liver sausage Roots roasted in tallow

In the Workshop

The German cuts

Letters

The salt in your blood

Sources

  • Regulation Regulation (EU) 2015/1375 and the Tier-LMHV
  • Regulation TierSchlV, the German slaughter ordinance

All the sources

In the log 67

  • 41 confirmed
  • 9 amended
  • 2 partly confirmed
  • 15 unresolved
  • 25 marked for safety
  • W11 confirmed Safety Dressing a stone releases respirable quartz (silicosis): cut wet, outdoors, face covered; a cracked stone (dull ring) sheds grit; first flour after a dressing goes to …
  • W52 unresolved Safety Hot-dip tinning: 15 to 20 kg tin bath, 25 mm flux blanket of tallow with sal ammoniac, dwell 60 to 90 s; the same document offers 80 % ZnCl2 / 20 % NH4Cl and bars zinc …
  • F10 amended Safety Chickpea Ascochyta at 1.1 mm rain; do not save seed from affected plants; thiram/copper dressing kills inoculant
  • O11 unresolved Safety Grafting knife cuts toward the thumb; cut away from the body
  • A15 amended Safety Red mite: diatomaceous earth LT50 31–34 h, dust bath 70 % sand 30 % soil with DE and ash, repeat every 7–10 days three times; lime-wash cracks; coccidiosis oocysts …
  • A6 amended Safety Milk fever: down day after calving, cold ears, head to flank; calcium borogluconate under skin in four sites warmed to blood heat, up in an hour; Schmidt 1897 udder …
  • A7 amended Safety Nitrate NO3-N ppm DM: <1,500 safe; 1,500–5,000 half the ration with safe hay; 5,000–9,000 a third; >9,000 never; frosted, drought-stressed or over-manured green crops; …
  • B10 amended Safety Specified risk material: cattle >12 months skull, brain, eyes, spinal cord, tonsils; >30 months vertebral column; intestines all ages; cord lifted out with a hooked …
  • B12 unresolved Safety Hoist: gambrel through hind tendons, four-fall block and tackle, beam or larch tripod rated for a tonne, three people on the rope; a gutted 500 kg cow still ~300 kg; …
  • B14 unresolved Safety Fat fire: tallow catches at ~200 °C and above, a wood fire under an unwatched kettle reaches it in minutes; lid or sand, never water (fireball); kettle never left, never …
  • B16 confirmed Safety Blood: bowl under the wound before the knife is out, stirred 5 min with 1 tbsp salt/l until cool, clots in a minute unstirred, 3–4 l from a 100 kg pig, used same day; …
  • B17 unresolved Safety Kochwurst safety: blood sausage cooked at 80 °C never boiling 60–90 min until it weeps clear; keeps a week in the cold, longer smoked; bursts if boiled or filled tight; …
  • B19 unresolved Safety Lye and lime: wood-ash lye burns, eyes covered; 1 kg tallow ≈ 140 g NaOH or 200 g KOH; egg-float test (coin-width cap); slaked lime 1 kg/20 l burns eyes and skin, …
  • B2 confirmed Safety Stun signs: immediate collapse, no righting, tonic then clonic paddling (spinal, not feeling), no corneal/palpebral reflex, tongue out, no rhythmic breathing; failed: …
  • B20 confirmed Safety Anthrax: a hide from an animal that died on its own of nothing visible is not skinned; anthrax spores in old grazing soil and in a hide for years; such an animal is not …
  • B21 unresolved Safety Children behind the fence for the shot and the stick, stirring the blood, carrying the soup; not in the kitchen during rendering; every person's place fixed before the …
  • B22 amended Safety Burial of slaughter waste forbidden (TierNebG); knacker (Tierkörperbeseitigung) route; after the fall burn what the law says to burn, bury the rest deep away from the …
  • B4 amended Safety Stick within 60 s by law, 30 by the book; thoracic stick (base of neck above breastbone, to the heart, in to hilt, out cutting) preferred over neck cut (carotids …
  • B6 confirmed Safety Pig stun: bolt on light charge a finger above the line between the eyes, midline, aimed at tail; stick within 15 s (industry limit for head-only electrical, adopted for …
  • B8 amended Safety Cervical dislocation manual only under 3 kg and max 70 birds/person/day (Reg 1099/2009 Annex I); done once and firmly; neck cut both sides below the jaw, bleed 90–120 s; …
