How to Roast a Whole Pig

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Cape Brewing

DOH!!! Stupid brewing...
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... 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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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HOLY **** THIS IS AWESOME!

Can I be your friend Cape? :D I love the pig and would die a happy man to roast a whole pig someday...

Is that "little piggies" bbq sauce?
 
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.

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HOLY **** THIS IS AWESOME!

Can I be your friend Cape? :D 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.
 
I keep reloading to see if you have posted more pics. HURRY, this is awsome.!!!
 
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"...

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I then put little peices of tin foil over the air intake and chimney to control air flow... at all times, you just want a little smoke coming out. That'll mean the charcoal is lit but you don't want it really firing away... you want a little heat but not super hot.

Trust me... the rocks will do a lot of the cooking. You just want the charcoal to slowly add heat over the next 24 hours the pig is going to be in the ground.

Once the lid is on... you're pretty much done until the next day.

This year, we roasted a 135 lb pig and it went in the ground about 1:00 in the afternoon on Friday. I didn't take the lid off until we took it out of the ground on Saturday around 2:30 in the afternoon.

For that ENTIRE time, the charcoal I put in lasted. Like I was saying, if want to let just a little air in and the charcoal will stay lit and adding heat for 24 hours easily.
 
Then, when it's ready to come out at least 24 hours later, I have two 2x4's with two hooks on each that I hook into the chains to make a big pig stretcher and me an another guy just lift it out and onto a table.

(I'm the chubby balding guy... and hey... gimme a break, I had been drinking Belgians all day... more to come on that in a minute)

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Very possibly the coolest cooking thread ever.

There tends to be a trend around here, the bigger, the meatier, the better.
This wins hands down. Unless someone want to roast a bear or an elephant in a built in permanent ground pit.
 
I then cut open the big packge with a pair of wire snips and the whole pig falls apart...

I take some huge chunks of meat and place 'em in big tin trays, shred it all up and add a little brown sugar and bbq sauce for pulled pork sandwiches. We do corn bread, corn on the cob, pasta salad, baked beans, etc etc etc...

The pig roast veterans don't screw around with pulled pork... we just take meat right off the pig and dip it in a little BBQ and feast away.

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Trust me...I've had pigs that were cooked on spits, I've had pigs that were smoked... and anyone who's been to my cookouts say this is the best pig they've ever had and I agree. I'm not trying to give myself credit... I'm just saying this method is TREMENDOUS.

Plus.. it's a long story and it DID NOT cost me any where near what it looks like it costs but check out the beers we had on tap...

Three Belgians... from Belgian... 1/4s of Wittekerke, Piraat and Pommerings Hommel...
Then we had a 1/2 kegs of Legacy Brewing's Euphoria Ale and then a 1/6th of Sam Lager and a 1/6th of Blue Moon...

I then had five of my beers on tap at The Cape (the Irish pub in my basement... pics in my gallery)

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Thanks... it's a great time. Every March our friends start asking, making sure we're going to do it again for that year.

Hey... Toss a guys some Prosts!!!! The damn thread took me forever!!! Maybe I'll win a HBT sticker!!! LOL.
 
Wow.. you guys really know how to throw down; looks like a fun time for everybody.
 
This method of BBQing is by far the oldest in the americas, originating in the 1500s when the Spanish brought over pigs. The Indians, in turn, introduced the Spanish to the concept of slow-cooking with smoke.

For several reasons, the pig became an omnipresent food staple in the South. Pigs were a low-maintenance and convenient food source for Southerners. In the pre-Civil War period, Southerners ate, on average, five pounds of pork for every one pound of beef. Pigs could be put out to root in the forest and caught when food supply became low. In fact now in some places they're considered a pest and can be shot on site, no permit or limit required. Pig slaughtering became a time for celebration, and the neighborhood would be invited to share in the largesse. The traditional Southern barbecue grew out of these gatherings.

Scottish families who settled primarily in the South Carolina low country were the first and most famous South Carolina preparers of Vinegar and Pepper sauces, the original barbecue sauce.

