Help whole hog


 
L

Lance

TVWBB Super Fan
My boss just told me that he wants me to cook a whole hog on Thursday, May 21st. The hog should be around 90 lbs and I will be cooking on a pig roaster which is like a large rotisserie. I know that there isn't much time to plan but I can't really say no. This is for a get together of the senior leadership in my unit. The hog will be dressed and butterflied. My plan is to cook the hog at 250-275 for about 8 hours given what I have read. I will check the temp in the ham and pull off when it is 170 degrees. I plan on injecting the pig with straight apple juice so that I can help avoid dryness. I will use a rub prior to putting the hog in the rotisserie. What I need to know is if this plan is realistic and what problems I may run into. Can anyone help? I really don't want to mess this up but there are a lot of unknowns. The party will have about 100 people and we will cook hamburgers and hot dogs as well. How do you serve the whole hog? I have heard that you can chop it all up together and that you can also cut up individual pieces. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Lance
 
Hi Lance,
Your plan sounds doable. The time frame you are using of 8 hours will be definitely long enough - don't be surprised if you get done around hour 7. In all the wholes I have cooked, the only issue I have ever had was getting the ham itself to be done down to the bone. I was cooking larger hogs so you may not have that trouble. There are two ways that I have served the hog. 1 - let them pull off of the carcass whatever they want 2- take everything and chop it up with a cleaver (removing the extra fatty bits) and then split your cut up meat into two containers - one with sauce included and one by itself. If you're interested, I have recently put a mop/sauce recipe in the recipe section that is superterrific.

Good luck!
 
Chris,
Thanks for the info. I will definitely check out the mop sauce. There will be kids around so I think that I will chop up the meat. How long does it take to strip the meat and chop it up? I am not an expert butcher so I am concerned about stripping the meat off of the carcass.
Lance
 
The meat will come off very easily after the long cook time. It usually takes me about an hour to do a half hog that is 85 lbs of bone and meat. The tenderloin section is the first I pull off as you can risk having it fall off the carcass (been there before). Chop everything up and just remove really chunky fatty bits.

Good luck
 
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