Build Your Own Pig Roaster
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.
Comments (29)
Hi.
What did you decide? Was your BBQ a success?
I’m looking to do a pig BBQ on August 18 (I live in Haverhill Mass.), and just curious how your event fared?
Regards, Nick
Nick,
You can read all the dirty details here:
http://bbq.isgoodfor.us/pig-pickin-wrap-up/
Hi there. We are having our own Pig Roast. Like you said, very hard to get the equipment. We are going to make our own. But we can’t find any way to make the pig turn on its own. The picture above showed you with a motorized spit. How did you do that? Please help us. Thank you very much!!
Davina,
Unfortunately, that’s not us in the picture above. We could never pull off that top hat. We found the same difficulty with turning the spit, which is one of the reasons that we went the butterfly route instead.
Keep in mind, though, that you don’t really have to keep the pig continuously turning, although it makes for more even cooking. If you can build a rotisserie with a robust spit and some kind of manual crank on the end, just give it a 1/4 turn every 3-5 minutes or something. Take turns sitting there with a beer – shouldn’t be too bad!
Made my roaster from a 275 gal oil tank.Roasted 2 on it last year and getting it ready for Memorial Day for a 125 pounder!! Have pics.Dave.
Hello,To whom it may concern I’m looking for a picture of a 250 gallon oil tank turned into a pig roaster if you have some could you please email me some.thank you for cooperation
check out the roasters that are used be one of my friends in his roasting business. everything is home made and works extremely well. pay special attention to the double roaster… built back to back with a smoker box for one heck of a party. tekampepigroasts.com
I did a 100 LB pig a few years back on a cinder block and sandwiched wire grill as you did. We put it on the fire about midnight friday, marinaded and rotated every few hours, as my father did when he would cook whole hogs. saturday evening 20 couples came to the pot luck backyard cookout. lots of food, booze and fun. about 3 a.m. sunday morning only one neghbor and myself were trying to finish the keg off, till our wives turnoff all the lights on us.
Lee
La Caja China cooks in about 3 hours, not 6-8 hours as you mentioned above.
Building a pit for rotisserie cooking a 100lb pig in a few weeks. Have everything built in pieces. Two stands to hold each side of the spit (one side also supports the rotisserie motor), and a resevoir to hold our coals and wood under it… My buddy and I are trying to figure out the BEST distance between the bottom side of our actual pig, and the heat source. He’s thinking 18″, I’m thinking more like 12-15″…
When the pig is rotating, say its back is facing dow, how far away do I want my coals? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! -Dan
Hey Dan,
I’ve been researching and just read that you should keep your pig about 32″ from the heat source. Good Luck!!
Hi,getting married aug 7, my inlaws are going to have a hog roast for the event, they say they dig 3′ x8′ pit burn hedge wood for a full day dig half of coals out put hog in put coals back on top and cover with dirt for whole day cookin. Sounds like a lot of work,but got lot of NEW in laws 4 trailer loads of wood and lots to drink( ??? )
How long will it take to cook a 60lb pig on the Cinderblock Firepit?
Just wondering why you are saying that normal steel is not safe, and only stainless steel is safe. After all, people have been cooking with iron for a long, long time (cast-iron skillets and dutch ovens come to mind).
Very interesting!
FYI…La Caja China and I have (finally) released our first cookbook, “La Caja China Cooking.” Lots of traditional Cuban recipes, as well as Southern US favorites, and a few from around the world!
http://www.roastingbox.com/p-87-la-caja-china-cooking.aspx
- Perry
I have a home built pig roaster the has an electric motor and gear reduction drive to turn the spit that will do a 300 lb pig
The spit is above the heat by 3+ feet and it can still get a little scarey with larger pig due to the amount pig grease being dripped
I recently purchased a Rib-O-Lator for my husband (who is a BBQ fanatic) and he LOVES it! I love it too because it’s the best food he’s ever cooked on the BBQ!! The ribs are super juicy and tender and very delicious. I am thinking about getting him the smoker for Christmas! Definitely recommend!!
