Burgers, Beers and Butchery

In this brave, new world where experiences trump material gifts, we decided to surprise Leigh and Steve Brown with a night out at a Canberra café – Two before Ten in Aranda. They had a master butcher demonstrate (very hands on) how to butcher a goat (and by extension any other ‘front wheel drive’ animal). The initial offer was for the workshop, with burgers and beers. Kind of a perfect lads night out, and I was expecting that we would get a beer with our burger.

I thought I might get in a bit of pre-reading prior to the workshop. Jane called me a nerd!!

Leigh and I arrived last (in the middle of a thunderstorm), as the session was about to get underway. The team brought out beers for everybody, which was a bloody good start to the night. The beer was good too – Capital Brewing “Evil Red IPA” for me! The butcher demonstrated on a sheep, and we all had goats to work on in pairs. These had been recently shot, and hadn’t had time to set. This made working on them a bit tricky, but was a great option to keep costs down.

Having grown up spending a lot of energy splitting carcases through the spine, I was amazed to see David (our friendly knife wizard) split the carcase laterally into three – the fore and hind quarters, and the saddle. So easy! By way of future reference, he taught us to feel back five ribs from the front of the chest cavity, and cut from there to separate out the forequarter. This will cut through just behind the scapula, and is a pretty easy cut. Similarly, by feeling the top of the spine from the tail forward you will feel the top of the pelvic bone – the Iliac Crest. Cutting through there is very simple and leaves three very neat pieces. Separating the shoulders from the forequarter is simple, and leaves plenty of meat on ribs for stewing chops, and also the neck rosettes. In the saddle, he didn’t bother parting out a lamb rack, but instead cut out the fillet and backstrap separately. This left plenty of options, particularly for racks of ribs. Taking the hind legs off too was relatively simple. Starting with the tail, and cutting back through the feather bones, you will release the full leg complete with chump/rump. This is easy enough to slice off. Bloody good night, and really quite simple.

The boys and the aftermath... I wasn't aware the photo shoot was supposed to be so serious!

After we had finished our cuts, and had a couple of beers it was off to the other end of the space for steak sandwiches, more beers and some quality banter. It was an excellent demonstration of an experience led learning opportunity, and I think we will take something from that for the farm in the future. It was also amazing that there was only one or two degrees of separation across the entire group – I guess that like-minded people are attracted to similar opportunities!

They are going to run a sausage making event in another couple of weeks in a similar format. I reckon that might be a good night for an Uber!