How to Butcher a Chicken | The Bearded Butchers!

On today's video, we're going to butcher up a whole chicken. Buy the best possible chicken you can afford because it's a lot more economical to cut a whole chicken vs buying all of the separate cuts of chicken. Bearded Butcher Scott Perkins is going to show you how to cut up a whole chicken and how to vacuum pack and preserve an entire chicken. We'll show you how to cut the chicken wings, chicken breast, and chicken thighs.

9:45 - Scott's hot tip 👨‍🦰. How to vacuum pack a chicken carcass and keep your vacuum bag from breaking.

11:18 - Try to stay with him but you're getting a bonus hot tip! Be sure to label everything BEFORE vacuum sealing anything. It's just about impossible to write on the bags after you sealed them.

Here's some gear from the video (MEAT cutlery may not be available)

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Index:
0:48 - Turn the whole chicken over and remove both of the chicken wings. Don't cut the breast.
1:19 - Make a small incision, then break both chicken thighs. Remove the thighs.
2:56 - Follow the inside of the fat line to carve the chicken breast the entire way around the chicken. You'll be able to remove the entire bone-in portion of the chicken and be left with 2, nice, boneless, skin on chicken breasts.
5:04 - On the drumstick side of the fat line, cut the bone in chicken thigh from the chicken drumstick.
5:32 - To make chicken wings, cut along the inner joint for Buffalo Wings.
5:55 - Use the chicken carcass to make chicken stock (broth)
6:42 - How to vacuum pack a whole chicken.
8:14 - How to vacuum pack chicken wings.

[joshl]

Helpful tip on the vacuum bags: roll the top of the bag down a few inches down before filling, that way your sealing surface doesn’t need to be cleaned or dried and you achieve an optimal seal

[amythinks]

I've watched a lot of cooks/chefs breakdown chickens, but seeing a butcher do it is a different experience.

[Grimthings]

I raise meat birds and always love to see good detailed videos of how the pros do it. Thanks!

[guylelanglois]

Been cutting up my own birds every year as long as I can remember. Raise about a hundred every year and the whole family shows up for the day. A few nice tips Scott. Thanks

[MichaelLloyd]

I don't remember when my mom stopped buying whole chickens (we use to raise them before she started buying them) and butchering them herself. It was probably around the early 70's. Back then I didn't pay attention to what she did in the kitchen and that's my loss. I tried to correct that later in life but we ran out of time. I'd rather butcher myself than buy parts. My brother-in-law pointed out that the "reason" for selling chicken parts is that sometimes a commercial chicken will have damage (infection, bruise, whatever) and it can't be sold whole. I have no idea if that's true but I think it's plausible. I'm happy to see that that I'm not the only one that has "tested" the vacuum sealer lol

[KnightOfTears]

Love the videos. I see so many people struggle to cut up a chicken. The way you remove the breasts is very simple. Always a wealth of knowledge given with every video! Thank you!

[turbokid]

Just saw that you added a CANADIAN DISTRIBUTOR. Great job! Now i get to re-order my seasonings without paying 20$ shipping/tax and DUTY. Yay! Thank u!

[Christian-ripk]

You guys have the best butcher/fresh meat store I’ve ever seen.

[grguy]

I like the double bag trick. I also like all that woodwork on the ceiling of that room.

[thegourmetgalley]

I’ve been cutting chicken for a while for myself. Definitely learned some new things thanks Scott!

[browntownorganics]

I remember a many of Sundays growing up in the 80’s my dad would cut up a chicken for my mom to fry. Not many dads now a days can do that. Enjoyed the video!

[michaelquillen]

Good video! Takes me back to the early 60s (yes, I'm old) with my dad teaching me how to process/butcher ringneck pheasant, Hungarian partridge, sage grouse, and blue grouse, at the ripe young age of 10. I remember asking him how he learned to do this and he replied, "You forget boy, I was raised on a farm and we had chickens for eggs and eating." Thanks for the memories.

[l-wolverine]

Free MasterClass from these Bros.

Personally, I’d “kill” to have some hands on lessons with these Bros, and learn all the tricks to be a Master Butcher.

[azoutlaw]

Man that knife is amazing! Nice tip about seasoning before you sealnup the bag.The way I learned, this goes back at least 3 generations, to cut up a chicken is: wings, legs, thighs, but, you seperate the front (breast) from the actual back. Then you cut in the the back between the rib & 'hip' area leaving the oysters on the hip area. So two backs. On the breasts, you find the wishbone and carve it out while leaving a good amount of meat on it. So with this you have 10 pieces all ready to fry up. If you have the neck you would flour that up too and that makes 11.

[guppybill]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your willingness to share your knowledge. I turned some of my customers on to your "burnt ends" recipe today. God bless you all and multiply your return on your investment.

[MrPoseidon]

Your videos really got me into butchering and now I can process a whole beef on my own. Buying 6 pigs this summer and some meat birds as well. This video came at the perfect time!

[Houtka]

For absolute craftsmanship this is the channel to be!

[petenelson]

Thanks for doing chickens. I've been watching your channel for a couple of years now and love learning about how you do what you do. I just started raising chickens on our small 16 acre farm and butchered our first 10 just a week ago. We just started raising 55 chicks for butchering later this summer and your instruction on how to do this the right way really helped a lot. The first 10 were our practice run (old chickens we got from a man leaving for CA ... we live in IN. Oh, I also purchased a MEAT! chamber vacuum after seeing it on this video. I'd been looking at chamber vacuums and because of your endorsement I went with MEAT!. It worked flawlessly on the 10 birds we packaged up.

[thepunadude]

MID WEST MOM TAUGHT ME YRS AGO ... DO A CHICKEN IN 2.5 MINS! THX THO! LOVE YOUR STUFF!

[matty]

Enjoyed this video Bearded butchers. Not many people know hoe to butcher a chicken properly myself included, which is great to know especially when you buy in bulk and deep freeze like i do as im a country boy and live out in the wilds in a small town and our nearest decent butcher is hour n half away. So as you can imagine its a trip i do maybe once a month for beef, pork, chicken etc. especially with the cost of gas lately. Costs me a small fortune for a round trip to my butcher now which exactly why i buy as much as i can.