I have 2 Large rotisserie pig roasters that I built out of 2 – 265 gallon cut oil barrel halves and a steel liner liner to retain the heat. with a 1/2 horse electric motor and a 4 speed trany, it is verry impressive. I can cook 2 cases of chicken at a time and Hogs up to 300 lbs. If you are mechanically inclined and can fabricate metal you can do it. some day I will put pics on face book so others can get the idea on how to build a big cooker.
HEY Bruce you should widen the bottom for your coals so that the fat runs down the midle between and away from the coals. Do this by installing some angle iron on the bottom edges so that the charcoal stays put, Good luck with that.
We built one from a round barrel I turn the pig a 1/4 turn every 15 to 30 minutes.Works better as the pig cooks it gets smaller breaks up when turned all the time Hinge the top to make it easy to remove the pig
Hey Rick Wrap the pig with chicken wire to keep to pig from falling apart, make shure it is tight as you said the pig shrinks as it cooks, but you can adjust the wire buy criping it with your hands make shure you wear gloves. Da !!
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Hoss has it right. I found the easiest way is to wrap the pig with chicken wire and use a couple long pieces of rebar to hang it over my pit. Just have you and your buddy grab an end and flip or rotate whenever necessary.
I can’t find a pig spit to rent anywhere in San Diego! Everybody’s homemade contraptions sound amazing….does anyone live in Southern CA by any chance or know of any friends who have these amazing spits..would love to work something out so i could rent one!
olivia71783@yahoo.com
I have made block cookers on several occasions. I don’t put in the floor, saving on cost, but you need to put down foil and sand if doing it in the driveway, or do it in an area you can remove the sod from if doing it in the yard.
I put several pieces of rebar across the pit by notching the edge of blocks on each side. Then lay a piece of remesh available at the hardware store to make the support. I make the pit longer than the pig by about 1.5-2 feet. At one end I break the side out of one of the blocks on the inside, making a chimney. I place the pig on a sheet of expanded aluminum sheeting also available at the hardware store. That way you can lift the pig out when it is finished and it will not stick to the remesh grill. At the far end of the pit opposite the end with the chimney is the fire box. I just build a fire and using a piece of concrete culvert I make an opening for adding charcoal and wood chunks as needed as the cooking progresses. After getting the fire hot, I place the pig butter flied belly down on the sheeting on the remesh, then cover the pit with either steel sheeting, fire proof sheathing or plywood covered with foil. I make the pit as air tight as possible. To control the temp you can simply lay a piece of wood or sheet metal over the hole in the blocks acting as the chimney. I find that partially covering the fuel hole also works to dampen the fire and keep it at a moderate temperature. A remote digital thermometer is great to have too. I put the electrode in the ham and don’t have to open the pit until the pig is finished. The heat moves from the fire pit end across the pig to the chimney vent at the far end. I cook mine for a full 20-24 hours at around 190-200F.
Unfortunately, that’s not us in the picture above. We could never pull off that top hat. We found the same difficulty with turning the spit, which is one of the reasons that we went the butterfly route instead
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I been roasting pigs sence I can remenber. Last one was in may when I when to Puerto Rico to visit my family. My brother borrow a contraction to turn the pig and electric motor with a gear box and a speed control box. But if you really wnat to do it you don’t need any of that. In the good old days my father had a sturdy wood spiket two metal Y”s or you can use a cement blocks. We use to build a box like the one above but we use metal. We also covered. The coals must not be more than 15″ from the pig and the hight from the ground should be around 20″ from the center of the turning point. My father made pockets all over the pic with his knive and inserted a mixture of adobo, garlick, salt & peper & other spices, inside and out. Also as the pig star to get dry as it cooks my father use to make a brush out of chicken feaders, you can use a brush attachet to the end of a broom habdle and coat the pig with oil and sason the red stuff you can find in any spanish market, to keep the pig from burning and give it color and flavor and turn , turn , turn for up to 6 hours depend on the size of the pig. How do you know when is done you ask? My father sharpen the other end of the wood handle and pocke the pig and see how far the stick when in , when almost came out of the other side of the pig was done. The he separate the diferent parts at the bone joints with a sharp machete and enjoy with a cold beer.
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