Pig Roasting

[mdt]

The odd thing is, I roasted both a whole pig and a shoulder (when the guest list grew well beyond initial estimates), and the shoulder picked up a lot more of the flavor of the marinade and rub than the pig did. The balance of flavors was right, it's the intensity that was lacking.

I picked up a very nice pork shoulder, bone-in, skin-on, with exactly the right amount of fat, at Grand Mart. I don't think there are any in the city, unfortunately - Maryland and Virginia only.

Where and how did you roast a whole pig? How big was it?

[agm]

Where and how did you roast a whole pig?  How big was it?

In my backyard, using a caja china. It was 67.5 pounds. It was a very tasty pig, especially when dipped in its own drippings, just not quite as flavorful (when undipped) as the shoulder I also made that day.

[mdt]

In my backyard, using a caja china. It was 67.5 pounds. It was a very tasty pig, especially when dipped in its own drippings, just not quite as flavorful (when undipped) as the shoulder I also made that day.

That is one flat pig! Looks damn good!

[DanielK]

What about injecting the marinade into the pig, rather than just surface brushing?

[agm]

What about injecting the marinade into the pig, rather than just surface brushing?

I did. I used a basic mojo (sour orange juice, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, etc.) for the injections, and an adobo paste (similar spices, olive oil, no juice) as a surface rub. What I'll probably have to do is make a stronger mojo, and increase the number of injection sites, especially around the ribs and certain other areas. Or maybe after one round of injections, let it sit for several hours and do another round.

It will be fun to experiment with, anyway. It was pretty damn good as is, I just want it to be better.

[erikv]

So I have the idea of having a pig roast this fall, but I have no clue how to go about either ordering a whole pig or cooking it. If anyone has any/some experience, I would greatly appreciate some advice. Thanks

[agm]

I've done two this year. Lots of fun.

Ordering: I got mine at Springfield Butcher. Great service, great product. They require a week's notice for a pig. They're not cheap, though (price varies). You may be able to get a cheaper pig through one of the latin markets, but I haven't taken the time to do the research.

Cooking: There are many ways to do it, so the main question is what is the end result you're looking for? A basic American barbecued pig will be very different from a Hawaiian kalua pig, which will be different from a Cuban or Puerto Rican lechon. Size also makes a difference.

I did it the easy way, using a caja china. It's a metal-lined wooden box; the pig goes in the box and the charcoal is stacked on top (of the box, not the pig). Cooks in about 4 hours, which is a small fraction of the time of most other methods. The major downside is the lack of smoke, but that does allow more of the actual pork flavor to come through.

[crackers]

So I have the idea of having a pig roast this fall, but I have no clue how to go about either ordering a whole pig or cooking it. If anyone has any/some experience, I would greatly appreciate some advice. Thanks

You can start here.

[DanielK]

I did it the easy way, using a caja china. It's a metal-lined wooden box; the pig goes in the box and the charcoal is stacked on top (of the box, not the pig). Cooks in about 4 hours, which is a small fraction of the time of most other methods. The major downside is the lack of smoke, but that does allow more of the actual pork flavor to come through.

Listen to this man.

I was able to partake in his roast last month. After helping get the pig out of the box, and starting to cut pieces, we kept burning our hands and mouths because the meat was so hot. Not that this stopped us from continuing to stuff pig in our mouths - it was that good.

So, when's the next roast, agm?

[agm]

Listen to this man.

I was able to partake in his roast last month. After helping get the pig out of the box, and starting to cut pieces, we kept burning our hands and mouths because the meat was so hot. Not that this stopped us from continuing to stuff pig in our mouths - it was that good.

So, when's the next roast, agm?

I'm not sure. The next few months are booked pretty solid through the first week of November. My family is bugging me to do something for my birthday (late October); this one ends in a "0" and they want to make more of a fuss over it than I do. The closest open date will probably be around Veterans' Day. If we don't do it then, it probably won't be until spring, since the caja china doesn't work very well when the air's below 40 degrees.

