February 24, 2015
Former policeman carves out new career as butcher
Bob Ellis/staff photographer
Pat Manns, of Manns Custom Meats on Maxfield Road in Homer, works in his store last week.
HOMER — Former police officer Pat Manns knew he wanted to open his own butcher shop even before he retired from the Syracuse Police Department last May, and started Manns Custom Meats at 2081 Maxfield Road in the town of Homer.
“I’ve always enjoyed cutting meat — I don’t know why,” Manns said Thursday. “I think most butchers will tell you it’s almost a sickness.”
Manns said when he was growing up, he became fast friends with Homer Town Supervisor Fred Forbes’ children, and he was doing a job for Forbes when he first became interested in learning how to cut meat.
“I’ve always cut my own deer as long as I’ve lived here,” Manns said, “and just through happenstance I was delivering some cows to a butcher for Fred (Forbes) and became very intrigued with the business.”
Forbes said this morning that Manns was good friends with his oldest son, Frederick J. “Jay” Forbes Jr., as they attended Faith Heritage School in Syracuse, and Manns spent a lot of time on the Forbes family farm.
“When he was a kid, he tried to be on he farm every day,” Forbes said. “He was like a son to me.”
Once Manns learned how to prepare meat like a butcher and decided for sure he wanted to open a place of his own, it took six months for him and his brother Mike to construct the shop. It is a 2,000-square-foot shop on his property where he slaughters and processes beef and pork.
But Manns still had to learn how to prepare and smoke custom and specialty meat products, which led him to a specialty company: UltraSource, LLC, in Kansas City, Missouri.
In addition to making products for the pharmaceutical and medical industries, the company makes meat-processing equipment and supplies. UltraSource also hosts a four-day seminar called the UltraSource Academy where it trains people on how to use equipment like smokers and gives them tips on how to prepare meats.
“I actually went before we started building,” Manns said. “What they teach at the school is all kinds of meat handling and processes. So I went out there and learned the tricks of the trade and came home and started applying it here.”
His shop has various wrapping and processing equipment stationed along its perimeter. In the center of the main room is a cutting table, a meat hook and access to the large walk-in coolers.
Beyond the coolers is where Manns keeps the smokehouse, the customized machine that smokes the meat. On this day, it was filled with pork bellies — destined to become smokedbacon — just starting to brown.
“The brown color on the fat is actually the smoke sticking to the meat,” Manns said. “People are under the impression the smoke actually permeates the meat but it doesn’t — it can’t. The tackiness of the surface dictates how much of the smoke can stick to it, and that’s where you get your smoked flavor.”
Years ago, before smoking, butchers used brine baths, where meat is injected with salt water and placed in a vat and the meat stirred periodically. But Manns uses vacuum tumblers, machines that draw the brine into the meat and rotates it as air is forced out of the canister. This allows Manns to achieve the same results in a fraction of the time, he said.
“It had to be there for a week of salting and then you’d never know when it was going to be cooked,” Manns said.
“He got into business at the right time,” Forbes said. “He tied up a lot of the smoking business in Central New York.”
Manns said starting his own butcher shop was challenging at first, but thanks to his wife, Holly, and their four children, the business is running smoothly. Working with them is an added benefit when it comes to doing what he likes, he said.
“It does come with it’s own challenges but it is nice,” Manns said. “I don’t know why I like it so much, but I look forward to it every day.”
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