How to Roast a Whole Pig

pretty freaking cool! My family always roasted a whole pig for July 4th. We made a rotissery and cooked it in a comverted steel barrel. I don't think ours were over 150# though! ours would start at noon the day before, and meant someone had to stay up all night drinking and keeping the fire burning (we did charcoal, and added another starter box full every hour)

I can't understand how your wife allows you to do such thing Cape Brewing. I barely am able to put a picture up in the house, let alone dig a shallow grave, brick it in and cook a pig in it twice annually. Envy isn't setting in only because once it does I will have to drive across the country to live in your bar.

When we found out we were going to have our first child, I was mid-build on the bar. I figured, "I'm screwed... this bar is NEVER getting built now". About three months before her due date, she looks as me and says, "So, what's the story on the basement?" I'm thinking, "here it is... my basement bar dreams are about to die right here"

Me: "Umm... well... I've still got a ton of work to do on it"
Here: "Well... you better f'in hurry up. Once the baby comes, we're going to need a place to hang out and have a few drinks"

No woman has ever been sexier.

Before we fell asleep last night we laid in bed looking up and debating pasta salad recipes for the pig roast. She gets into it almost as much as I do. "Oooo, I can make THIS and I can make THAT!"

I married smart... what can I say?

Cape Brewing said:

When we found out we were going to have our first child, I was mid-build on the bar. I figured, "I'm screwed... this bar is NEVER getting built now". About three months before her due date, she looks as me and says, "So, what's the story on the basement?" I'm thinking, "here it is... my basement bar dreams are about to die right here"

Me: "Umm... well... I've still got a ton of work to do on it"
Here: "Well... you better f'in hurry up. Once the baby comes, we're going to need a place to hang out and have a few drinks"

No woman has ever been sexier.

Before we fell asleep last night we laid in bed looking up and debating pasta salad recipes for the pig roast. She gets into it almost as much as I do. "Oooo, I can make THIS and I can make THAT!"

I married smart... what can I say?

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MEH
Call me when she does a triple infusion mash for a Hefeweizen :rockin:

Ahh, when my SWMBO helped me HAND CRANK my grain when I first got my Corona mill. That let me know that I should keep her around for a while. New shoulders were needed after that.

CB,
Did you get my smoker up and running? How did it go?

PTN

I haven't... I wasn't really planning on firing it up until Friday sometime.

I have about 15 pounds of homemade andouille sausage that smells un-freakin-real. So I'll have to get those in there. Then I want to do some briskets. The problem is, I am NOT staying up all night feeding wood into that bad boy. I got outta that whole routine a long time ago with the pig... I'm not heading down that path again.

It'll get fired up... don't you worry.

Pig Pit 2.0 is turning into a thing a' beauty. I've got more of it bricked in... I'm really happy with it. And I think it'll cook the ever-loving-**** outta the pig this year.

I talked with my "pig guy" earlier tonight. 263lbs on the hoof... he's thinking it'll end up just a hair over 200 dressed. MWWWWAA!!!! AHHH !!! AAAAAHH!!!!!

Now I just have to pray that the seven beers I have fermenting that are going into kegs this week for the cookout don't suck.

Oh, and thank you again for letting me borrow your baby. Don't worry, I'll treat her nice.

Ya, that's the only problem with Bertha, she's not airtight and she burns up the wood. When I do pigs in her I figure adding a piece of firewood every hour or so. That gives me a nice low fire that will produce a reasonable amount of smoke and heat. If I were going to smoke your sausages I'd use real wood charcoal and add just enough to maintain a burn in the firebox so you keep the temps down. Wood would be too hot. Throw a chunk of that wood I gave you in on top of the charcoal, just enough so that you get smoke. When the piece of smokeing wood burns down just add another but not too much, you aren't trying to cook them in advance just cold smoke them.

You are going to need to put in some late hours on Friday if you want your brisket done for Sat at noon. If you want to serve your brisket at 4pm you need to get up early. I may be able to come over and help you on Friday night. ('Help cook brisket' in Bertha means I'll sit up in the driveway with you, shooting the sheet and drinking beer until morning.) I'm assuming you are doing whole (flat and point) briskets, those take around 12 hours at 200*F in Bertha,so you need to backtime accordingly. Ribs need around 5. I don't mind getting up, really. And it has NOTHING to do with the Duchess.
PTN

Edited to add a caveat... Bertha is WICKED top heavy and if you aren't careful when you lift her top up she can just fall right over on her back, spraying pork juice everywhere! And while I can see where that could make a young man sit up and pay attention, in practice it's not nearly as fun as it sounds. I usually take a 2 X 4 or 2 and prop them at a 45* angle between the two outside rods( The rods that hold up the cooking surface, shove them in from the back and put the 2 under them where they poke out of the back) and the ground.

