Behold! The tri-fecta of popular threads: Building some sort of contraption, digging a large hole, and cooking a large mammal.
Where: My backyard in the middle of a neighborhood in mid-town Mobile, AL.
Why: A good friend was moving away and we needed a reason to drink for at least 12 hours so as not to show our true alcoholic natures.
What:
Bought Items
1 Keg of Killians - $100
1 40lb Pig - $90
100lbs of Charcoal - $50
1 bail of rebar wire - $5
30 8x8x16 Cinder blocks - $45
Misc Party supplies and Groceries - $40
Freebies
1 Large Pot
1 2x6x8
1 2’x4’ piece of ½ inch plywood
2 1 inch diameter metal pipes approximately 7ft long
1 Long hose
Tools needed (not really once you read the rest of this)
Table Saw
Chisel
Circular Saw
Lathe
Shovels
Pliers
First, being in the city, I had to get around the fire ordinance, so instead of cooking the pig Hawaiian style in a pit full of charred wood (burn 1-2 cords of wood in preparation), I decided to spit roast it over charcoal. Since I am using charcoal, it is technically a BBQ instead of a fire, and as we all know, technically correct is the best kind of correct. Now I had to come up with a spit/grill.
I decided to dig a hole (to save on brick costs) 18 inches deep, 4feet long and 2 feet wide. Then I would brick around the hole at least 2 bricks high giving the entire thing a depth of 34 inches. I wanted a spit that was at least 6 feet in length, 4ft of pig and 2ft of grill, and it could hold at least 50lbs. I came up with a design where I would have two stands on either side of the pit that would keep a spit rod 12 inches above the ground (25-30 inches above the coals). I could make it out of wood quickly and cheaply but I was still looking for the actual rod. I was lying in bed one morning pondering this question. I needed a 1 inch diameter metal rod that was about as long as my closet… hmm… wait a minute! I have a 1 inch diameter metal rod as long as my closet! I just had to take my clothes off of it.
So now we are ready to build it. First we start off with the materials needed. 1 2x6x8, a 2x4 foot piece of plywood and some scrap pieces of pine(pine not shown):
Cut 2x6 and plywood using table saw. Notch the two top pieces with the circular saw and chisel wide enough to accept the rod and deep enough so that it won’t slip out:
And assemble the pieces as shown with wood glue and screws:
Cut a circle out of pine and drill a hole in it to slide the rod through it:
Drill some smaller holes around the edges and one matching hole through one of the stands. This is so that I could stick a screwdriver or something through the holes in order to hold the rod in place over the fire whenever I turned it a little. Add some handles and we are mostly done. I don’t really measure very often so my holes came out in an odd pattern:
Turn a point for the rod using your handy dandy lathe and epoxy all wood pieces to the metal (This is actually where I would start next time, skipping the above steps as you’ll soon find out):
Next you need to get a pig. I ordered mine from a butcher in Hurley, MS whom I buy my sides of beef from. Make sure you order at least 2 weeks early and also have a cooler large enough to carry it, or you could have them hard freeze it and let it thaw in your bathtub the day before you cook it, although that will probably affect your marinade absorption rate. It rained the night before I picked up my pig. Here is the parking lot I had to drive through to get to the store. It was around 12 inches deep:
Someone misjudged where the ditch was:
Marinade Recipe I Used (borrowed from http://icuban.com/food/mojo.html)
2Parts Orange Juice
1Part Lemon Juice
1Part Lime Juice
3 Heads of Garlic
4 tsp Kosher Salt
Some Whole Black Peppercorns (just go for it until you think it’s enough)
Some Oregano (same as the peppercorns)
Grind the oregano, Peppercorns garlic, and salt together in a mortar and pestle until it makes a thick paste, then stir it into the liquids. Let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature. I have to say, a mortar and pestle is one of the last things I ever expected to use on a regular basis, but it’s becoming almost weekly that I have to grind something up.
