July 4th pig roast & 25gal burgoo w/ pics!

If you've never heard of burgoo, you're missing out.  Its great.  Alot of work in itself without the whole hog, but very much worth it..   Kind of hard to explain.  It's thick when finished, but still soupy...  Basically boil mutton, beef and pork to make a broth, debone and grind, add (ground as well) veggies such as cabbage, potatoes, onions, tomatoes (ketchup, and puree as well), corn, season with salt, vinegar, worcestershire, black pepper, red pepper, lemon & juice, etc... probably forgot a few things off the top of my head without the recipe in front of me.   Basically nothing is discernable when its done other than some shreds of meat and corn kernels.

We always boil the night before, let the stock cool, and skim off any fat before starting the actual cook the next morning.  This was our 3rd try at burgoo, and it was just fine.  We always argue over which batch was best since it always turns out different lol... 

I've heard from pretty much everybody that took the chopped pork home that it was as good or better than any they've ever had...  I dont know if it was because it had meat from every part of the hog (shoulders, loins, ribs, hams & belly all mixed together) or if it was just the new stuff i tried for finishing it, but i have to say what little i got was great...

ohh yeah... the bathtub in the pics is where we kept the hog overnight since we had to pick it up on friday afternoon and it didnt go on the pit until saturday night.  Took about 250lbs of ice, but I felt plenty safe about it being safe when we pulled it out.  Also when we started the pit, we tried a little hickory mixed with the charcoal, but after one hour it was already starting to get alot of color to it, so we decided to go ahead and stick with charcoal only for the remainder of the cook.  We wanted a pretty pig so some of the women would eat some as well...  All said and done, it took a touch less than 60lbs of Frontier lump to get the thing done (~15hrs).  Weren't sure how much it would take, so we brought 120+lbs along...

Thank you guys!  I'm kind of over the 'its too much work' deal and ready to do it again!  haha

Now if I would get pics up of my finished reverse flow  80gal build (which is set and has been cooked on I would really be on a roll!

danderson3399 said:

I am new to the site.  In fact this is my first post.  Good to see another Kentucky Boy doing it up.  I live down south now and got home sick when I seen the pot of goo!  Badazz!!!!

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Man if you're ever up this way around one of the holiday 3 day weekends, look me up here.  We always do something although this was the biggest one yet...  You're more than welcome for some good eats!