Pig on a spit

Food & Cooking
1

Saturday my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary (its actually on the 18th) with a big party with 50 guests.  I ordered a pig from a local farmer (who feeds his pigs spent grains from the two local microbreweries).  Unfortunately, the local butcher is not equipped to shave them, so I was a bit annoyed when I picked it up Friday afternoon to find the head missing and the skin off.

So, I decided to treat it like a big boston butt.  I rubbed it down with a spice rub mixture (cumin, chili powder, onion and garlic granules, salt, black pepper, sugar) the night before and let it sit in the cooler.  The carcass weighed 48 lbs.

My buddy has a spit that he hooks up to an electric motor that spins it slowly.

Here it is after 15 minutes.  We filled the cavity with 10 lbs. of locally made sausages - kielbasa, chorizo, andouille, linguica, and stitched it shut.

Here it is after 3 hours.  At this point, I began spritzing it frequently with 2 parts apple juice, 2 parts water, 1 part cider vinegar mop.

…and here it is shortly before carving it, 8.5 hours of spit roasting over charcoal, oak and apple.  We cut the belly open and finished grilling the sausages.

It turned out awesome.  Every raved about the skin (even though it wasn’t skin, just the burnt tips.

I would have took more photos, but after the guests arrived I was too busy serving up beers - I had saison, IPA, classic American pilsner, and dunkel on tap.  There was not much left of the pig at the end of the day, and my guests polished off the 8% abv IPA keg.  ???

2

man…looks good. another favorite of mine that i don’t get to do very often anymore.

3

Looks killer, man!  I made some pretty tasty smoked pork loin Sunday, but that pales next to the whole hog.

4

Best line of the day.

5

I just ate and now hungry again!

6

Congrats on 25. That’s a big one!

Nice looking pork on the spinner, too!

7

Thanks everyone!

One last shot of the pig, shortly before carving.  The stomach stitches have been cut open, to brown the sausages a bit before serving.

That caramelized pig fat was da bomb.

8

Last shot looks like it is from a zombie movie.

9

Congrads on 25 years Chumster! Few things are more delicious than a roasted hog. I like that pit/spit set up as well, hmmm, that would be a good winter project to build.

10

That looks really nice. I was thinking of doing that with our spent grains, raise one pig for home and then one for the end of summer pig roast at the brewery.

Congratulations the 25th Anniversary.

11

Holy Crap that thing looks amazing; nice nice work.
That motorized spit is really cool.

“linguica”…I hesitate to ask - but my latin spidey sense has me thinking tongue sausage?  ???

Congrats on 25 years. Nice way to celebrate.

12

That is one nice looking hog. We do a hog roast every year but have never done it on a spit, very nice. Congrats on 25 that is a great accomplishment.

13

Good job

I’m always hesitant to go over to a party where someone has a pig - half of the time the thing ends up still being raw on in the inside  :o :o :o :stuck_out_tongue:

14

That looks fantastic. I remember numerous pig pickins in my Army daze

15

Congrats and great looking hog. My very first attempt at a whole hog was insane. I did 2, 150 lb hogs for a fund raiser just because I figured I could. They turned out ok but not as nice as yours.

Too bad on the skin. Good crackling rubbed down with salt is just amazing.