Pretty much the title. We bought a pig, not knowing about boar taint so didn’t inquire about the state of the pig (gender, age) beforehand. First cook and it’s heavily present.
Will trimming off all the fat and boning it help mitigate the taint (and crossing my fingers here so hard it hurts) or remove it altogether? Anyone have experience on this problem?
Defatting and deboning won’t help much, the taste/smell impregnates into the meat. Instead I’d recommend marinading:
Feel free to add other stuff to the marinade, like herbs, garlic, onions, ginger, oil, etc. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to discard that marinade water, you can’t really reduce it into a sauce, so anything that you add there will go to waste. (If you must, marinade it twice)
Got this trick from helping out rural relatives butchering pigs. They often raised the pigs to adulthood, and sometimes they forgot to castrate a boar or two.
I will happily try this. It’s enough to have filled my 7.1cuft chest freezer to the top so I really want to waste as little as possible. How will I know if I must marinate it twice?
Something I did notice, it’s 90% roasts and chops evenly split. I’ve done a roast (left overnight in the fridge with a mustard binder and dry rub) and then smoke it for maybe 1.5-2 hrs and it was fine. The night before was the same prep but chops and in the air fryer (never again) and it was burning my sinuses. The next time (I may hate myself, I don’t know) I did chops again but in the smoker with no binder, salt bathed for an hour leading up to and just a dry rub and it stank up my grease bucket. ETA: it also was still detectable around the fattier bits. It was a shorter smoke, which is why I was hoping removing the fat beforehand would be sufficient.
It’s been wildly hit or miss. So thank you again for the info!
By “marinading it twice” I mean one marinade to get rid of the smell, another to actually season it. The second one is optional, up to you; you can reuse the liquid of the second marinade for some gravy, or to brush over the meat (never raw, though), but do not reuse the liquid of the first one.
It is not necessary but since you said that you’re noticing it around the fattier bits, I’d try it. (I never did it though - only the marinade.) Then, as you said, you can always readd some fat, in special lard would be good.
Gotcha, ok.
I’ll try it both ways in one cook and see how it pans out. The extra trimming and boning also finally gives me an excuse to splurge on a proper boning knife!
Much appreciated!
Oh, also! Would you recommend both trimming/boning AND the lime brine? I can add butter or oil to re-up the fats I’m removing for smoking at least. Maybe I’ll try it and follow up if my gold fish dad brain remembers.
Thanks again, I very much appreciate this!