100% Pure Angus
STORY BY RICHARD CORNISH
PICTURES BY DANNY WOOTTON
Angus Beaumont was born into a meat family. His grandfather was a butcher, his uncle is a butcher and he has family in the meat business across the country. He is a local lad from Lauriston, between Daylesford and Kyneton, who has made a name for himself producing some of the best charcuterie and smallgoods in the country.
He is Manager of The Daylesford Meat Co., the butcher shop in Vincent Street that was until July 1 known as Spa Centre Meats. The beef and lamb for the shop comes from the owner’s farms Green Hills Natural both in the Macedon Ranges Shire. The freerange pork is sourced from one of the state’s best growers McIvor Farms at Tooborac. “We changed the name to reflect where we come from,” says Angus.
When we meet Angus the butcher’s is filled with the aroma of spice – mace and nutmeg.
This he will used in his Strasbourg sausage, a big fat terrine-like mix of pork and beef that is hot-smoked and incredibly delicious. Angus has a chef’s palate and has worked with some of the best restauranteurs in the state.
He first picked up a boning knife when he was still at high school when he started in the shop he now manages. He then went to Queensland to learn more from a family butchery and finished his apprenticeship back in Kyneton.
He has been a freelance butcher working with people such as Mick Nunn from Salt Smallgoods, Alla Wolf Tasker at The Lakehouse and Annie Smithers from Du Fermier in Trentham with whom he created her charcuterie range. He slices off a piece of ruby red sausage – it is smoked bull boar, redolent of spice, garlic and red wine – delicious. Angus’s bacon is just as good.
He takes free range pork belly and dry rubs it with a blend of salt, sugar, black pepper and coriander seed. “Most bacons are wet cured in brine and then smoked,” says Angus. “They take on a lot of water. Mine is dry cured and hot smoked. It makes really good crisp bacon.”
At present Angus is preparing for the Christmas rush on hams. He makes his own salt, sugar and spice brine and hot smokes the hams over red gum – a taste particular to Central Victoria. “If you want a Christmas ham, get your order in fast,” he says as he is only doing 80 this year. At present Angus recommends buying lamb as the new season’s flock have good condition from grazing on the flush of spring grass. “It is frickin’ sensational!”