Barbecue is good for us.

We drove up to Eugene, Oregon over the July 4th holiday earlier this month to spend time with my brother-in-law Darren and his wife Christine. Their hospitality is always fine, but this time, Darren had just gotten a new smoker so we basically put some mesquite smoke on anything that wasn’t nailed down.

This is a really nice smoker to work with. The whole thing is heavy cast iron, retains heat very well. Light a batch of coals in the bottom tray, and they’ll last for at least 4 hours. We added soaked mesquite wood chunks every now and then. The really brilliant part of this smoker design is the heavy cast iron water tray that slides in just above the fire. Fill it with water (and later on beer, wine, etc.) and it’ll temper the heat perfectly for the racks above. The lowest rack stays at a near perfect 250 degrees, while the two above average 225 and 200 respectively. Of course, after hours of collecting drippings, the liquid that’s left in the pan also makes for an ideal sauce base.

Check out the smoke ring on this beautiful tri-tip that Darren smoked. One interesting thing Darren does – he sears the steak on the grill for a few minutes before putting it in the smoker. I think this is a good idea for beef especially, since it helps to seal in the juices. When I do a pork shoulder, I like to keep the fire at 350 or so for the first 30 minutes, which accomplishes a similar thing – crusty brown outside to seal juices.

A few days later we smoked again, this time pork ribs and a lamb shoulder. The ribs were quite good – nicely smokey, very tender. We got them from Darren and Christine’s friend Cooper who runs a pig farm. This pork is so tender, flavorful, and nicely marbled. Check out Cooper’s operation, Sweet Briar Farms – you can order all kinds of pork products over the web. If you live around Eugene, also keep an eye out for them at local farmers markets.

The lamb shoulder was interesting. (unfortunately, no pictures) We rubbed it with salt, pepper, a little cumin. Then we cut little slits in the meat and shoved about 20 garlic gloves in there. We smoked it for about 6 hours, which wasn’t quite enough, but it shredded nicely and made some tasty, tasty sandwiches. The smoking tempered that gamey lamb flavor, but it was still there. Very interesting.

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I’ve got two of the three winning sauce recipes from the Pig Pickin’, so I thought I’d go ahead and start posting ‘em.

The 3rd place sauce was made by my fellow iSchooler Josh, who didn’t name his sauce, so I dub it:

Whiskey and Spice Makes Everything Nice

• 1 medium onion, diced
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• finely chopped jalapeño pepper to taste
• finely chopped chipotle pepper to taste
• 2 cups whiskey (of your choice)
• 1 24oz bottle of ketchup
• 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups maple syrup
• 1/2 cup tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large sauce pot, sauteé onion and garlic with bourbon until the onions are translucent. Add the bourbon to the pan before turning on the heat to avoid large flames.
2. Add ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, syrup, chiles, and tomato paste and bring to a simmer.
3. Reduce heat and simmer lightly until sauce thickens. Season to taste.

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Nice little Photoshop project!

(via BoingBoing)

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Well, I guess it’s taken us quite a while to recover from the giant undertaking that was the 1st Annual Pig Pickin’ and BBQ Sauce Contest Jamboree. But here we are, more than a week later, and it’s time for some wrap-up.

The Pig

Perfectly butchered and butterflied, and packed in a convenient cooler box by Ver Brugge, it turned out that our 100 lb pig, headless and footless, was just about three feet long (from shoulder to butt) and similarly wide when it was laid flat. Almost a perfect 3 foot square! This was ideal, as it turned out, since we didn’t have to use the extra grill we’d brought to stick at the end of the ones they have at the park (which are also almost exactly three feet square).

To prepare, we rubbed the cavity of the pig with a spice mixture I’d made the day before. It was a bit improves, but the main ingredients were salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, and fresh thyme. All in the Cuisinart with a few drops of molasses to bind. The only other preparation we did was to lightly score the back legs of the pig – the hams – in order to let more of the fat render out and encourage them to cook a little quicker.

We got to the site at about 8:30, and after a few small mishaps (I forgot the lighter fluid… Doh!), got the coals going and put the pig on shortly after nine.

We used charcoal briquettes instead of the natural stuff for the fire because it heats more evenly and reliably. We also fed the fire with Mesquite chunks we’d soaked overnight. Strictly speaking we didn’t have an enclosed enough area to smoke the pig, but we did get a nice smoke flavor in there nonetheless.

We covered the metal grating with foil in order to trap some of the heat and smoke, and used some wooden blocks to hold it down against the wind.

The hairiest part of the whole adventure came at around 1pm, when we flipped the oinker. Sandwiched as it was between two pieces of stainless steel grating, it wasn’t going to fall apart, but we were more worried about it sliding out, or dropping the whole thing right on the ground. But, with help, we managed it without an incident and it cooked merrily until about 3:30.

