Using your hands and antique cutlery, we will turn one Angus steer into kitchen-sized cuts for your pots, pans, and oven. We will unknit the carcass without creating any waste. Our yield will be 100% of hanging weight in resolute distinction from the convention of wasting over half the harvest. The silhouette of the magnanimous bovine is our only parameter.

This class is for the beginner and the experienced alike. In two days, you will have gained enough hands-on experience to harvest cattle at home wisely. The class will be at our homestead outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Take home the goose you harvest and transform into confit.  You return not only with traditionally cured meat, but with the technique to preserve any meat in salubrious fat.

“The confit pot is one of the most useful storage items in the French farmhouse kitchen.” -Elisabeth Luard

With the convenience of refrigeration so widely available, we can easily ward off spoilage, at least for a little while. But this ease comes at the cost of flavor. The freezer cannot improve the meat it contains; it can only delay its inevitable demise. Older methods of preservation not only keep meat from going bad, but help it to go good. The traditions of our fathers in preserving the harvest evince thrift and extravagance in equal measure. One of these methods is confit.

***Course in Tulsa, OK; 2022***

One class available at this time: June 8th-10th, 2023

Using your hands and antique cutlery we will turn 4 lambs into kitchen sized lamb cuts, sausage and charcuterie.

***Course in Tulsa, OK***

The Family Pig is an earnest and winsome course in domestic pig raising, harvesting and eating. Inspired by the pig, we go deep and wide in the preservation of pork, the salting of bacon, the harvesting of innards, the carving of flesh and the unreproved indulgence in fat and salt. You take with you not only a package of educational material and sausage of your own making, but the working knowledge of harvesting two pigs from the field to the two-year-old prosciutto hanging in your kitchen.

*Current 2023 Spring classes in Tulsa, Oklahoma are SOLD OUT.*

Registration now open!

Includes more than 5 Years of Content…

a value of more than $600 reduced to $24.49:

OR FREE WITH A YEAR’s SUBSCRIPTION.

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This is a 6 page annotated list of all the tools you need to process pork, lamb and goat from home in the old-school way.  It is a PDF that you download after purchase.  It includes sources, prices and purchasing tips and represents the summation of our huge and costly education in what works and what doesn’t.  Once you have the right tools (also meaning you don’t have the wrong ones) the meat nearly processes itself.  (Not really, you wouldn’t want that anyway.)

The necessary tools for cutlery, slaughter, butchery and basic curing are covered in this digital download.

This precept equips you with the knowledge to make and use stock.  It is no exaggeration to say that a successful kitchen makes use of stock at least everyday.  It is the ingenious method of turning even bones into food.

This is a 10 page digital download.

In this precept, Lauren conveys instructions for making soap from animal fat.  In addition to holding up the galaxy and being the brains behind Farmstead Meatsmith, she has managed to create the only soap I know of that simultaneously moisturizes and cleanses.

This is a 6 page digital download.

This is the lengthiest precept at 41 pages.  In writing it, I assumed you wanted to know everything about how to kill a pig in your backyard proficiently, beautifully and without waste.  Each step is detailed, including the kill, dehairing, offal harvest, splitting, cold storage and more.  This is where nose-to-tail eating is made possible.

This is a digital download.

I wrote this over the course of a kickstarter campaign for our backers.  Each day I made an entry for the thirty-three days of the campaign.  They pertain to the limitless art of meatsmithery.  As such, they range widely from deglazing, whole-animal spit roasting, broccoli and BBQ to name a few.

This is a 20 page digital download.

This precept relates the simple process of making, storing and using the leaf fat of a pig to great culinary affect.  This internal body fat is found in cows, lambs and goats so these instructions apply to them as well.  Pork leaf lard, however, simply is the best and original shortening.

This is a 6 page digital download.

There is a rationale to cooking meat.  The proliferation of recipes disguises the fact that you only need to know three things to cook any cut to perfection, no matter how obscure.

This is a 14 page digital download.

Knives have a significant impact on my quality of life as a butcher.  Having agonized over this topic for years, it is my pleasure to spare you needless suffering by offering this precept.  It details my path to scary sharpness so that you can come too.  Good meat economy is impossible with dull cutlery.

This is a 19 page digital download.

This is an annotated list of the books that I found most useful and inspiring.  They taught me how to be a meatsmith and they will carry you down the same path if you let them.

This is a 5 page digital download.

This precept marks a huge departure from mainstream curing conventions in the US. It will equip you to make, store and eat bacon without nitrites, freezers or fear. There is nothing simpler and more essential to kitchen thrift. The principles conveyed here apply to prosciutto, guanciale, pancetta and lomo in their original glory.

This is a 16 page digital download.

For a long time we charged for a digital download for DVD of To Kill A Pig Nicely. We’ve recently made it FREE on YouTube to give you a taste of our Meatsmith Membership program content. WATCH THE WHOLE FILM BELOW OR ON OUR YouTube Channel. 

(Ships within the US only) This is a hat.  It is designed to shade the eyes from four threats: the sun, the rain, flying feathers and scalding water dripping from a hanging pig.

Our Meatsmithery patch hat is navy blue with ‘Farmstead Meatsmith’ stitched on the side in light blue. The red patch features the triumvirate of Meatsmith tools: a rifle, a cleaver, and a scary sharp knife.

It is made with a cotton front and a poly/nylon mesh back.  This means that it is light-weight.  Consequently, it is not necessary to cinch it around your mazard with a tie-down to prevent it from flying off while you swiftly harvest your pig.  It therefore epitomizes the elusive ideal by which all clothing designed to adorn the human form is judged: the simultaneous achievement of comfort and security.  The visor has been slightly pre-curved. The size is one-size-fits-most and has an adjustable snapback.  It is a medium rise hat, somewhere between the lofty trucker and the snug skull-hugger.

Price includes shipping to anywhere in the (lower 48) United States. Domestic orders only, please. If ordering from outside the US, email us for shipping costs at community@farmsteadmeatsmith.com.