An hour or so after I picked it up and my pig is laid out and ready for the marinade and salting:
Cut some slices in the thicker parts of the meat from the inside being very careful not to go through the skin. I put four or five cuts in each of the hams and maybe 2 or 3 into the loin. Then, I rubbed the inside with marinade being very careful to rub as much into the slices as possible. The outside I rubbed with a couple handfuls of Kosher Salt. Then I stuck him back in the cooler and let him sit until about 6:30 the next morning.
Around 6AM, my friend called me to ask if I was up and if the hole was dug yet. I said of course I was up, but I was waiting for him to come help me dig the hole. Around 6:30AM I got out of bed and started digging the hole. He showed up around 7, and we were done by 7:30. It was a good thing my design called for only 18 inches, because we hit clay at about 4 and would have needed a back-hoe to get any deeper than 18.
It’s time to attach the pig. First, let me say, I wasn’t quite expecting what I got when I picked up the pig. I knew he would be gutted, but I didn’t think he’d be sliced open from ass to neck like that. I was really expecting to get a good friction fit when I jammed my pole through his ass and out his mouth (pun intended). Then I was going to wire the backbone to the pole. Instead, I had to shove the pole just through his esophagus and out the mouth and lay it in place in the body. Also I couldn’t get a wire around just the backbone in order to wire it tightly.
So I had to wire the whole body to the pole. This is where the bailing wire (Lead coated :q
and the pliers come in to play:
Hmm, now this is a conundrum, the pole spins, but not the pig. At this point I was tired, sober and pissed, and the hotdogs I had in the freezer probably had at least some pig in them, so I said let it hang. We’ll figure out how to turn it when it’s time to turn it, and if we don’t, we still have the beer.
Here is why I said I would skip building a spit next time. We were too high off the fire, and the wind was blow straight through the ends and dispersing the little heat we were generating. I had a shower by this point, so I was thinking a little clearer and feeling a little more positive. It’s time for a BBQ redesign. We got rid of the spit stands dropping us 4 inches lower, and allowing us to remove the top row of bricks on one side, built higher to keep the neighbor’s kids from seeing the pig, and rearrange them. I also commandeered another closet rod to act as a cross support so that we could rest the pig on it and flip it from side to side:
I also sent a friend to pick up some sheet metal to act as a cover creating kind of an oven:
Finally! What we’re all here for! What do you mean it’s only 9:30AM? It’s 5o’clock somewhere.
One for our homie who sacrificed it all to make this happen:
Prepping the charcoal in the extra can I mentioned in the parts list, also why you need the hose:
Me, burning the ever loving shit out of my arm:
I finally have an image for that saying “His eyes are screaming.” I covered the ears in tinfoil to keep them from burning. If mine had a tail, I would have covered that as well.
Interesting Tip: When selecting a pig, make sure to get one with both ears as pig fighters usually cut one off of the loser and no one wants to eat a loser pig.
Marinate before every turn which we did about every 30-40 minutes (Using butter, Worcester, garlic and onion powder just to keep him moist really. You could even use water, but where’s the fat in that? Don’t use sugar though otherwise it will caramelize and burn the skin.):
6 hours later, looks done to me:
I took his temperature in several different places and all registered about 170F.
Quite done (In my defense, I had been drinking for several hours):
Time to carve. On a nicely cooked pig, once you get past the skin, it should have the consistency of pulled pork. We sliced it a bit, but you really could just reach in and pull chunks off.
There is still a lot of meat left on this guy; we just got in to the rib area, but most of us were drunk, and the whole thing was pretty much a success, so why sweat the small stuff. After all I want the wildcats behind my parent’s house to get some too, so this was the end of the great pig experiment:
While my pig probably wasn’t quite up to the standards of my Puerto Rican and Cuban guests, it did turn out to be quite good. I think the next time I do this I may butterfly the pig and do more of a rub than a marinade for the inside. Of course next time, it may be a goat.
All in all, excluding some vomiting on my porch and a marital dispute by some party goers, this was a fantastic way to spend a day. I highly recommend it to anyone who has $200-$300 to spare, 20 or so friends, and even a tiny backyard. I split the cost with a friend and so was only out about $150, I suppose we could have had a $5-$10 fee for the keg and recouped more that way, but I just don’t like inviting people over and then charging them. Makes me feel dirty, but not in a good way.
