Jason Quenga
2/5
I will give you all the good and bad and won't rant. But, to get to it... I won't use Perkinsville again. I was very disappointed. The GOOD: owners were friendly and very helpful booking our appointment, during drop off, pickup, payment and answering all our questions. They also let me pick up some meat earlier than the rest so we could host our anniversary BBQ. We tried 3 sausage mixes, the Breakfast, Chorizo and Mild Italian, all were good. Everything was wrapped and boxed nicely and overall it was an easy process. Unfortunately, the BAD: every cut ran through the bandsaw had bone dust on it. They didn't clean a single cut. There were several bone fragments in several cuts of the meat. Makes me wonder how much was in our sausage. The chops were hardly the 3/4" we asked for and really, they should be 1 1/4" options. I can cook chops, but thin chops are just hard to get right, I don't care who you are. And I actually measured, not a single on was 3/4", most were 1/2" and smaller. They also didn't clean up or cleaned up too much of the ribs. Several ribs were cut into with the band saw like someone didn't line it up correctly. Its very annoying to have sharply cut ribs. The worst of it, however, was the bacon. The first batch was good, but way too smoky. It was like eating a super rich chocolate cake. Good, but you can only eat so much of it. Our house also smelled like a firepit after cooking. Honestly pleasant on some days, but day after day, it starts to be an annoying smell. The real trouble came after the first batch. The next 2/3rds of our bacon was completely inedible. After talking with several farmers and butchers, without telling them what others said, most suggested it was boar taint. I've never tasted boar taint, but this bacon was terrible. We sent 3 gilts, so it shouldn't be a taint problem. The rest of our cuts were good, so they likely mixed up our bellies when they were curing/smoking them. I won't accuse them of that, but the bacon is absolutely disgusting. I'm telling you as soon as you start frying it up, the house smelled so bad you didn't want to be inside, and it tasted like it, too. We had to throw it out. The time, energy and money it takes to raise a pig, and to have to thrown out 2 of the 3 pigs' bacon! It was also cut so poorly that it was more like shredded bacon. They must've used the dullest slicer in the world. And let me add that because of this experience, we have now invested into our own butchering / processing equipment. We have made sausage that is better. We just smoked several bellies and the bacon we made is much better with a real "smoked" flavor and not the flavor of "smoke" -- if you can smoke, you know the difference. Bacon is extremely easy to make, so I can't understand what they did wrong to make it taste so awful. All 3 pigs were related and raised next to each other, and all the other meat was fine so far (we still have several hams left, hoping they don't taste terrible). We have a cheapo, mostly plastic slicer from Amazon, and we have perfect looking slices. Again, I cannot fathom why a professional shop did worse than us. So, overall, while the owners were very nice and accommodating, the end product was subpar and not what we are looking for. We are a farm and sell piglets and raise pigs out for others. We also intend to sell by the cut next year at the farmers market. Because we mostly sell locally, we wanted to be able to recommend and use a local processor. They are the only one able to do ADA inspected meat (for selling by the cut), but that is no longer an option. I cannot trust them to deliver the quality we need to satisfy our customers. I will also say that I have only heard negative reviews from locals. I want to support the most local butcher shop I can, but there's no way I'd put our farm name on the product that came out of here. If you choose to take your animals here, I would have them process it as little as possible and do the rest yourself. I buy beef processed here and it's good, but I won't take my own animals here.
