If you are considering hosting a pig roast, you are in for a treat. Bring family and friends together for a perfect pig roast! Learn the recipe for success in cooking a whole hog in a pit or cinder block box, not on a spit.
Why You Should Have a Pig Roast
We value family, community, and working with our hands to produce our own food. What better way to enjoy our friends, family, and harvest than with a good old-fashioned Oklahoma pig roast?
We love seeing our friends and families come together to butcher, process, slow roast and finally enjoy the tender, flavorful meat of homegrown pork. All the while, kids are running around the farm, and everyone is talking and catching up. This is food and community at its best.
Raising pigs is one of the most rewarding farm projects that also gives you a great return on your investment, especially if you do the project on your own.
Learn to build your own DIY pig shelter and how to butcher a pig by yourself. Then learn how farrow pigs on the farm to raise healthy, pasture-raised meat.
Then, you can share this joy with your community with a traditional Oklahoma pig roast. Farming is all about this – hard work, community, self-sufficiency, and delicious, healthy food!
How Long Does it Take to Roast a Pig?
Give yourself plenty of time to prepare the pig for roasting. Start your project at least a day before you wanna start roasting it. We processed our pig and hung it to let the meat rest for 24 hours before we dressed the hog and put it in the pit roaster.
The cooking time for a pig roast depends on the size of the pig. A 150-pound pig will take about 8-10 hours to slow roast. While the hog is roasting, closely monitor the coals and the meat’s temperature.
The key to a successful pig roast is keeping the temperature steady and using indirect heat so that the pig doesn’t come into contact with open flames. Cook over hot coals or use indirect heat.
This may sound like a long time to work and wait, but it’s worth it. The result is amazing pulled pork!!! And keep in mind that you should do this with friends as a community effort.
How Many People Does a Pig Roast Feed
Plan for about a pound per person. So, if you have a 150-pound carcass, you can feed approximately 150 people.
Or, plan to have gallon-sized zip lock bags available so your friends and family can take home the leftover meat. You can even freeze the pork you pit-roasted for easy and delicious meals.
Supplies Needed
- 65-gallon Barrel – Fill the barrel with water and set it on a gas burner.
- Gas Burner and Propane Tank – Use this burner to heat the water in the barrel to 165° F.
- Gambrel and Pulley Hoist – Hang the pig by the back legs on the gambrel and lower it into the scalding pot (drum barrel).
- Traditional Metal Scraper – Scrape off the hair of the pig after you scald it.
- Pressure Washer – Clean off the pig with the pressure washer.
- Cooler – You need a cool place to hang the pig overnight to allow the meat to rest.
- Fire Pit or Roasting pit – My buddy made one from cinder blocks and a metal grate.
- Charcoal or Wood for the Fire – We burned our wood into coals in a barrel and then added the hot coals to the pit barbeque. A harder wood makes a good bed of coals.
- Meat Thermometer – It’s important to test the temperature of the meat regularly to monitor the cooking time.
- Chicken Wire – Wrap chicken wire around the pig to keep the meat from sliding off the rack. It also allows you to lower and lift the pig in and out of the pit barbeque.
- Oven Mitts – Use oven mitts to lift the hog from the pit.
- Wire Cutters – These will help quickly cut the chicken wire away from the cooked hog.
- Serving Platters and Utensils – Once you pull the pig from the pit, it’s ready to serve and eat.
Ingredients Needed
- Pig (of course!) – We chose about 150 to a 175-pound female pig. Make sure to remove all the hair and clean it.
- Seasonings or Marinades – Choose your spices or sauces to include. We suggest at least adding salt, pepper, and garlic. Some people even mop on barbeque sauce once the carcass is processed, cleaned, and ready to barbecue. Others inject the spices under the skin to flavor the meat underneath. Research recipes and choose the one that best suits your taste.
Pig Roast Instructions
- Make your fire pit beforehand so it is ready to use once you have butchered and prepared your pig. My buddy made a pig roaster from cinder blocks making a large box-style pit barbecue.
- Gather your friends to help.
- Once you’ve chosen the pig to use and dispatch, heat a 65-gallon barrel of water on a propane burner. Bring the temperature to 165° F. Use a thermometer to be accurate with the temperature.
- Hang your whole hog on a gambrel by the hind legs. Use a pulley hoist system to lift your hog above the barrel and lower it to the scalding barrel. Some people use an old bathtub instead of a 65-gallon barrel as the scalding pot.
- Dip the hog in the water for a good 3 minutes.
- Pull the hog out of the water and scrape it right away. Use a metal scraper to scrape all the hair from the pig. The hair should come right off with the scraper. The traditional cylindrical scraper works really well. You want to get this hog as hair free as possible. If the hair is stubborn, go ahead and dip the hog in the scalding pot again because you may not have dipped it long enough the first time. Leaving the skin on the hog seals all the juice into the meat. Pro-Tip: Having several scrapers on hand is helpful so everyone can step in and make quick work of it.
- Use a pressure washer to clean off the pig. It makes it really clean and takes off any stubborn debris or hair. Just be sure that you don’t puncture or tear the skin.
- Next, remove the head if you choose to and eviscerate the pig (see step-by-step instructions for this in our post on butchering a pig).
- Hang the pig in a walk-in cooler or a cold place for about 24 hours to let it rest.
- Prepare the pig by cleaning it and seasoning it with salt, pepper, garlic, and any other seasonings you like. We like to do a dry rub and injections of spices under the skin.
- Start the fire and let it burn down until you have a bed of hot coals. We prepare the coals in a barrel.
- Pour the hot coals into the bottom of the pit, spread them out, and cover them with a grate.
- Wrap your hog in chicken wire and place it on the grate over the hot coals at the bottom of the fire pit. Cover the fire pit with a plywood lid to seal in all the heat. The cinder blocks will radiate heat to slowly cook the hog, making it tender and juicy. With this method, you don’t need to turn the hog on a spit. The pit roast radiates heat all around the hog, cooking it evenly.
- Make sure it’s only cooking over the heat of hot coals. You don’t want any open flames touching the hog.
- After about 8 hours, check the temperature of the meat. It should cook to at least 160° F. It generally takes 8-10 hours to pit roast a 150-pound pig.
- Use oven mitts to pull the hog from the pit by the chicken wire. Have another person replace the plywood lid on top of the cinderblock fire pit so you can set the hog right on top of the pit.
- Cut the chicken wire from the hog, peel the skin back, and serve. The meat should be moist and tender, full of the flavor of the smoke and spices.
- Bring over the plates and side dishes, like baked beans and coleslaw, and serve the hog from the carcass. Tongs work nicely to pull the meat apart and serve.
And that’s it! Now you have everything you need to know to bring back an American tradition that dates back as far as colonial times. A pig roast is sure to bring people together to slow down, enjoy time getting to know their neighbors, and create fond memories for years to come.
It could be your signature gathering that brings your community together, empowers fellow farmers to become more community-minded, teaches neighbors how to become more self-sufficient, and introduces the next generation to more sustainable living.
On the Farm
Just Mojo and the piglets getting to know each other!