[edenman]

So I have the idea of having a pig roast this fall, but I have no clue how to go about either ordering a whole pig or cooking it. If anyone has any/some experience, I would greatly appreciate some advice. Thanks

I've done this once, and we went with Union Meat in Eastern Market. I called ahead a few weeks just to make sure they could secure one, but I think you can get away with ordering as little as a week beforehand. The pig I got was frozen but they thawed it for me, so it was ready to go when I got it.

As for cooking methods, I rented a rotisserie from Brooke Rental (they have a few locations, we got ours in Arlington). It was $75 for the weekend, and they didn't require any rigorous cleaning of the thing afterwards, just that we got rid of the charcoal.

It took us 11 bags of charcoal and about 13 hours to cook an 80lb pig (which cost around $200 at union meat, although I think prices have gone up since then). I highly recommend it, although if your friends are as cheap as most of mine, it's not a cheap weekend

[drsmoke]

Although I own a BBQ, I don't do whole pigs on site, there are alot of guys who do on site pig roasts, I believe it's worth the extra money.

Saves alot of work, doesn't cut into Beero'clock.

[RaisaB]

I use a Caja China also. I have used mine in the winter, but in the garage! I have gotten my pigs out in western Maryland from a Mennonite/Amish? farmer. A 50 lb pig was approximately $75. The Caja China also lets you use less charcoal. We marinade ours Cuban style and the flavor of the pork does shine through!

[Ilaine]

So I have the idea of having a pig roast this fall, but I have no clue how to go about either ordering a whole pig or cooking it. If anyone has any/some experience, I would greatly appreciate some advice. Thanks

I once participated in roasting a pig. The setup was quite involved, including an actual pit full of coals, and a specially fabricated metal (iron? steel?) double sided rack/cage that the split pig fit inside of, with a rod down the middle so that it could be rotated from front to back. The metal rod rested on cinder blocks and cinder blocks were used to steady the rest of the cage/rack.

I got there too late to learn all the secrets of the marinade but did observe that it contained beer, wine, bourbon, hot sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper, black pepper, lemon pepper, honey, Worcestershire sauce, etc., etc., etc.

I was assigned to mop the pig using a small mop that looked just like a floor mop, only doll size. The men did the heavy pig moving.

I learned that women should never participate in pig roasts while wearing white t-shirts -- I was soaked in so much sweat that my shirt and bra became transparent, not to mention the fact that my hair dye melted off my head onto my shoulders and into the t-shirt, giving it a tie-dye effect.

The finished product was unbelievably wonderful and worth all the embarrassment.

They also barbecued chickens, burgers and whatnot on a regular charcoal grill to stave off hunger pains because the smell was so appetizing that people became famished just by smelling the smoke.

Haze in the details is due to the fact that beer was involved. Much beer was had by all.

Virginia Tech has a description of several methods on their website, including diagrams. Link

I would love to do this again, if anybody is up for it. If we can't find a special rack, we could improvise. I have about a cord of well seasoned split oak and some fruit wood, cherry mostly, as well as grape vine.

[treznor]

Another option is a pig cooker, i.e. a very large grill.

General Method

Something like this

Takes forever to cook (start cooking around 6-7am or so you'll probably be done around 4pm or so), but it's good. Just like regular-sized grills you can find them in propane and wood-burning. I have no idea if they are something you can rent and, if so, if it's something you can rent around here. I know the one my parents used to have got borrowed alot.

[legant]

This is beginning to sound like a concept for the DR fall picnic.

[Ilaine]

This is beginning to sound like a concept for the DR fall picnic.

It does, but where? A big pit for a big pig makes a big mess.

[Ilaine]

Piglet is in the refrigerator wrapped in plastic, thawing. Now what?

Charles Lamb wrote the real "Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" in which he posited that the origin of cooking food occurred in China when a house burned down and the family discovered how much better roasted pig tasted than raw pig, so they started building houses just to burn them down with pigs inside.

But we're beyond all that, surely.

So, there's the piglet, thawing in the refrigerator, and now what?

Edit: it's intended for the picnic, and it's intended to be smoked on a New Braunfels offset smoker, heat to be supplied by hardwood charcoal and smoke to be provided by wood to be determined, hickory, apple, grape vine trimmings?