Yeah, that's exactly what I had planned on doing for the sausage. And on the brisket... I might get up crazy early, start them and go back to bed... because I'm NOT pulling an all-nighter. We've got people coming in from all over and I really don't fee like being a zombie all day Saturday. Plus, Saturday night is usually the really good time, and I'm not missing that.

Haven't gotten the Duchess... still working on it.

and yeah, I figured out the top-heavy thing. I'll handle it.

Hey, how offended would you be if I knocked a little rust off the old girl? She's a beauty but could use a good cleaning and some touching up.

You can do almost anything you like to her. Berthas is a VERY accomodating lass. But no painting racing stripes down her sides or anything crazy. I don't want you tarting her up

Hey, I'm curious. When you saw her for the first time you, like every other guy, said , "Wow, she's beautiful!". What did Courtney say when you rolled her up the driveway?

Probablly not that?

Ok cool... I might clean her up a bit if I have time between now and Saturday. No, I'm not thinking racing stripes or anything crazy. Don't worry.

Courtney? Are you kidding? I don't think she even blinked. She's lived with me way too long to be phased by something like that. If she had any reaction at all it was a simple shake of the head while she mumbled "God I married an idiot" under her breath.

Cape Brewing said:

Courtney? Are you kidding? I don't think she even blinked. If she had any reaction at all it was a simple shake of the head while she mumbled "God I married an idiot" under her breath.

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Damn near Sig worthy.

Al was noticably excited when she noticed Bertha was gone. "You didn't put the BBQ out in the trash, did you?" she asked with a big smile.

Oh c'mon... she's a beauty. She would never go in the trash as long as I was around. I think Al's jealous. Tell her Bertha can stay with me for a while if she doesn't like her. Jsut knock a llittle of the rust off on the inside and she looks like she'll do some big time cookin'.

The inside? She's rusty on the inside now? I figured the inch thick coating of smoke and grease would have prevented that. Oh wait, given her most recent 'moisture issue' I guess I can see where she might get a little rusty on the inside too.

PTN

The 15 pounds of homemade andouille is FINALLY freakin' done. Christ, I started them the other night. GADDAMN, they smell good!!! Bertha will smoke those bad boys up on Thursday

So is the pig roast this weekend? Sounds like you're pretty stoked.

Hey I have a question about the Pig Pit 2.0. I saw in your pic you stacked the cinder blocks pretty high above ground level, even though it looks like there was plenty of depth in the pit itself. Just curious what the purpose of that was.

This whole thread describes pure genius.

It was last weekend...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/how-roast-whole-pig-version-2-0-a-130032/


Pig Pit 1.0 was just a bunch of bricks tossed into the pit (the pics at the beginning of this thread show it).

I got tired of my back yard lookin' the way it did and wanted something a little nicer so I took all of the bricks out and then bricked them in straight (or relatively straight) with mortar. The problem was when they were just tossed in, the walls flared out at the top... so the bottom of the pit was three feet wide but the top was four feet wide. When I bricked everything in straight, the whole thing was only three feet wide all the way up. It was also not as long at the top once bricked in.

I wasn't sure a pig would fit...

so I decided to have the bottom brick part as just the "firebox" for whole thing and then the cinderblocks would be where the pig sat and cooked. 1) It would give me a lot more cooking room 2) I think it looks a lot nicer (or it WILL look a lot nicer once I completely finish skinning the cinderblock with red brick). I filled the cinderblock with dirt so it is insulated really well and then the red bricks I'm skinning it with will just add to the insulation. The lid is insulated with Nomex (that white cloth you see in the vid) so that is completely insulated like an oven door.

I am really pysched though because the new pit works absolutely perfectly. I couldn't have hoped for it to work any better.

Take a look at the vid on the new thread I linked above and you'll see how the pig comes out.

oh.my.damn.

yeah... this year was a 240 lb pig and 21 taps... and the slip and slide had a ramp at the bottom that you went off and into a kiddy pool. It was sweet. Chics dug it.