Four Rookies Go For the Mt. Everest of BBQ: The Whole Pig, w/ Q-View

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mneeley490

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
Jun 23, 2011
3,756
2,216
Everett, WA
(Apologies to those who've seen this on DeeJay Debi's site, but I'm going to cut and paste a little, rather than type all this over again. The upside is that most of the spelling and punctuation errors will be corrected.)

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My friends and I had our pig roast Saturday and it turned out better than I could have imagined. Of the four of us, I was the only one with any substantial low-n-slow experience to speak of, and everyone was looking to me to helm this enterprise. So the pressure was on, but it was still very much a group effort.

Of course, we had our little setbacks. For one, it was raining almost the entire time we were doing this. Also, the 77 lb. pig we bought was frozen, so the supplier said he'd take it out of the freezer the night before and it would be thawed when we picked it up. Well, he took it out, but after he left, one of his employees mistakenly put it back in the freezer, and it was still frozen solid when we got it Friday morning.
We managed to fit it into a large salmon cooler and did the turkey-thawing trick of immersing in cold water, and changing the water every couple hours. It was finally ready to prep around midnight! That's why there are no pics of the prep.

Then we focused on the pit. Our buddy who was hosting the location had plenty of concrete blocks to build with. For our cover, we used a piece of plywood over the pig, and a large piece of scrap sheet metal over the fire/coals. No burn barrel, so the firewood itself went into the pit through a hole in the bricks at the bottom of one end. This made for more white smoke coming out the other end than I would have liked, but nothing to be done about that. The wood was mostly maple, with some apple and cherry mixed in.

We found an old folding table to prep it on, and as we were bi-secting the spine to make it lay flat, the table broke in the middle! Again, the cooler came in handy to shore up what remained of the table, and I got it rubbed and injected. We started the fire, tended it all night, and not having any accurate idea how long it would take, put the pig on about 6 am. Tried to keep the pit temperature between 250° and 275°. We spun it 180° it after 4 hours, and it hit an IT of 180° in the hams at 2pm, so we took it off and let it rest. I put on two trays of Dutch's Wicked Beans to simmer, while 3 of us went home for showers and clean clothes.

I think we had about 25 people show up for dinner Saturday night, and with everyone watching, I cut through the nicely crisped skin to find the meat incredibly juicy and perfectly cooked throughout. We cut and pulled two large trays of meat; one got some vinegar-based finishing sauce and one did not. I made about a gallon of my signature BBQ sauce to go with it, along with a couple salads, Dutch's beans, and some cornbread. Everyone had seconds and thirds, and there were still plenty of leftovers. (Got almost as many raves about Dutch's beans as I did the pork!) So with some great sides, and a lot of wine, I'm calling this roast a complete success. (Not to mention, an incredible relief!)

Thanks go to Johnny B, Johnny L, and Dan the Man!

Our set up. Just trying to stay dry and out of the wind!


Pig is done! Now taking some of the bricks apart to take it off.


The guest of honor!


One of the best meals we ever had!

 
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looks tasty great job  
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Looks awesome. Sorry for the hijack here, but you inspired me. I'm up in Arlington and we did a whole hog every 4th of July for years, have not had a chance the last few years since moving to a new place. Being as close as we are we should think about a roast! I use a similar technique to you, I ventured into it after reading up at this site: http://cuban-christmas.com/pigroast.html

We buy fresh hogs from Silvana Meats, they will butterfly on request saving you the folding table trouble. I broke a $100 clever the first year I did it butterflying the spine (guess using the hammer on the back of it was not the right move).

The "oven"


The setup


Getting ready to drop the top 2 layers of blocks to crisp the skin


Snout view


Finished product before I moved it to the table


My little guy trying to figure it all out, and dogs and burgers on the grill for the less adventurous


I lined the sidewalk with 2-3 layers of foil and burned charcoal right on top of it. Helps keep the heat in the "oven" and also remarkably keeps the sidewalk clean. When it's time to cleanup the next morning there is no visible marks on the concrete, and if there is it hosed right off. The platter the hog is sitting on is plywood wrapped in foil, works awesome.
 
Smoke Happens,

Very nice! Looks like you had much better working conditions than we did, too. I'd have had more pics if I wasn't trying so hard to stay dry.

Ha, I hear you about the cleaver. Mine didn't break, but the backside didn't look too swell after using the hammer.

STL Shawn, nothing wrong with leftovers! 
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We did it for the 4th, so worst case scenario it rains. We always had good weather though, hardest part was keeping the foil on from the breeze since that house was on the top of a hill.

Now I'm trying to think of a reason to do another roast, hmmmmm....
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Been reading here about a few other people cooking whole hogs recently.
Wow, can't believe it was 8 years ago when we did this. Time flies. And the BBQ gods were certainly smiling on us that day. For not completely knowing what we were doing, the meat that came out of that smoke was perfect! Probably still the best I've ever done.
 
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