And now I'm frickin starving! So when're you going to put a cow in the pit?
 
In the pre-Civil War period, Southerners ate, on average, five pounds of pork for every one pound of beef. Pigs could be put out to root in the forest and caught when food supply became low.

It was not uncommon for families to have hundreds of pigs just running around in the woods, free ranging so to speak. One thing I want to do is get some pigs, but I have to build a fence first.

Kudos on the pig thread. :D
 
Hmmm... Mapquest says from Adams to Norton is, oh... just about three hours.

When's the next roast? ;)

It's always the second weekend in July... except for this year, it was the third... it was easier for a couple of reasons.

Hey.. .like I was saying, just bring good beer and I'll send directions!

I think the only thing I'm going to add to the process next year is an in-pit temperature probe so I can monitor the temp out of curiousity. I probably won't change anything though since it's been perfect the last two years in a row.
 
That looks like a great bbq and and awesome party. I havn't seen many bars with a beer selection that good.

I am definitely jealous. :)


Now who's going to roast the steer? Thats the only chance anyone has of topping this one.

Craig
 
That looks like a great bbq and and awesome party. I havn't seen many bars with a beer selection that good.

I am definitely jealous. :)


Now who's going to roast the steer? Thats the only chance anyone has of topping this one.

Craig

I've thought about doing a side of beef... basically half a cow... the problem is I don't think it would be fatty enough and I don't know if the skin would seal it all up like a pig.

When I put the pig in, I put it feet/belly up so all of the fat, as it melts, basically bastes the meat and the skin seals it all in. That's why the meat comes out so incredibly tender and moist. It's basically steaming in pig-fat. I don't think beef would do that and I think it might dry out.

Last year I added a little bit of fancy-pants to the thing and stuffed the pig's chest with five or six ducks. That didn't suck. I didn't feel like it this year and believe me, we didn't suffer.
 
I hope to try this someday on a smaller scale.
I think I make build one on the plot for joints.

How much does a full pig cost?

I've always paid about $1.25-$1.50 per pound so obviously it depends on how big. This year, for some reason the price went through the roof and was about $2.40 per pound... so... the 135 lb pig in the pictures ran me about$350. It's still not too bad though if you think about it. That 135 lb pig fed about 75 people no problem.

I always go to this meat packing wholesaler up in Boston... next year, I'm just going to find a pig farm and hope it's cheaper.
 
I then had five of my beers on tap at The Cape (the Irish pub in my basement... pics in my gallery)

Dude.. That basement pub is probably one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. You are definitely my hero! I want to do something just like that! COME ON LOTTERY!! :)
 
Dude.. That basement pub is probably one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. You are definitely my hero! I want to do something just like that! COME ON LOTTERY!! :)

thanks... I did 100% of the work myself. That basement was bare concrete when I started and over the course of an entire year, I did the framing, electrical, plumbing (added a bathroom down there and a sink behind the bar), all of the bar finish work, floor, ceiling, etc etc.

There's NO CHANCE I could afford to pay someone to do it but since I did it myself, I was able to swing it. It's fun. I've gotta get some better pics up.

I'm working on my all-grain rig now (who isn't?) and once that's done, I was going to do a "from grain to my glass" thread showing the rig, process and then into the walk-in cooler I built, the insulated lines that carry the beer behind a wall, under the bar and up to the tap box.

needless to say I have one of the coolest wives ever born.
 
We'd happy to bring beer! That looks like a LOT of fun...

I have heard of a pig farm in Charlton, MA where you can pick out your own pig... i don't know exactly where though.
 
Damn, I bet if the wind is just right I can smell that cooking from home. Thanks for sharing. I bet your pit would work awesome for one of those New England clam bakes too. Thanks for sharing.
 
This year, for some reason the price went through the roof and was about $2.40 per pound...

Feed cost has almost doubled this past year :(. This is the reason why I am leaning towards free ranging as much of my animals as possible now and in the future.
 
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