  • E1 confirmed Safety Fish must be stunned before killing (TierSchlV § 12/13); blow to the head behind the eyes with a priest, then gill cut (Kiemenschnitt) or heart stab (Herzstich); never …
  • E19 unresolved Safety Winter hole: never hammer on the ice (stuns fish); straw or reed bundle frozen in lets gas out; sweep snow for light
  • T59 unresolved Safety Horn: boil 60 to 90 min, strip 18 by 4.5 cm by 3 mm in hot tallow 15 to 20 min, pressed 10 to 15 min, edge scraped to 1 mm; beaker plugged with a wooden disc (book's …
  • T6 unresolved Safety Beeswax flash/ignition ~200 °C and above; render in water bath, never over a bare flame reaching a dry pot; never water on burning wax
  • T8 confirmed Safety Burning tallow gives acrolein (chip-pan smell) and soot; tallow not for a shut room; beeswax for the table
  • K42 confirmed Handle: ash, beech or plum slabs, pinned with brass or mild rod, hide glue or epoxy
  • W45 confirmed Granite self-sharpens: quartz Mohs 7 cuts, feldspar 6 wears to expose it, biotite 2.5 to 3 pits and grips; Lausitz granodiorite at Demitz-Thumitz and Kamenz; Brandenburg …
  • G35 confirmed Raw char immobilises nitrogen; charge by co-composting at 5 to 15 % of volume (absorbs ammonia) or by soaking in diluted urine; field rate 10 to 20 t/ha on sand (1 to 2 …
  • G38 confirmed Winter rye plus hairy vetch sown by mid-September; winter cover cuts N leaching 39 to 54 %; crimp at rye anthesis and vetch full bloom in late May, before 50 % anthesis …
  • G44 confirmed Deficiency signs: N yellowing from the oldest leaves, P purple and stunting, K scorched margins on mature leaves; potash on sand leaches and >90 % of soil K is locked in …
  • O26 confirmed Whip-and-tongue cuts (3–4 cm, tongue one third down), cleft with two wedge scions, chip bud in late summer; tape and wax
  • O50 unresolved Planting: hole 1 m × 0.5 m, stake windward, vole basket, guard, mulch, 20 l fortnightly two summers; top-working stubs 3–5 cm, sap-drawer, seal all cuts
  • A17 unresolved Kreuzberg pigs in the winter of 1946, courtyard and cellar pigs, black slaughter (Schwarzschlachtung) punishable by prison, the grandmother's street
  • A32 confirmed Winter 165 days (1 Nov–15 Apr) at 12–13 kg hay = 2 t hay at 15 % water; hay meadow on sand two cuts 3–4 t/ha = 0.6–0.8 ha; whole about 2 ha per cow; heifer adds half; …
  • A44 confirmed Commercial layer ~300 eggs, culled in second year, male chicks killed at hatch; broiler slaughtered at ~6 weeks, cannot stand at ten
  • A72 confirmed Goat milking 70 to 90 strokes a minute, pre-dip thyme and sage, post-dip sour whey with tallow or rosin, canal open 30 min, healthy milk pH 6.4 to 6.7; buck 150 m …
  • A78 partly confirmed Tallow lamp 15 to 25 g fat per hour; 50 hens lit 4 h a night for 120 days burn 43 to 72 kg fat for 600 to 900 eggs (3 to 4 kg egg fat); fire risk in litter
  • A79 amended Breed dates: Bielefelder Gerd Roth 1970s, Sundheimer 1880s, Vorwerk 1900 to 1912, Reichshuhn after 1870 (chapter's 1907 for the standard also printed), Wyandotte 1890s; …
  • B25 confirmed Hedersleben 1865: 337 ill, 101 dead from one pig; Virchow's life-cycle work in Berlin; Prussian compulsory Trichinenschau (Ch 8 gives 1866); yard slaughter off the …
  • B26 confirmed Schlachtfest: home pig slaughter common in Brandenburg villages into the 1970s, between first frost and Christmas; Hausschlachter ~20 pigs a season for a fee and a …
  • B27 confirmed Hausschlachtung conditions: own household consumption only, Anmeldung to the Veterinäramt, stunning by permitted method by a competent person, Fleischuntersuchung for …
  • B29 confirmed Field slaughter since 2021: Reg (EU) 2021/1374 amending 853/2004 allows on-farm slaughter of up to three bovines (or six pigs, three solipeds) with a mobile unit; "first …
  • B30 unresolved Home slaughters in Germany: ~100,000 pigs a year now, ~5 million in the 1950s, falling a tenth a decade, mostly east and south
  • B33 confirmed Household dressing order: skin head on the ground, head off, on her back with props, gut out on the ground, hoist by hind legs to finish hide and split (vs industry …
