British BBQ Society Forums

I love a good Hog Roast, but surely it must be 10X better to cook a whole pig in a wood fired pit than in one of those gas fired jobbies that everyone uses?

Has anyone done this & got any advice, tips etc.?

Simon has what is termed a Cajun Microwave ie a brick built pit for cooking whole hogs Im sure if you pm him he'll pass on words of wisdom...

Hi,
Cooked a 40lb suckling pig over an open charcoal pit on a spit a few years ago. Memories of the affair include -
We did around £100 in charcoal, not sure we had the most efficient set up
We had to baste piggy with an emulsion brush secured to a broom handle
It was a long process, and both chefs were a little over marinated in beer by the end of it, which meant dealing with a 40lb hot pig on a yet more hot steel pole rather tricky, I am not sure if we had conducted a proper risk assessment we should have proceeded
There really was too much pork for the 6 guests, 2 of whom were well lagered and fermented simultaneously
There were leftovers
All the meat was good........

As for upgrading to full pig, or going the whole hog as it were I would take counsel from them who have, but agree it must be better than on gas. My new favourite BBQ supplier the good people of GMG do have a something called the "big pig rig" which Mrs Tiny has strictly forbidden me to cast an eye or ear over........

Happy enpigulation....
Cheers
Tiny

"GMG big pig trailer rig" Now that is exactly what I'm talking about Tiny

Any idea where you can buy one of these in the UK?

There is also the Woodmaster Whole Hog which looks identical.

Toby is the whole hog champ isn't he?

For my wedding we had a hog roast and paid extra for wood. It was thrown in the bottom of a steel box the same shape as the gas ones. Flames were huge before the pig went on. Maybe 8 hour to cook and fed 130 (sized for 150 plus turkey for 50. He was shocked we cleared the bones!)

Interesting. What was the name of the caterers you used?

Hi
Strange no one has mentione la caja china the chinese box. simple way to cook whole hog in 4 hours. they now sell in the eu for around 400 quid (200in the us) but you can make one for less than 100. jimmy built one on tv on jaime (oliver) n jimmy show. no need for caterers as they would cost more than the box

Aka cajun microwave. I believe CyderPig on here makes them.

The cajun microwave or la caja chinese look cool, but it just oven roasts the pig using an external heat source. It is essentially a very big Dutch oven. No smoke flavour, which is what I'm after. A large pellet grill looks like the best option so far for what I want