Pig Roast Success

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday for the pig roast! We may have missed the arrival of true summer weather by a few days, but at least there was no Junary deluge. I think the roast was a great success, but as always, there are some things that I may want to do differently next year.

The good:

•  The Cuban style concrete block roaster worked like a charm. We put charcoal in the four corners to provide indirect heat, restrained the pig with some rebar, and covered with aluminum foil. The 30 pound pig took about 2.5 hours to cook (not that we butterflied the carcass to allow it to cook faster and more evenly)

Room to tinker next year:

• We didn't get much good smoke flavor in the meat. I want to try adding alder or apple wood next year to add more flavor.
• The Cuban mojo marinade, while tasty, didn't impart much flavor to the meat. This meant that the meat was juicy and tender, but bland. I want to experiment next year with something better.

A parting thought:

There was a lot of fat on this animal. This meant that the skin got nice and crispy and that the meat was moist, but it also left a lot of waste. The Large Black heritage breed that we're raising has an old world body type. Back in the day, all that fat was cherished as calories to help make it through the winter. In modern times, we've bred hogs to be super lean as tastes have changed. Going forward, I'm interested in trying to strike a balance through crossbreeding. As a bonus, though, our finished adult hogs are going to yield an awful lot of super tasty bacon!

---