The Great Hog Roast

The day after Thanksgiving we decided to have a hog roast, I was visiting my brother (out of town) which is kind of a tradition for us at Thanksgiving. It was not as if we hadn't had enough to eat the day before but it sounded like fun so we did it. My brother had ordered a whole hog at a local supermarket a few days before, if you give them a few days notice you can buy a whole pig almost any size you want this one was 53 lbs.
We started the fire the night before in order to have good coals to start with. At 0300 we got up and prepared the pig for the spit. We built a fire off to the side to have coals to place at the correct spots under the pig to control the cooking speed/temp. One of the dogs here inspecting the fire.

 Here is the set up. My brother built this and it works very well, it is also portable. The lid folds back to control heat however the back and sides help hold the heat in and control cooking. The spit can be turned any position to facilitate cooking. Notice the fire to right of pit with coals for cooking

Here is a digital laser thermometer (from Harbor Freight) being used to check the surface temp of the meat. We used this to know where to move the coals to keep even cooking temp along the entire length of the pig. You usually need more fire at the hams and shoulders.

Here is a shot of the 'almost ready' hog. Notice the wire at the back end. This was connected to a digital temp probe which we moved around to different spots to ensure internal temp was 170 deg  (well done) The skin will get quite black, this is normal the meat underneath will be very fine.







The end result perfectly cooked beast, not over done, very moist and and no waste. The overall cook time was about  8 hours. He invited over quite a few friends and they all ate their fill and all took home a large bag of meat to enjoy later.