Today’s post is a guest post from my friend Nick. Besides being famous for his down-home cooking prowess, Nick is also legendary for shaving the number “6″ into his chest at Talladega when we went a few years back. Seriously. Email me for the photo.
Before the guest post, I wanna give a shout out to Yelp. I feel that Yelp is the best source of online information for general public opinion on restaurants, shoppings, and events. There’s a lot of information, thorough reviews, and you easily have the ability to dig into very localized information (e.g. what’s the best pizza near Westside of Atlanta). The iPhone app utlitizes GPS to tell you what’s “Hot” near you right at that very moment. Very cool. Try it out, and if you join, be sure to look up my profile. I’m gonna try to give back a little and add more snobby reviews myself.
Without further ado, Nick’s post (unedited so don’t hate on me):
Pig Roast
Over the past couple of months a few friends and I have been talking about cooking a pig so we decided that doing one for a football weekend was a good idea. We decided on doing it for the UGA v Auburn game weekend as GT was off and I would be in town to help.
Before trying to cook a pig, be sure you are ready to do a lot of work with little to no sleep while doing it. To get started you need to order a pig a week or two in advance of the pig roast. You can usually get one from any butcher shop, they run anywhere from $1.50/lb to $2.00/lb. There are not too many actual butcher shops around these days, but look in your local ghetto and you will probably find one, also they will typically pickle anything you want for an extra couple bucks.
The Wednesday before the pig roast we decided to get all the materials and dig a small pit to limit ourselves the amount of work we would have to do the night of cooking. You don’t have to dig a pit, you can build up the blocks higher if you like, but I enjoy digging a pit. I have found it helps keep the heat in a little better while cooking as the dirt provides insulation. Another way to do it would be to use a large catering style smoker, although you feel more macho digging in the dirt. The hole is about 3.5’ x 5’ and 1’ to 2’ deep.
Notice the blocks on the side have two less in the middle, I will use bars here to support the weight of the pig while it cooks and the higher blocks on the outside will help hold up the metal covering I use to keep the heat in.
Now that the heavy labor of playing in the dirt and moving 32 cinder blocks is over it is time to prep the pig for cooking. The pig was picked up Friday afternoon to cook that night. Due to UGA sucking this year, the game time was set for 12:30 so we wanted to be able to eat by 1pm. This meant the pig needed to be on the fire around midnight on Friday. While you wait, prepare to have it stored in a large cooler so the meat doesn’t get funky. To prepare it I used the following seasonings to make a rub.
You can pretty much use anything you want as the natural flavors of the pork come out after 10-12 hrs of cooking. We used some olive oil, salt, pepper, and various rib rubs.
Once it was seasoned we put the rods through the pig. We used 0.25” non-galvanized rebar for this. Be sure to clean it of rust before piercing the pig. When piercing the pig go through the shoulders and ribs to provide a sturdy support. You need the bone structure to help support the pig white it cooks as the meat gets so tender it will fall off of the rods.
Once the rods are through the pig you will need to wrap it tightly with chicken wire to keep the pig from falling apart while it cooks. We used 18 gauge picture hanging wire to tie the chicken wire closed. I also tied its limbs to the re-bar for extra support.
Now it is time to get the fire going. Put a couple of bags of ice on the pig to keep it cold while you get the fire going. Pile charcoal, wood, etc into the corners of the pit and get it lit. You want them in the corners out from underneath the pig to provide indirect cooking, basically a big outdoor oven.
Once the coals become white hot place the pig over the pit and cover with something to keep the heat in.
We used corrugated roofing metal. I’ve also used plywood before. Now you just hang out, drink cold beers, and wait for about 10-12 hours until it is finished cooking. During this time you will need to replenish the coals about every hour. I also like to put some hickory chips in the fire to make it smoke. Also flip the pig over maybe once every 3 or 4 hours to get even cooking.
At about hour 10 use a meat thermometer to check the inside of the pig, the inner most meat should be around 180 degrees for it to be finished. Once this happens take the pig off and put it on the table for the picking. You should now have some of the tenderest BBQ you will ever have. Find some BBQ sauce, a cold beer, and enjoy.
As a side note, I’ve found out several times that it is good idea to pick a bunch off and put in bowls away from the main table as many people get freaked out by the site of folks pulling meat out of a carcass on the table.
