Whole hog roast

[59 Sons]

Here are some construction details if anyone wants to build it. Just a warning. You will not save any money building your own. The commercials available unit is around $400, but is limited in capacity. This build cost $1000, but gave me the capacity I needed. I started with 3/4" osb box, welded a 2x2x1/8" angle frame with legs. Note, I reinforced the legs later, as the weight mounted.

 

[59 Sons]

Next I lined the walls with 1/2" foil faced polyurethane foam insulation, and foil taped the exposed edges. Then folded a pan out of 26Guage galv. Next I lined the walls with the equivalent of 16ga aluminum. Note that the gap at the end of the frame is for the sliding end wall.

 

[59 Sons]

Next I capped the top edge of the insulation with light guage aluminum angle, and then topped the outer edge with the 2x2 steel. Next, I installed the recessed frame that supports the ash pan. That stops short of the sliding oven door. Don't forget that the sliding door will have a layer of insulation and aluminum sheet on it too. Note the end slot that the door fits in to. You can also see the ledger that the racks slide on.

 

[59 Sons]

The meat racks are made of 3/8 rolled stock. It bends easily (slide a length of pipe over it to bend clean corners) Grind the welds flat so it slides easily and is easy to clean after roasting. (You will spend a whole day cleaning this thing up)
The ash pan is 16ga plain steel in a 2x2 frame welded continuous around the edge so ashes cant fall on the meat. Make handles to lift it by that are out of the heat, and don't interfere with lifting out the coal pan.
The coal pan is 3/4 flat expanded metal in a 2x2 frame, again with handles out of the heat. Make sure handles don't block sliding oven door (my bad) Coal pan has to be lifted out a few times to scoop out ashes during the roast, as the ashes insulate the heat from radiating down into the box.

 

[59 Sons]

Cooking tips:
I slaughter several days early, butterfly the carcass, and totally immerse in brine for a couple days in the cooler. Then I haul it up out of the brine to hang and drain a couple more days. The night before the roast, I load it onto a rack and dry rub with Meatheads Memphis Dust, and inject with Lexington Dip. Then I wire it between the racks TIGHT. It has to hold it solid when you flip the pig to crisp the skin. I have been using rebar tie wire with a whirly gig tool, but stainless electric fence wire would be better as rebar tie wire has oil on it. Just make sure the wire doesn't touch the meat. Sometimes I have to cut off the ham hocks at the elbow and wire the elbows in so they don't stick out past the edge of the racks. I put the pig in the box the night before so it can rise up from cooler temperature. If you are doing it in summer, you can put bus tubs of ice under the racks to moderate temperature rise overnight and for travel.

 

[59 Sons]

I use 160-200 lbs of charcoal (2 pack 20# from Home Depot for $15) I have a wired thermometer probes in the rump, shoulder, and belly. Also an air probe to monitor box temp. You need to concentrate the heat at the ends where the meat is thickest, you are looking for 190-200* in the rump. Then pull it out, flip it over, cut the ties, remove the top rack, score the skin with a razor, rub with Memphis dust, and reload for another 1/2 to 1 hour to crisp the skin with a couple final bags of charcoal. You could set some plate steel platforms or expanded metal grates over the coals to cool other items, or just throw tinfoil wrapped potatoes or corn in around the coals.

 

[radios1]

That's a fact. I did a lot of research on the pit method before settling on the roasting box. The advantages I came up with were : 1- because the box traps the moisture from escaping, you can cook the pig at a higher temperature without turning it to jerky thus cutting the cooking time in half. From what I read, a three hundred pound pig would normally take around 16 hours over a pit, I was able to get the meat up to 200ｰ in 7 to 8 hours. 2- The box is portable so I could show up at a remote location on roasting day with the pig already in the box. And because of the shorter cook time, I could start at 9:00 in the morning instead of 2:00 in the morning to have the pig ready by dinner time.
The main drawback of this method is that you get no smoke flavor on your meat since the coals are outside of the box. I remedied that by making a smoke pistol out of a tin can and a soldering iron and putting a tiny fan inside the box to circulate the smoke. That also helped circulate the heat for more even cooking and less hot spots. Also I was able to catch all of the drippings in sheet pans instead of losing it to a fire pit.
There is a learning curve to how to handle your coals and ashes that you can learn on La Caja China's website.
My biggest concern was if I could effectively heat so much larger of an interior space, so to hedge my risk, I lined the box with rigid foil faced insulation and put the aluminum skin over that. I had no problems heating the interior of the box effectively with not much losses out the sides.

200ｰ where is that temperature measurement used, I never heard of that!!..

 

[59 Sons]

Gotta love auto correct ��

 

[59 Sons]

Recipes:

Brine: (1 gal per 4# pig) ideally.
Concentrated due to large pig and limited space in a barrel:
6 gallon batch: 3 gallons of hot water, 5 lb of salt, 1/2 lb of pink salt, 3 lb of sugar, 25 lb of ice.
Make five batches, (30 gallons for a 200 lb pig) 50 gallons would be ideal of normal concentration but if we are lacking space we go extra concentrated.
Optional ingredients per gallon:
2T pepper corns
2T cumin seeds
2 bay leaf
Cider vinegar
Brine for a day or two in a barrel in cooler, or in an ice chest, add ice in bags, replace bags of ice as they melt

Lexington Dip mop baste:
4 cups distilled vinegar
1cup ketchup
1 cup apple juice
4t hot sauce
12T brown sugar
2T kosher salt
4t crushed red pepper
4t fine black pepper


Meatheads Memphis Dust:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup garlic powder
2T ground black pepper
2T ground ginger powder
2T onion powder
2t rosemary powder
Pre salt the meat up to 12 hours
Omit the sugars for whole hog over direct heat to avoid burning the sugars, or keep it under 350*

 

[bunyip]

I had roasted a lamb on a rotisserie over a spot, but that revealed my equipment was only capable of about 50#. My pigs were growing fast, and by the time of the company pignic, they were close to 300#. I was going to build a cinder block out, but it had to be done at my partners home 150 miles away from my farm, and the logistics were intense. That's when I stumbled upon La Caja China. Only problem was, it maxes out at 70# dressed. My pigs dressed out at 195# and 240# So I determined to build La Caja Grande! It's 38" wide id x 66" long and 30" tall. Its just big enough. The original design has you flipping the pig from the top which isn't practical with that heavy of an animal, so I made the end slide up, so the pig could slide out oven style. You have to flip it skin side up once it reaches temperature to crisp the skin.

That was not a typo was it:laughing::laughing::laughing: