Tips please - Hog bbq Update & pics

[Royd Wood]

We have an open day at the farm this coming Saturday and have a 120 lb max (might be less) hog for bbq. Should be lean as its one of ours from the woods, our butcher already has the spit and hog will be here Friday. I have been told to cook 1 hour per 10lb with two piles of hardwood - one under the hams and the other under the shoulder. So its an early start and any tips or advice would be much appreciated other than "dont do it" too late for that as the little guy is on the hook

 

[Royd Wood]

anyone - Just found out the pig I sent is 160 lb dressed so its too big but its too late

Help please

 

[bjjohns]

I never tried it, but I have eaten it. I found this:
http://bbq.about.com/od/barbecuehelp/a/aa061006a.htm

 

[goodhors]

We had our hog split in half and wrapped in chicken wire to cook. You could still use the
spit, but should take a lot less cooking time with halves. Chicken wire kept the meat
together, not falling off the bones into the fire.

Still took several hours, they started about 6AM for a noonish eating time. Meat was
done all the way thru, not much in dried or burned pieces. We didn't use a spit, had
to manually turn the halves over the bed of coals. They got turned about every 15 minutes.

I can ask husband more roasting details, since that was "manly work, cooking the hog" and I
did the other foods.

 

[greybeard]

160 lbs @ 1 hr/10 lbs=16 hrs cooking time. gonna be a long hot day or you will have to start very very early in the morning. You can figure on an equal fuel to meat ratio---one lb of charcoal for each lb of meat, and you may need even more depending on wind, fat content etc. Have plenty xtra on hand anyway.

I have not done this, but I did help with a 1/2 beef one time, many years ago, but didn't really get into the details. I just took my turns turning the handle. (while drinking copius amts of adult 'medicinal' beverages--to ward off heat stroke of course--back in the bad ol days when I did that sort of thing.
They had wrapped it with new stainless steel wire to keep it from falling apart. They put the meat on the spit,tied the wire on one end, and started rotating the spit, coiling the wire around the carcass till they got to the other end. Seems like the coils were about 3-4" apart--I can't really remember. I would worry about the galvanize in chicken wire--or the solder if that's how it is made.

From what I've read elsewhere:
2 meat thermometers--one in the shoulder--one in the butt. For the first hour, the pig should look like it's not doing much cooking at all, other than a bit of 'oozing' of juices. If it changes colors (gets a lot darker) you are cooking it too fast.

PLEASE--no matter how it turns out, post back here with as many details as you can. I would really like to know how to do this. Even if it should not work well. (we can learn as much from mistakes as we can from successes) but I hope it turns out perfectly!!
(don't do like the youtube vid I saw--they tried spit roasting a really fatty hog and the whole thing suddenly went up in flames--kinda funny, but it probably wasn't to the guy doing the cooking)

 

[sawfish99]

I don't know the answer, but will be very interested in your after action report and PICTURES!

 

[Royd Wood]

Thanks all for the tips and greybeard I will post the results with some pics regardless of results.
The bad news is its up around 43c / 109f Friday so I;m hoping it cools down a little when we start cooking the pig around 7pm to be ready for 1pm Saturday.
We will try the staneless steel wire and lol fatty hog youtube - our guy is lean so hopefully no flames

 

[PattySh]

We haven't done a pig roast yet but plan to have our first Aug 4th. We also have grown our own pig hopefully she will stay small enough! I did watch the guy cook my friend's pig tho. He added apples to the inside cavity for moisture and injected the pig in the meaty areas before cooking with a brine solution, he also basted it many times. He also covered the pig in chicken wire with rebar thru it for ease of turning over.

 

[Royd Wood]

Got the spit turning at 6pm Friday night with our Large Black / Hamp cross pig
By 9pm I put on the chicken net (thanks goodhors) I could see it was going to start falling apart later otherwise
Its feet were curling up by 11pm and alot of movement on the spit - at 160 lb it was always going to be a problem for the spit to turn but with the chick wire on it seemed safer.
By midnight my family went to bed and left me to it. The fact we had people coming to the open day pretty much ensured I wasn't going to fall asleep and by the time you load on the hardwood and hoze down the tinder dry grass around the firepit there was just enough time for a sit down.
3.30am damn coyotes were howling and yapping in the field across the road - recon they could smell the pork.
At dawn I could see the pig was looking in good shape and smelt so good.

By 9am it was cooked and just a case of keeping it warm until after the first farm walk 11am.

9.30am a very nasty thunderstorm hit with a huge downpoar - the wind blew away the vendor tents and we had a river running through the yard but we kept the pig covered with a tin sheet, we straightened up all the tents and by 10am the place filled up with folks for the farm walk.
My buddy calved up the pork and my daughters served hot pork in a fresh bread roll to all who turned up (just over 200 folks)

Wow - it was a fantastic day and enjoyed by everyone

 

[sawfish99]

Awesome. Thanks for the writeup.