Final Verdict

How did the pig turn out? Pretty darn well, I’d say, considering it was our first time. The meat was flavorful throughout, moist in many parts but dry in others. The hardest part about cooking a whole pig butterfly-style is managing the heat. Rotisserie, all you need to do is try to achieve an even heat across the length of the pig. Because it rotates, the variations can more easily even out. Spread out, though, it becomes important to stack the coals a bit deeper around the front and back edges and especially in the corners under the shoulders and hams.

On the one hand, the meat could have used another 4 hours to tender up in spots, but on the other hand, we saved it from drying out more than it did. Mixed with any one of the 10 BBQ sauces we had to taste, every part of the pig was tasty, and though we can do better next year, I think everyone was quite pleased.

Next Time

Lessons learned? Fire management is a big one – next time we’ll have to be much more careful. I also think we need to pick the pig up the day before (assuming we could find some way to keep it cool) so we can have it on the fire longer. 8 hours of proper heat would have made a truly succulent pig.

Another big logistical lesson: pulling all that meat is a HUGE pain in the ass. We did not prepare well enough. We should have set up stations with pans, cutting boards, and knives/cleavers and just chopped up the meat. As it was we were trying to pull it to get that nice texture, and we were so unorganized that it took something like 90 minutes to deal with. The whole time we were being assailed by swarms of yellow jackets and party-goers who just wanted that nice piece there, or a piece of crispy skin, or something. Sheesh!

Oh well. Anyway, I’m sure Andrew will have more to add. And I hope to post some more photos soon, and the winning BBQ sauce recipes any day.

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It’s over! The 1st Annual ‘The Other White Meat’ Pig Pickin’ and BBQ Sauce Contest Jamboree was a huge success. We had more than 100 folks up at Tilden Park. 10 sauce entries, 60 pounds of meat, endless yummy side dishes and desserts, and a raft of beers later, we think it went off without a hitch. Thanks to the many folks who chipped in food, drinks, money, music, cleanup, and other support. In the days to come we’ll post some pictures, a post-mortem on our pig, and hopefully recipes from the three winners of the sauce contest. Stay tuned!

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In preparation for the 1st Annual “The Other White Meat” Pig Roast and BBQ Sauce Contest Jamboree, Andrew, MJ, and I have been doing quite a lot of research into how to build our own pig roaster. We still haven’t come up with a final design, but there’s lots to share, so I thought I’d do a round-up of some of the problems and decisions we’ve faced.

Rentals

First, the bad news. Depending on where you live, you will probably have a difficult time finding a place to rent you a rotisserie that will handle more than 30 or 40lbs. Larger ones that are meant for pig roasting (and other big meats) often come on trailers and will set you back a mint. The places we found wanted us to pay about $60 to rent a large grill for the day, and $55 more for a motorized rotisserie which wouldn’t come close to handling our pig. So, guess we’ll have to roll our own.

Wooden Box: La Caja China

As far as we can tell, there are three primary ways to cook a 100lb pig (give or take) outdoors: rotisserie, butterfly, and wooden box. The first two share more in common than the last, so I’ll get that one out of the way first. Traditional Cuban roast pig is sopemtimes cooked in a wooden “China Box”, or La Caja China. Here’s a nice Washington Post piece about it. At lacajachina.com you’ll find some overly expensive devices for sale, but they’ll give you the flavor of the method. You basically put the pig in a big plywood box that’s lined with aluminum, add charcoal, and 6-8 hours later you have a perfect roast pig. At first this seemed like a good route for us – anyone can build a damn wooden box, right? Maybe, but the magic isn’t in the box, it’s in the delicate ballet of adding charcoal in certain amounts at certain times. When you buy the $300+ box you get the instructions for free. But, trial and error with 100lb pig and hungry pork-lovers is not a good game. Pass.

Wood and Metal?

Regardless of the cooking method you choose, the question of where to put the fire is more or less the same. A 100lb pig will be somewhere between 3.5 and 5 feet long, and with the legs probably 2 to 2.5 feet wide. So, the Weber isn’t gonna cut it. Neither, unfortunately, will the large grills that are common in many parks, including the East Bay park where we’ll be BBQin’. And the park rangers don’t take too kindly to people digging BBQ pits at their picnic sites, so that’s out. Want to build your own? Sounds good, but during the dry season, the park rangers consider that a ‘fire hazard’ or some such thing. Nuts. But still, we did bunch of planning before we found that out, so here’s some thoughts.

At first we were thinking about building a wooden structure a lot like the one you see above. (And dressing up like that awesome dude in top hat and tails…) Basically, a rectangle on legs to hold a metal container for the fire, trusses for the rotisserie (or whatever) and a reflector on one side. But, the trouble begins right away. What to put the coals in? Originally we thought about cutting a standard 55 gallon drum in half. But a 55 gallon drum is 24″ in diameter and 34″ high. Too narrow *and* too short. No dice on any other type of metal tub at either Urban Ore or Alco Metal. You might have better luck in your neighborhood. Plus, the dudes in the picture obviously went with all metal for the tub and tubing, a much better choice considering all that… fire. But we’re short on welding equipment. If you’re not, then go for it.