  • B34 confirmed Legging: ring at hock and knee, slit inside of legs, feet off at the break joint below the hock; fisting to keep the fell; knife edge to the hide; hide off the back last …
  • B36 confirmed Quartering between 12th and 13th rib, fore ~52 % / hind ~48 %; chuck 26–28 %, round 22 %; hindquarter holds the rare cuts, forequarter the collagen cuts; collagen tough …
  • B38 confirmed German seam cuts and uses: Hals/Kamm goulash and Kochfleisch; Bug: Schaufelstück, Falsches Filet, dicker Bug (Sauerbraten); Hochrippe roast; Querrippe and Brust …
  • B39 confirmed Cow counted: 500 kg lowland cow dresses ~54 % → ~270 kg carcass, ~175 kg boneless, 40 kg bone, 30–40 kg fat; 175 kg = four people's German annual beef; quartered among …
  • B44 confirmed Blood sausage / Grützwurst: per litre blood 1 kg boiled rind and head meat, 300 g scalded back-fat dice, 18 g salt/kg of whole, marjoram, pepper, allspice, boiled barley …
  • B46 confirmed Eight German pig parts and destinations: Schinken 9–10 kg each to dry salt (Ch 11); Bug 6–7 kg roasts and sausage; Rücken/Kotelettstrang chops and Kassler; Kamm best …
  • B47 confirmed Pig counted: 100 kg live → ~75 kg hanging; ham 20, shoulder 13, loin 13, belly 11, back fat 10, hock 3, leaf fat 2, rest head/bone/trim; off the hooks blood 3 l, head 6 …
  • B50 confirmed Hen rest: rigor ~4 h, tender 12–24 h at 4 °C, hang overnight in the cold; old hen simmered 3 h; gizzard lining peeled; feathers to the pillow after a day in the sun; …
  • B51 confirmed Broker: 13 documents ≤5 witnesses (46→45, 47→46, 48→47, 49/61/62→46, 53→52, 54→52, 57→56, 129→47, 52's Trichinella from 50); 750–1,500 hogs/h; household steps from a …
  • B52 unresolved Broker: temperatures lost from 53, 54, 129 ("rendered between a blank and a blank"); 49 "non-flammable"; 62 removes cord as SRM then simmers oxtail and neck bones; …
  • B54 confirmed Fat: cow 30–40 kg fat and 40 kg bone; pig 12 kg fat and 10 kg bone; render within 12 h or hold ≤7 °C (Reg 853/2004); suet 86–90 % lipid, trim 62–76 %; dry rendering …
  • B55 confirmed Storage: stoneware crock with lid in the cellar, tallow a year, lard 6–9 months, salt layer on top; enemies light, warmth, air, iron/copper; rancid = paint smell, not …
  • B56 confirmed Tallow melts 45–50 °C; candle: twisted linen/cotton wick dipped 20–30 times in wet-rendered tallow, slumps in August; potash soft soap hardened by boiling with salt …
  • B59 confirmed Hide salting: a third to half its weight in salt, fold flesh to flesh after 24 h, resalt, keeps months cold; soak 2 days; lime 1 kg slaked lime/20 l, stirred daily, 7–14 …
  • B60 confirmed Bark tanning: oak bark stripped in May, dried, pounded, 2–4 × hide weight over the tan; weakest liquor first (barkometer 1.006–1.010), stronger weekly; case hardening in …
  • B61 confirmed Hide area: 4–5 m² per cow; apron ~0.5 m², boots ~1 m²; pig skin better eaten (hard to degrease, tans badly at home); brain tan one brain per hide, warm paste, stretched …
  • M14 confirmed Chymosin cuts the kappa-casein coat at one site; micelles aggregate once about 85 % are cut; a thousand micelles across a hair
  • T32 partly confirmed Sealing unglazed earthenware: terra-sigillata burnish and slip; boiling in milk (casein); tallow rub
  • T35 confirmed Tallow candle: wick of twisted linen/cotton, 20–30 dips at 65–70 °C to 2 cm; tallow melts ~45 °C, slumps, gutters, smokes
  • T36 confirmed Beeswax: mp 63–65 °C; render in water bath at 65–70 °C, strain, float and re-melt; dip at 70–75 °C; mould at 65–70 °C; shrinks ~10 % so hold back a tenth and top up; …
  • T42 confirmed Soft soap: 1 kg tallow to 200 g potash (Ch 9) or 3–4 l egg-floating lye; tallow at 40–45 °C, lye in a stream, stir to trace, self-heating, 2–3 h to translucent jelly; …
  • T43 confirmed Household of four: 10–15 kg soap/yr, ~7–8 kg tallow, one winter's beech ash; hard water 14–25 °dH by Berlin district turns soap to scum; wash in rainwater or rinse with …
  • J21 unresolved Hay: a mower with a peened scythe cuts about a third of a hectare of grass a day; rye 0.2 ha: two days cutting with cradle and binder, one day stooking, a dry week in …