On the morning of Introduction day, we will start with a theory lesson that goes deep on the necessary conditions a pig carcass must be to make charcutería with it. We will talk about the legendary local Ibérico pig; and how the Spanish charcutería industry works. The instructor will demonstrate how to butcher the first half carcass, and then we will go hands-on and work together on the rest of the other half. We will then stop for a quick lunch, during which we will conduct a professional tasting of three Spanish charcutería products. After the lunch break, we will resume activities, finishing the butchering and starting to make our first whole muscle products. After the lesson ends, we will have a short break, followed by dinner prepared by our chefs.

On the morning of our second hands-on day, we will perform maintenance on our whole muscle products that were salted the day before. We follow selecting meat for the different kinds of fermented ground meat charcutería we will be making and starting the meat mixtures. We will pause for lunch, after which we will resume activities by mixing the meat mixtures. After the lesson ends, we will have a short break, followed by dinner prepared by our chefs.

We start the morning of our third hands-on day performing maintenance to our whole muscle products that were salted two days ago. Then we will stuff the ground meat mixes into casings. We will pause for lunch, after which we will resume activities by mixing and casing our fresh sausage mixtures. After the lesson ends, we will have a short break, followed by dinner prepared by our chefs.

On the morning of our fifth day, we perform maintenance on our whole muscle products; some will be put into casings, tied, and hung to dry. We follow by processing all meats destined for cooking. We will pause for lunch, after which we will resume activities by finishing the remaining products. After the lesson ends, we will have a short break, followed by dinner prepared by our chefs.

On our last day at the lab, we will finish processing any whole muscle charcutería that hasn’t been hung to dry yet. We will do a thorough review of all equipment necessary for charcutería production and talk about HACCP planning for an artisan producing facility. After lunch we will go through everything related to aging cellar setup and maintenance. We will also go through how planning should be set for a healthy business. We will also have our last Q&A session. At night we all go out to dinner at a local venue where we will celebrate the closure of a fantastic week we’ve spent learning together. Just before dinner, we will honor our students with the ACS course awards, after which we will give out the course certificates.

After having breakfast at the hotel, you can relax and enjoy the local amenities until our transport takes you to the Alicante–Elche Miguel Hernández Airport, IATA: ALC or Alicante Terminal (Alacant Terminal or RENFE train station). For those with late departures, we offer a complimentary light lunch.