How To Spit Roast a Suckling Pig…

Everyone loved how our suckling pig came out on the spit, so, I figured I would post here how we prepared and cooked it.
1. Get a suckling pig: 20-30lbs, gutted and cleaned.
2. Brine the pig: Get a big plastic container w/lid to hold your 20-30 pound pig. Into it add 3 gal water plus 1 gal water heated to blend 4 cups sea salt & 2 cups brown sugar. Put liquid in bin. Add to liquid; 2 qt vegetable stock, 3 heads garlic (halved), 1 head celery (rough chopped), 5 sprigs each of parsley, sage and rosemary. Add 1-2 bags of ice. Place pig in bin with liquid. Place an unopened bag of ice on top of pig to hold it down and keep liquid chilled. Add additional full bags of ice as needed to keep temperature around 40 degrees farenheight. I added bags every 4-6 hours. We brined ours for only 12 hrs, I think 24 would have been even better.
3. Prep the pig: Remove from brine and rinse. Make sure any remaining guts are removed. Rub the outside and inside with good olive oil. Rub on a small jar of minced garlic. Rub on one 3 oz of McCormick’s Grill Mates Pork Rub (this rub is made up of Chili pepper and herbs including red pepper, brown sugar, garlic salt, onion, apple cider vinegar). In belly, insert 3 heads of garlic (halved), 5 sprigs each of parsley, sage and rosemary before stitching it up. With a knife add cuts to skin to prevent it from popping when cooking.
4. Attach to spit: This is the best site to see how to truss and attach your pig:
http://www.spitjack.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=SJ&Screen=TRUSS
5. Cooking and Basting: Cooking will take 3 to 5 hours depending on strength of heat source and distance of pig from the source. So you’ll want to baste often to keep moist. Here’s my basting solution; in a pot on low heat and blend together 4 sticks butter, 2 cups olive oil, 2 cups vegetable oil, 2 tbl spns garlic powder, 1 oz of the McCormick’s pork rub, 1 oz Essence of Emeril, 1 tbl spn each of salt and pepper. Use a brush and dab onto pig 10-15 minutes. Remove pig from heat when inside temp reaches around 165 degrees farenheight. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Hope we do this again soon,
Cheers!...

B-Mans Birthday Bash & Pig Roast!...

It was a celebration yesterday as the Manhut buzzed with good friends, good food and good cheer as we celebrated the B-Mans (that’s me) birthday, inaugurated the new park style B-B-Q grill (bought at Sportsmansguide.com) and used the new picnic area for the first time.

Although there were many highlights throughout the day, the focus of the event centered around the roasting of our first suckling pig. This 27 pound beauty was brined, seasoned, prepped and spun on our battery operated rotisserie for most of the day. It was the first attempt any of us had ever tried to cook a whole pig, yet everyone was in agreement that the results were awesome! Nicley flavored and soft as butter…. We WILL be doing this again.

A few other highlights:
- 3 hut virgins.
- Mrs. G-Mans slaw.
- PW’s Jello shots.
- Where’s all the Tequilla?
- You people need a better knife.
- Stella!!!!...
- Really cool gifts for the B-Man (thanks friends).

As night fell and the crowd thinned out, the torches were lit, a bon-fire was set and a bright July moon streamed through the trees. Grizz pulled out the old 12-string as chorus after chorus of Neil Young echoed down the mountain…… So nice.

Cheers!...