Beef in a Day
*Just 2 spots left in the May 2nd class*
Using your hands and antique cutlery, we will harvest two grass finished Dexters. 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.
The smaller-framed Dexter allows for a better meat-to-bone ratio. All the harvesting is identical to tall, heavy breeds. Go home equipped to repeat the harvest on your own with any beef you raise.
We created this 1-day course to better fit the working/farming schedule, but still send students home equipped to repeat the harvest indefinitely. This is not an impoverished version of the two-day Family Beef harvest class, but a concentration, like a rich demi glace.
This class is for the beginner and the experienced alike. You will have gained enough hands-on experience to artfully harvest cattle at home. The Dexter is small enough to fit in your backyard grazing regimen and your home kitchen. These Dexters have been fattening on grass alone, are artfully rotated on the cross timber prairie grasses of Oklahoma, and never fed grain.
The Family Pig I
*SPRING 2026 CLASS OPEN: APRIL 16th-18th*
The Family Pig I 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.
Meatsmith Bibliography
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.
Tools
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.
Stock
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.
Soap
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.
Pig Slaughter
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.
Journal
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.
Lard
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.
Meat Cookery
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.
Cutlery
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.
Bacon
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.
Meatsmithery Hat
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. (Ships within the US only)