I'm supposed to spit-roast a sheep this week. Suggestions?

tl;dr: Roasting/grilling a sheep on Saturday. Help!

A bunch of the families from my kindergarten loved my turkey, so now they think I'm some kind of roast meat expert. They've decided to have a big barbecue and party this weekend at a farm/outdoors rec area that's loosely associated with our school. They're borrowing the oil drum spit-roaster from the school and having a sheep slaughtered (yeah, they go all-out!) and I'm supposed to be in charge of cooking it.

You can see most of the roaster from the photos in the other post; the other things to note are that there is a perforated grating about 20-25 cm from the bottom and a little door on the side so the coals could be kept in the bottom of the roaster or on top of the grating (as we've done with the two turkeys we've roasted on the thing), and the spit can be shifted between the upper lip of the roaster (above the cutouts) and down about a foot lower. There is no cover and I'm not sure what I would use to jury-rig one. The spit itself has three flat pieces of stainless sticking out from both sides in a single plane like wings, which are theoretically supposed to provide support so the turkey can turn while being cooked. We'll also have a couple small Chinese style barbecue grills, but they're pretty useless unless you're skewering small pieces of meat, since they're narrow, long, and uncovered.

A typical "roast whole sheep" that these guys are thinking of is cut open, splayed out, sandwiched in a huge grilling basket or wired to a big winged spit, and constantly turned over a big pile of coals for several hours.

I've been told that I'm basically free to cook what I can, how I can, but with how many people are going to be there I think they're hoping to eat the whole damn sheep in one day. While I feel like I've done well the last couple years with the turkeys - brined and then foil wrapped for several hours and then finished with the foil off for the last twenty minutes or so for crisping - I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with a sheep. It's too big for our oil drum roaster unless I were to stuff it in the drum and put the coals in the lower compartment. I'm sure we can spit roast part of it, but not the whole thing.

We'll also have access to pots and woks and some burners, so I'm sure people will be using some of the meat for that and skewered barbecue, but I'll still be responsible for cooking a large portion of an entire freshly-killed sheep. Anyone have any ideas or advice?

My only similar experience is roasting whole hogs, but we never put them on a rotisserie.

One thing I do remember was banking the coals more under the thicker sections of the animal, the legs primarily. These areas will cook more slowly and I think you can see that in the pic you linked to. The coals are piled thicker at the ends.

I'm afraid I can't help with cooking times. Good luck, it sounds delicious!

If you'll be using the same spit roaster you used for the turkey, it looks like it will be too small to do a whole lamb. You could easily do a leg or maybe even 2 legs at once, but I think that's the max that setup can handle. Also, spit-roasting a whole lamb takes some time, think in the range of 5-8 hrs, depending on style & equipment. I've never done a whole lamb, but I've helped with cabrito (young goat), we used a style similar to this:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krqz35t8hLk[/ame]
Also, there are plenty of videos of people prepping & spit-roasting whole lamb on youtube, some are better than others, just search using the terms spit roasting whole lamb.

Some roast the lamb directly over the coals, others use the indirect method by placing the spitted lamb to one side of the fire & using a metal reflector to redirect the heat toward the lamb. Less chance of burning with the indirect method, no flareups from dripping fat. You might want to brine the meat before roasting too. Hope this helps.
Regards, GF.

The roasters you displayed will not accommodate the animal you plan to roast.

The method displayed above is probably your best bet. Very tricky method of cooking and requires more attention to heat and fire control than you would be lead to believe.

You might also consider cooking it in a pit.
A bit more work digging the pit but it is more of an oven.
You can also toss in some onions, potatoes, hard squashes and the like to cook along with your sheep. Once the pit is dug and the coals are ready, it's pretty simple.
You can find plenty of ideas and help on-line for that method.

Good Luck!

When I was a kid my family used to roast a lamb over a spit for holidays. Just like roasting it in the oven, they would make slits in the meat all over to but garlic cloves in the meat and rub the meat down with salt (in the oven we also rub it down with paprika but that might get bitter over an open flame). I do remember it being an all day event. I was a kid so I don't recall how far from the flame the lamb was or many of the specifics, but I've always loved lamb!

Also that was lamb, there's a big difference between a nice young lamb and an older sheep.

Let us know how it turns out, I've been wanting to do this for a holiday some time.

I don't have much to add, I only roast relatively small sized meats. My usual method is slow and covered.

Just be aware of the time it takes to roast a whole animal.

At an event a few months ago, one of the clubs roasted a small pig. Outdoors, in an open, uncovered pit they used stones and embers transferred from a fire next to it as a heat source, so there were no flames touching the meat. I could hold my hand right under the pig without it even feeling hot, that's not good! Even after 24 hours it was still undercooked, I only had a sliver of it. I don't think they really knew what they were doing, or the scale of the production.

Experience is important, so is common sense. Roasting a whole lamb is very different from a turkey!

Spit roasted lamb to my peeps is like potatoes to Irishmen.

