6 BULLETIN 1086, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
After the carcasses had been thoroughly chilled and classified they 
were transferred to the cutting room, where they were cut into the 
various wholesale cuts. The primal parts used in the tests consisted 
of regular hams, skinned hams, shoulders, and sides (bellies) . Each 
group was cured and handled separately, but the oily, soft, and 
firm meat of each test was taken through the various processes at 
the same time and cured and handled in the same manner. 
The various cuts used were placed in hand trucks of known weight, 
weighed, taken to the pumping table, where they were pumped with 
a curing solution, returned to another weighed truck, and the meat 
and truck weighed again. The gain in weight resulting from the 
pumping process was thus obtained. After the meat had been 
pumped and weighed it was placed in vats containing a curing solu- 
tion of equal strength and similar composition and allowed to remain 
from 30 to 60 days, depending upon the size of the cut. For example, 
hams remained in the curing solution from 55 to 60 days, while small 
bellies (bacon) and picnics (shoulders) remained in cure only 30 days. 
During the curing process the meat was overhauled several times, and 
each time the weights were taken by the man in charge of the tests. 
At the close of the curing period the meat was taken from the vats, 
put into weighed trucks, allowed to drain, and then hung on weighed 
iron racks (called trees) ready to be smoked. The empty trucks 
were again weighed in order to obtain the weight of drained meat 
out of cure and the initial weight of meat in smoke. 
The meat was smoked from 19 to 35 hours, depending upon the 
size of the cut and the customs of the packing plant in which it was 
smoked. Weights were again taken 6 hours after the meat was taken 
out of smoke. The weight was used in calculating the loss in smoke. 
The meat was then allowed to remain on the trees in the room adjoin- 
ing the smoke room, where the temperature was about 80° F. During 
this retaining period the meat was weighed after 24 hours and at the 
end of 6, 11, and 19 days in the Fort Worth tests, and at the end of 
6, 12, and 21 days in the East St. Louis tests. 
The meat was retained 19 days at Fort Worth and 21 days at East 
St. Louis, after being smoked, in order to determine the shrinkage 
that occurs following this process. The packers usually do not hold 
meat longer than 5 days after it is taken out of smoke. However, 
it passes through branch, wholesale, and retail houses before it reaches 
the consumer. This requires some time and shrinkage continues until 
it is consumed. It was desired, therefore, to hold the meat in these 
tests for a period approximating the time usually required for it to 
pass through the wholesale house and retail stores to the consumer. 
It is believed, therefore, that the shrinkage shown herewith represents 
practically all the loss incurred on such cuts by those handling the 
hogs and the resultant meat from the stockyards to the consumer. 
