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.
Topic: Pig on a spit (Read 2593 times)