Build a Cinderblock Firepit

Then we hit upon a better idea: cinderblocks. Modular and easily transported. Fire resistant, heat absorbing. Andrew worked out a nice little plan. 5 blocks wide and 5 blocks long for a solid floor. Then 4 block-high walls on each side. That’s 25 blocks for the floor, 20 blocks for each of the long sides, and 12 for each of the short sides for a total of 89 blocks. At about $1.25 per block, it’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than any alternatives and completely reusable. Also, folks seem to give these things away for free on Craigslist all the time.

Andrew also had the idea to make up a wooden ‘fork’ to fit through the block-holes on both of the short sides. The vertical 2×4 wood pieces will add some stability, and the cross piece would give us a nice piece of level lumber to lay things on. What comes next depends on whether you’re going to rotisserie or butterfly.

Homemade Rotisserie

Starting from scratch, this is a daunting project. No spit, no meat forks. No handle for manual turning. No gears, belts, or motors to rotate mechanically. Worse, no power at the picnic site to run a motor. Someday we’d like to build one of these, and when we do we’ve got some ideas on how to do it, but that’s for another post.

Butterfly Roasting

This is more doable. The butcher will cut the pig in half (or almost in half) for you, right down the middle. You lose the benefits of roasting whole, but it’s much more manageable. Basically, the only trick to cooking the pig butterfly style is that you have to flip the damn thing partway through. When the pig starts to cook, it’s going to start to fall apart, so we need to use some metal gratings to keep it together. Enter the nice guys at Alco Metal in San Leandro, from whom we bought a 4 foot by 8 foot piece of what’s called ‘expanded metal’. (See, e.g., this site.) Basically it looks like the grating on a grill, with the holes between the thin bars of metal shaped like diamonds. Ours has 1/2 inch diamonds, I think. Anything between 1/4 inch and 3/4 inch would work. Important: it’s got to be stainless steel or it’s not food safe. We’ve heard that many folks will use regular steel for the grating and don’t die because of it, but it’s not a good idea. We got ours whole and paid about $4.00 /lb for it. It’s a big sheet, so it ends up being almost $100, but it’s worth it. Home depot will sell you smaller sized pieces if you have a very small pig. Note that all of this stuff will need to be scrubbed within an inch of its life to get all the grease and grime off.

Then what? Well, we also went to Home Depot and bought a few feet of bare copper wire (also food safe). When we get the pig, we sandwich it between the metal grating (which we cut in half with a Dremel Tool), and wire the two gratings together with cut pieces of the copper wire. Bingo, pig sandwich! Then when it’s time to flip over, we just get a few people, grab it with oven mits, and do some kind of elaborate flipping maneuver.

Whew! That’s a lot of info. I’m sure there’ll be more tips after the fact, but I’ll stop now.

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Here’s a few tidbits we’ve learned about ordering a whole pig from your local butcher.

1. Find a good butcher. Calling around we found that prices varied somewhat, and quality (I’m sure) as well. If you live in the East Bay, order from Ver Brugge. Ask for Jerry – he’s the nicest guy. He tells me their pig supplier is a small farm in Canada that’s ‘as close to organic as you can get.’
2. Make sure you are ordering (and paying) for the dressed weight of the pig, not the live weight. Dressed weight is the weight after the pig has been completely prepared for your consumption. You can guess what live weight is.
3. Depending on who you ask and how big a pig you get, plan on 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of carcass per person. That’ll turn out to be in the ballpark of 1/2 lb of meat per person.
4. Our pig is costing us in the neighborhood of $2.80 per pound. Remember that cleaning and preparation is built into that cost, and it’s not small chore. The butcher has to take out the guts and (more annoyingly), since the skin will be left on make sure that it is completely clean and smooth. Often this will require them to actually get out the Bic and shave the damn thing.
5. Ask your butcher to cut off the feet no matter how you cook the pig. We’re doing butterfly style instead of rotisserie, so we’ve also asked them to cut the breast bone for us and take the head off. Strictly speaking, you don’t have to take the head off for butterfly, but for a variety of reasons (including the gross-out factor), we’ve opted to do it. You’ll only lose 5ish pounds of meat by cutting off the head. The part I’m really sad about losing, though, is those cheeks. Pork cheeks are heaven.

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Well, the time is almost here for our giant bash. The pig is ordered, more than 100 people have RSVPd, and we’re busily making preparations for an all day party. I’ve got a giant backload of posts that I’ll be firing off in the next couple days, and hopefully they’ll encapsulate all that we’ve learned (a lot!) during the preparation for the pig roast. Stay tuned.

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