Took me 3 hours to break down one primal pork shoulder yesterday

Honestly, I thought I'd get through a whole case of bone-in pork butts in two hours tops. But this one shoulder had some weird connective tissue near the blade bone that I just couldn't find the seam on. I kept scoring and poking around, wasted like 45 minutes on that single joint. Then my knife started dragging and I realized I hadn't touched my steel in like 15 cuts, so I had to stop and fix that too. Any of you guys run into a cut that just fought back way harder than it should have?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas1651mo ago

Man you ever have a cut just make you feel like you forgot how to do your job? I used to think pork shoulders were almost too easy, like the training wheels of butchery. But I had this one Duroc shoulder last spring that had this weird almost cartilaginous lump buried in the money muscle, not near the blade bone at all. I kept digging at it thinking it was a bad seam and I ended up mangling the whole thing into shreds instead of nice steaks. Really made me respect how much variety there is in even the same primal cut.

tyler3681mo ago

@lucas165 I get that completely. Had a similar thing happen with a boneless pork butt awhile back, started digging into what I thought was a normal seam and ended up with more pulled pork than I was aiming for. What worked for me was slowing way down and using my fingers more than the knife to feel for those hidden weird spots before cutting blind. Now I treat every shoulder like it's my first time, even if I've done a hundred of them. Just helps to remember that pigs aren't all built the same no matter how easy the cut looks on paper.