Butterfly the pig?

Rub it?

Brine it?

[agm]

Well, my experience is with roasting, not smoking. But yes, butterfly, brine and rub.

[Sthitch]

I like hickory for pork, but you can also mix it with some fruit wood like apple.

One issue with doing a whole piglet is the skin, I love crispy pork skin as much as love almost anything else in the world, but it can cause problems when smoking. The skin will block the smoke from getting to the meat and butterflying it will only expose a small amount of the meat to the smoke (the best smoke ring I have ever achieved has been about an 8th of an inch and that was without skin, I have never achieved a smoke ring on meat protected by skin). This is why most whole hogs are chopped so that the smoky meat can be distributed evenly with the non-smoky meat. The skin will also get in the way of the brine, as like the smoke the skin will block the brine from working on the meat beneath it, and will likely have an adverse effect on the ultimate enjoyability of the skin (which I would rub with a bit of neutral oil before putting it in the smoker so that the skin will become extra crisp). Similar issues will arise with the rub as well, if you rub the skin it will only transfer to the meat if you include the skin.

If you can, after butterflying I would de-bone the piglet as much as possible, this will allow you to get the most smoke and rub contact with the meat.

[oneydcat]

my friend and i have a small catering company that we do mostly for fun called 3firefighters and a pig. we specialize in cooking whole hogs. we slow cook them over oak and hickory for 18 hours. not trying to advertise my services but if anyone needs advice on purchasing a whole pig or any methodology involved feel free to get in touch!

[agm]

my friend and i have a small catering company that we do mostly for fun called 3firefighters and a pig. we specialize in cooking whole hogs. we slow cook them over oak and hickory for 18 hours. not trying to advertise my services but if anyone needs advice on purchasing a whole pig or any methodology involved feel free to get in touch!

With an 18 hour cooking time, I assume you're cooking the pig first then transporting it. How big a hog? Do you finish it on-site, or reheat it (and if either, how?), or does it just retain enough heat while you're transporting it? I do small pigs (40-50 lbs or so), roasted in a Caja China rather than barbecued (no catering, just for family, friends, and the occasional DR.com picnic). So far, when I've done one away from home I've been taking the Caja China with me, but if I can pre-cook the pig but still serve it up warm, juicy and with the skin still crispy, it might be a lot less work.

Fortunately, the pig we're doing this weekend will be at home, but it's never too soon to start making plans.

[oneydcat]

the largest pig we have cooked was 300 lbs. that was a little ridiculous though. mostly we are doing between 100 lbs and 150 lbs. we have a large mobile cooker that we bring to the site of the event after doing the majority of the cooking at my friends house. he has a couple of acres in prince william county and thats where we keep the wood that we use for cooking. a couple of times ive had to transport the pig without the benefit of the cooker and i just wrap it in burlap and then foil. it stays hot for hours. the only downfall to wrapping it of course is the skin will not stay crispy

[Rhone1998]

Thinking about using a caja china to cook a pig for a 4th of July get together. The host is a little concerned about the amount of smoke that would be generated, since there are a lot of neighbors in close quarters around the area where we'd do this. Since neither of us have used the caja china before, we thought we'd turn to the experts for some advice. Do we need to do this in a big open area, concerned with the smoke at all?

thanks a lot...

[DanielK]

Pretty low on the smoke factor.

Send a PM to "agm", our resident DR.com Caja China expert...

[agm]

There won't be much smoke. It's pure charcoal, no wood, no deliberately generated smoke. You'll notice it if you're standing right there, but if your concern is neighbors, it won't be an issue unless you have someone directly above you. The greatest amount of smoke will be from lighting it, but it won't last long.

Heat is probably more of an issue - there's a lot of charcoal, and it's completely open. If you're cooking in a small area you'll have to keep kids, pets and drunks at a reasonable distance.

[DanielK]

You do have to have enough space to remove the lid, place it down someplace safe, dispose of hot ashes, and rotate the pig during cooking.

And what agm said about keeping the drunks away. We've nearly screwed that one up a couple of times.