Where: My backyard in the middle of a neighborhood in mid-town Mobile, AL.
Why: A good friend was moving away and we needed a reason to drink for at least 12 hours so as not to show our true alcoholic natures.
What:
Bought Items
1 Keg of Killians - $100
1 40lb Pig - $90
100lbs of Charcoal - $50
1 bail of rebar wire - $5
30 8x8x16 Cinder blocks - $45
Misc Party supplies and Groceries - $40
Freebies
1 Large Pot
1 2x6x8
1 2’x4’ piece of ½ inch plywood
2 1 inch diameter metal pipes approximately 7ft long
1 Long hose
Tools needed (not really once you read the rest of this)
Table Saw
Chisel
Circular Saw
Lathe
Shovels
Pliers
First, being in the city, I had to get around the fire ordinance, so instead of cooking the pig Hawaiian style in a pit full of charred wood (burn 1-2 cords of wood in preparation), I decided to spit roast it over charcoal. Since I am using charcoal, it is technically a BBQ instead of a fire, and as we all know, technically correct is the best kind of correct. Now I had to come up with a spit/grill.
I decided to dig a hole (to save on brick costs) 18 inches deep, 4feet long and 2 feet wide. Then I would brick around the hole at least 2 bricks high giving the entire thing a depth of 34 inches. I wanted a spit that was at least 6 feet in length, 4ft of pig and 2ft of grill, and it could hold at least 50lbs. I came up with a design where I would have two stands on either side of the pit that would keep a spit rod 12 inches above the ground (25-30 inches above the coals). I could make it out of wood quickly and cheaply but I was still looking for the actual rod. I was lying in bed one morning pondering this question. I needed a 1 inch diameter metal rod that was about as long as my closet… hmm… wait a minute! I have a 1 inch diameter metal rod as long as my closet! I just had to take my clothes off of it.
So now we are ready to build it. First we start off with the materials needed. 1 2x6x8, a 2x4 foot piece of plywood and some scrap pieces of pine(pine not shown):
Cut 2x6 and plywood using table saw. Notch the two top pieces with the circular saw and chisel wide enough to accept the rod and deep enough so that it won’t slip out:
And assemble the pieces as shown with wood glue and screws:
Cut a circle out of pine and drill a hole in it to slide the rod through it:
Drill some smaller holes around the edges and one matching hole through one of the stands. This is so that I could stick a screwdriver or something through the holes in order to hold the rod in place over the fire whenever I turned it a little. Add some handles and we are mostly done. I don’t really measure very often so my holes came out in an odd pattern:
Turn a point for the rod using your handy dandy lathe and epoxy all wood pieces to the metal (This is actually where I would start next time, skipping the above steps as you’ll soon find out):
Next you need to get a pig. I ordered mine from a butcher in Hurley, MS whom I buy my sides of beef from. Make sure you order at least 2 weeks early and also have a cooler large enough to carry it, or you could have them hard freeze it and let it thaw in your bathtub the day before you cook it, although that will probably affect your marinade absorption rate. It rained the night before I picked up my pig. Here is the parking lot I had to drive through to get to the store. It was around 12 inches deep:
Someone misjudged where the ditch was:
Marinade Recipe I Used (borrowed from http://icuban.com/food/mojo.html)
2Parts Orange Juice
1Part Lemon Juice
1Part Lime Juice
3 Heads of Garlic
4 tsp Kosher Salt
Some Whole Black Peppercorns (just go for it until you think it’s enough)
Some Oregano (same as the peppercorns)
Grind the oregano, Peppercorns garlic, and salt together in a mortar and pestle until it makes a thick paste, then stir it into the liquids. Let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature. I have to say, a mortar and pestle is one of the last things I ever expected to use on a regular basis, but it’s becoming almost weekly that I have to grind something up.
An hour or so after I picked it up and my pig is laid out and ready for the marinade and salting:
Cut some slices in the thicker parts of the meat from the inside being very careful not to go through the skin. I put four or five cuts in each of the hams and maybe 2 or 3 into the loin. Then, I rubbed the inside with marinade being very careful to rub as much into the slices as possible. The outside I rubbed with a couple handfuls of Kosher Salt. Then I stuck him back in the cooler and let him sit until about 6:30 the next morning.
