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Hot take: I used to think breaking down a whole hog was a 3 hour job minimum
For years in my shop, we'd take our time, maybe 3 to 4 hours per animal, being super careful with every cut. Then I visited a buddy's operation in Kansas City last fall and watched his crew do one in under 90 minutes. The speed didn't ruin the meat quality at all. I came back, changed our workflow, and now we're consistently at about 75 minutes. It's all about the order of operations and trusting your knife skills. Anyone else make a big shift like this that went against the old-school 'slow is better' rule?
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joseph_hart21d ago
My old head chef swore a full breakdown was a four hour sacred ritual. I bought into that for a decade. Seeing a crew in Texas do three in a morning changed everything for me. It wasn't about being sloppy, it was about not being precious with every single motion. You realize half the time was just moving the meat from one table to another.
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