How to Roast a Whole Pig

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:08 AM

... first you get a pig...

Everyone is always posting all sorts of great how-to-do-stuff threads and I figured I would try to add one.

Every year my wife and I have a big pig roast with a bunch of friends, family and this year we added a bunch of folks from my brew club. This was the eighth year we've done it and with that many years of trial and error, the last two years the pig has come out absolutely ridiculously good. The meat is amazingly moist, tender and falls right off the bones.

It'll probably take a few posts but I'll give it a shot...

The first thing I did was create what is now a permanent "pig pit" in the yard. It's about a six feet long, four feet wide and about three-three and half feet deep and was completely lined, sides and bottom with red brick. Along one corner, I bricked in a small piece of tin stove pipe duct to act as an air intake. The bricks around the bottom of the duct are arranged all crooked to let in air.

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:12 AM

After I built the pit and am ready to get cooking, I place a number of good size, very heavy, rocks along the bottom and up some of the sides...

Once the rocks are in, I have a bon-fire in it for two or three hours... you want the rocks to get nice an white hot.

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:14 AM

Once the pit is starting to get nice and hot, you get your pig and lay it out at the end of a rolled out roll of burlap (avail at Home Depot etc). I always soak the burlap a couple of times in clean water to rinse all of the oils out of it.

One note here... you want to take the head off the pig. Trust me. You don't want to leave he head on. Without being too graphic, just think of it this way, when the pig cooks, the skin shrinks a bit... it's not pretty. Plus cooking pig brains do NOT smell good.

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:18 AM

Then what I do is fold the legs up over it's belly and roll it up in the burlap as tight as I can into a "burlap wrapped pig package"...

I then slather the entire thing with bbq sauce... it can be any kind. It's simply a little tiny bit of flavor and helps seal it all in (at least that's what I tell myself)

Alamo_Beer · 07-30-2008, 02:22 AM

HOLY SH!T THIS IS AWESOME!

Can I be your friend Cape?

I love the pig and would die a happy man to roast a whole pig someday...

Is that "little piggies" bbq sauce?

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:23 AM

Next I roll out a roll of chicken wire and cover one end with about a dozen heads of cabbage and lettuce.. It's a variation of the Hawaiian luau and since I don't have a banana leaves, I go with cabbage and lettuce that I've soaked in a tub of water for a little while...

Then I roll my "burlap wrapped pig package" up in that. At the end I'll have a chicken wire, lettuce/cabbage and burlap wrapped pig package.

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alamo_Beer

HOLY SH!T THIS IS AWESOME!

Can I be your friend Cape?

I love the pig and would die a happy man to roast a whole pig someday...

Is that "little piggies" bbq sauce?

As long as you bring good beer... Wait.. this threads going to get better and better...

and this looks like a ton of work... it's NOT.

Arneba28 · 07-30-2008, 02:25 AM

I keep reloading to see if you have posted more pics. HURRY, this is awsome.!!!

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:25 AM

I then attach four chains to the chicken wire by caribiners (sp?)... and drop it's azz in the pit...

**Cape Brewing** · 07-30-2008, 02:30 AM

Before covering the pit, I add one big bag of hard wood lump charcoal... it's not briquets... it's real wood... you'll be able to find it. DON'T use briquets (sp?)... you'll get a chemical taste.

Before the charcoal really starts to light, I toss a lid on the whole pit...

The lid is a sheet of 4x8 plywood that is then framed with simple 2x4s ont he bottom into a 6x4 square (the size of the pit) and then lined with sheets of sheet metal (again... all avail at Home Depot or some other equiv)

I also added another small piece of duct pipe as a "chimney"...