Around 6AM, my friend called me to ask if I was up and if the hole was dug yet. I said of course I was up, but I was waiting for him to come help me dig the hole. Around 6:30AM I got out of bed and started digging the hole. He showed up around 7, and we were done by 7:30. It was a good thing my design called for only 18 inches, because we hit clay at about 4 and would have needed a back-hoe to get any deeper than 18.
It’s time to attach the pig. First, let me say, I wasn’t quite expecting what I got when I picked up the pig. I knew he would be gutted, but I didn’t think he’d be sliced open from ass to neck like that. I was really expecting to get a good friction fit when I jammed my pole through his ass and out his mouth (pun intended). Then I was going to wire the backbone to the pole. Instead, I had to shove the pole just through his esophagus and out the mouth and lay it in place in the body. Also I couldn’t get a wire around just the backbone in order to wire it tightly.
So I had to wire the whole body to the pole. This is where the bailing wire (Lead coated :q
and the pliers come in to play:Hmm, now this is a conundrum, the pole spins, but not the pig. At this point I was tired, sober and pissed, and the hotdogs I had in the freezer probably had at least some pig in them, so I said let it hang. We’ll figure out how to turn it when it’s time to turn it, and if we don’t, we still have the beer.
Here is why I said I would skip building a spit next time. We were too high off the fire, and the wind was blow straight through the ends and dispersing the little heat we were generating. I had a shower by this point, so I was thinking a little clearer and feeling a little more positive. It’s time for a BBQ redesign. We got rid of the spit stands dropping us 4 inches lower, and allowing us to remove the top row of bricks on one side, built higher to keep the neighbor’s kids from seeing the pig, and rearrange them. I also commandeered another closet rod to act as a cross support so that we could rest the pig on it and flip it from side to side:
I also sent a friend to pick up some sheet metal to act as a cover creating kind of an oven:
Finally! What we’re all here for! What do you mean it’s only 9:30AM? It’s 5o’clock somewhere.
One for our homie who sacrificed it all to make this happen:
Prepping the charcoal in the extra can I mentioned in the parts list, also why you need the hose:
Me, burning the ever loving shit out of my arm:
I finally have an image for that saying “His eyes are screaming.” I covered the ears in tinfoil to keep them from burning. If mine had a tail, I would have covered that as well.
Interesting Tip: When selecting a pig, make sure to get one with both ears as pig fighters usually cut one off of the loser and no one wants to eat a loser pig.
Marinate before every turn which we did about every 30-40 minutes (Using butter, Worcester, garlic and onion powder just to keep him moist really. You could even use water, but where’s the fat in that? Don’t use sugar though otherwise it will caramelize and burn the skin.):
6 hours later, looks done to me:
I took his temperature in several different places and all registered about 170F.
Quite done (In my defense, I had been drinking for several hours):
Time to carve. On a nicely cooked pig, once you get past the skin, it should have the consistency of pulled pork. We sliced it a bit, but you really could just reach in and pull chunks off.
There is still a lot of meat left on this guy; we just got in to the rib area, but most of us were drunk, and the whole thing was pretty much a success, so why sweat the small stuff. After all I want the wildcats behind my parent’s house to get some too, so this was the end of the great pig experiment:
While my pig probably wasn’t quite up to the standards of my Puerto Rican and Cuban guests, it did turn out to be quite good. I think the next time I do this I may butterfly the pig and do more of a rub than a marinade for the inside. Of course next time, it may be a goat.
All in all, excluding some vomiting on my porch and a marital dispute by some party goers, this was a fantastic way to spend a day. I highly recommend it to anyone who has $200-$300 to spare, 20 or so friends, and even a tiny backyard. I split the cost with a friend and so was only out about $150, I suppose we could have had a $5-$10 fee for the keg and recouped more that way, but I just don’t like inviting people over and then charging them. Makes me feel dirty, but not in a good way.