Suckling Pig

[D'sSmokinBarrels]

Hi All,

With it being a bank holiday last weekend it seemed rude not to have a smoke, obviously!

My friend had been in my ear for a while wanting to smoke a suckling pig he's had sat in his freezer for the last month (he's had some pigs bred for his wedding by his cousin who owns a small hold and handily they’d overbred so he’d been given one of them as a suckling pig - very lucky guy).

Although Monday was a complete wash out, it wasn't stopping us! We’d scanned the internet for information on how to smoke the suckling pig, as we’d never done it before and even though we found very little in the way of BBQ smoking advice as well as the suggestion id been given from this website, not to smoke the pig due to it being too delicate (which I was quite concerned abut myself), we decided to go against the instincts of making a fire pit and using a spit, set up some cover and fired up the offset.

We ended up loosely following the readily available tips from the BBQ pit boys and their 3 hog roast and the you tube video by Peter Sandeson which were very handy, as I really didn’t want to waste this beautiful animal.

The pig was washed (as it still had a bit of the usual blood) and then we injected it with Chris Lilly’s Championship Injection recipe. We followed this up with a homemade pork butt rub, over the entire pig and the inside of the carcass, leaving the kidneys in, how it came from the abattoir (we figured the rub wouldn’t flavor it much due to the skin, but it was more for colour).

We got the smoker up to temp, approx. 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) and placed her on. We started with the legs of the pig facing the firebox for an hour, before turning it round to have the head and shoulders to face the firebox. You can’t see in the pictures but we covered the snout, ears and leg ends with tinfoil so they didn’t burn (the trotters were removed at the abattoir also).

Most information we found, suggested we should put the pig in a ‘racing position’ with the front and rear legs tucked up under the pig, however if we did this, the pig would have been too high to close the lid and we didn’t want to lay it on its side, so we just spread it out (this made no noticeable difference). We also placed a block of wood in the pigs’ mouth so that when we presented it, we could place an apple in its mouth, Henry the 8th style (the mouth is tough to get open but with a little force you can do it – on the video the guy uses a crowbar).

We used a couple of water trays for moisture and smoked the pig over hickory and oak chunks for the first two hours. I also used two internal probes, one in the pigs shoulder and one in the leg to monitor the internal temperature.

After 6 hours of smoking, keeping a relatively high temp of 225-270 degrees (it was pretty hard to keep the temp constant due to the differing/sideways rain and the wind) we had the finished product (internal temp was around 170 degrees Fahrenheit) and boy, was it fantastic! It was succulent, sweet, smoky and just amazingly delicious. We accompanied it with a bit of greenery and some homemade baked beans (which we’re absolutely fantastic).

One of the things I would suggest was part of our success was the amazing outdoor reared pig we we’re luck enough to have. We had great fun doing it and the results were phenomenal.

Photos on the link below:

https://imageshack.com/a/Riwz/1

[JEC]

Excellent, well done and thanks for the really good post, so nice to see something a bit out of the ordinary.

While hog next, chance to get a bigger rig

[BRUN]

interesting cook, any reason you only took it to 170F ?

[D'sSmokinBarrels]

Hi Brun,

Just from smoking food (Pork in this case) in the past I know that when the internal temperature (at the deepest parts) reaches about 170 to 175 its good to go (I had it at this temp for a short period before taking it off), I didn't want to take it any further so as not to risk drying out the meat.

We let it rest for an hour

[JamsCowbell]

That looks great!

[BRUN]

170F on a normal shoulder etc is way too early, usually the removal temp would be 195F-205F but it may be a totally different situation with a whole pig ! Ive no idea