Pork Loin (1) - Equipment and Prepping

We went to Sam's Club a couple of days ago and you know I always have to check out the meat counter for a good deal.  This year the deals have been very much pork related.  I can't remember a year where we have eaten so much pork and that's with us buying a pig on the hoof!  I spotted a pork loin and while it was not the rock bottom prices we have been paying I bought it anyways.  Over the next few posts I will chronicle what I did with this pork loin in series with the posts numbered as (X).  This is the first of the series.

The pork loin came in at 8.57 lb for $1.77 per lb for a total of $15.17.  I gathered the equipment needed for putting up this pork loin (1).  Equipment included kitchen scales, curing salt, sugar, KitchenAid stand mixer, FoodSaver vacuum sealer, vacuum sealer bags and miscellaneous equipment.   I slit one end of the package to drain out any liquid/blood (2).  I use a 50% ethanol solution (3) to clean up any splatters or liquid spills.  This solution immediately denatures any biological components that could contaminate other foods and surfaces in the kitchen.  Once the meat was drained, I placed in on a large cutting board.  Note that there is a thick end and narrow end to the pork loin (4).  This helps determine what the pork loin will be used for if not cooking whole.
 

I had fairly definite plans as to what I wanted to use the pork loin for.  I cut the pork loin into 3 sections - tip, middle and butt end.  I planned on using the tip for ground pork, the middle for peameal bacon and the largest portion for for boneless pork chops.  When cut this way it would result in 9 meals for 2 plus left-overs at cost of $1.68 for the meat for 2.  Left-overs of course would increase the number of meals per pork loin so over all I felt this was a good deal.

I decided to break what I did with the pork loin into 4 posts.  Watch for pork loin (2) the post following thing week's Frugal Kitchens 101.  The topic will be a recap of making peameal bacon.