Biggest tips:

Do not split carcass

15% of table salt by weight. IE, if lamb has 10kg before putting on spit, that's 150 grams of salt. Rub it ALL everywhere and inside of carcass. Make a deep cut in thighs all the was to the bone (otherwise they will never cook) and rub salt inside until you think it is too much, and then a pinch more.

Cut off shanks otherwise they'll burn cuz too close to fire.

We usually go with 5cm in diameter wooden huge spit. Put it through butt end and get it through mouth. The biggest thing to watch out here is to put some wire through spine and through inside of the belly to attach it to spit, otherwise you might be in a risk of the spit rotating and lamb just standing still.

Here's a video with some more info, but it's not in english. Nevertheless you'll see everything
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xvOSbZUfs[/ame]

I'm still processing all of this and haven't yet been able to watch the videos through, but this is all excellent stuff. The thoughts about the oil drum pretty much matched what I was thinking in terms of its limitations. The first couple minutes of the video in gf's post looks very promising; not sure if we'll have an axe or a machete or a saw that's capable of cutting through bone like they do, but I think we could probably rig up that kind of setup with the materials at hand. It's supposed to be an all-day thing so we have time to cook the animal.

Well, you could always just cut the carcass into pieces that will fit the equipment you have on hand; not quite as impressive as spit-roasting the entire animal, but maybe easier to manage and a tasty meal enjoyed by all is really the end goal. You might need a few helpers if you have several grilling/roasting setups going at once though. It's just a thought. I hope you decide to roast the whole carcass though, no matter what, you should post pics, I'm curious to see how it turns out.
Regards, GF.

I introduce you guys to the Pit Boys. Awesome trio.

https://www.youtube.com/show/bbqpitboys

These guys cook up everything from outside on the grill. They look like they took a wrong turn from a bike club somewhere, but man can they cook.

You better have something good to ear laying around the house because after watching a few of the videos, you'll be starting to death.

KT

It happened, and I actually have pics!

Yáng ròu in Chinese can be sheep, lamb, or goat. Turns out this was goat (as is probably the majority of the yáng ròu we eat here unless it's imported). I'd never really considered it until I had to cook an entire one. Some of the other folks at the barbecue wanted to do barbecue skewers and a soup with some of the meat, so a lot of the thigh meat was cut before or during cooking - probably good because I didn't do a great job selecting the wood for the spit so it would have had a hard time holding that much meat and the angle over the fire would have made it hard to cook those thick parts anyway.

I basically followed the Hunter Gatherer Cook method from the video GF embedded, with a bit more baling wire as the carcass had already been split along the spine by the time we got there so we had to wire it back together on the spit. The fire was a bit hotter than intended much of the time because I couldn't get others (including my wife) to stop fiddling with it and adding wood, so we ended up eating most of the meat after about 3.5 hours of cooking rather than 5-6 - it still tasted good and fit their expectations for roast goat so it worked out that way.

Pics attached. Since I'm not linking them from another source, I'm not sure how to caption them one by one, so here goes:

1 - Wired up and over the fire.
2 - From the top - should have cut some slits at the beginning but I didn't think it would be necessary at this point.
3 - The lucky ones - for now.
4 - THE GOATMAN! Now with 100% more slits!
5 - Just eating boiled brains out of a goat skull. You know, Saturday.
6 - Late in the carnage.
7 - Wouldn't be a barbecue without a poorly-devised bonfire.

I would only give ba-a-a-a-d advice.

I wonder if the poor goats over there are looking for Cousin Billy? lol

The pic of the bonfire cracked me up!

I imagine that becoming some kind of redneck game where they all sit in a circle around the fire and see which one of them gets crushed when the log falls over.

I'm happy to hear it went well. Now you're the BBQ guy from here out.

Rhumbline said:

The pic of the bonfire cracked me up!

I imagine that becoming some kind of redneck game where they all sit in a circle around the fire and see which one of them gets crushed when the log falls over.

I'm happy to hear it went well. Now you're the BBQ guy from here out.

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The log was still quite green and dug in about a foot before they started the bonfire. We all thought the guy who did it was crazy but when we left about an hour and a half after it started, the log had burned very little (in spite of the wood around it burning alright the whole time) and showed no signs of coming down. I don't know if they doused it when we left or if the farmer who lives on the property let it keep going. Might find out this coming Saturday as I'll be back there again for a barbecue at the end of our school Christmas/New Year's function.

I would happily be the barbecue guy if other people are fronting the meat and most of the stomach space! I'll stagger my way toward competence one carcass at a time.

FatDragon, that is pure AWESOMENESS! Quite a tasty looking goat! I love the hooves & all approach! You realize that you are now the de facto BBQ expert & will be asked to take charge at similar functions in the future. WELL DONE!
Regards, GF.

gratus fermentatio said:

FatDragon, that is pure AWESOMENESS! Quite a tasty looking goat! I love the hooves & all approach! You realize that you are now the de facto BBQ expert & will be asked to take charge at similar functions in the future. WELL DONE!
Regards, GF.

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I'll be happy to be the expert. Actually, I'm wondering if I can do the same thing at the annual family camping trip this summer in California.