A Whole Hog Lotta Learning

The Idea

So Theresa asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and actually, without much thought, I decided that I wanted to cook a whole hog and have a whole bunch of people over to eat it.  I knew one of my co-workers, Sue, owned a Caja China, so I knew I had the most important hardware.  And I had a dozen or so cook outs, so I had a decent experience under my belt.  So game on!

Meat and Butcher

So Sue mentioned that she always got her hogs from Latella's farm up in Orange, CT.  I was about to give them a call when I passed Craft Butchery on my way down to the train station.  Turns out it had literally just opened its doors the day before.  I walked right in and asked the guy behind the counter, "do you think you'd be able to get me a suckling pig?"  And says, "yup, we certainly can."  And we get to talking about my plans and he gives me all sorts of advice about logistics.  He offers to lend me his cooler so I can do the brine - a pig big enough to feed my crowd is going to be bigger than what my coolers will fit.  He tells me what to expect from the Caja China.  And he explained what happens before the pig actually arrives in my hands -- slaughtering it, removing guts, hanging it to bleed out and dry.  And when I finally arrived to pick up the pig, he says, "I would have prepared it for ya, but I figured you might want to participate" and he invites me behind the counter to butterfly the pig and do some minor cleaning.  I'm really psyched to find a butcher willing to invest the time educating me.  We're now on a first name basis, he's Ryan.

Hardware (read: "toys")

Nothing fancy here:

• Caja China
• Stoker - 2 meat probes and 1 pit probe
• Ash Can
• Fire Place Gloves
• Shovel to clean the ashes and manipulate the goals
• Coal chimney
• 150 quart cooler
• Injection needs

Nice having most of the implements.

Choices, choices!

Well, this was the most painful part - deciding how to cook this bad boy.  I did quite a bit of reading on this.  Googling "caja china suckling pig" yielded this recipe.  But I also wondered whether I should go to my Filipino roots and cook up some lechon. But in the end, I decided to stick to my comfort zone, Memphis style dry rub and a modified injection of apple cider, molasses, sugar, and sriracha.  For a little variation, I decided to add the brine and glaze from the first recipe.  I think Filipino litson is next on the list -- I really want to find out what's up w/ the star anise and lemon grass.

Prep

So I picked up the pig Thursday night and got it on ice.  Friday, I whipped up 13 gallons of brine with 6 cups of Diamond kosher salt and 2 cups of white sugar (in retrospect, a pretty diluted brine solution).  But no biggie - I was trying to be on the cautious side, as oversalting was one of the only ways I could really screw things up.  Saturday night, I got home from Per Se and Sik Gaek around 11p a bit tired, but in an hour I had the injection together and the rub all mixed up.  A few hours later, injection was in the swine (not enough, as it turns out) and the rub all in the inside of the cavity. I was a bit tired, but I wanted to google more about what an expected cook time would be.  Interestingly, I've found the Caja China online presence dramatically less compared to the Egg or Weber Smokey Mountain. You get random blog entries here and there, but nothing compared to the daily cook reports on the latters' forums.  In any case, I came away w/ the impression that I should expect something like three and a half hours for a pig my size.  In bed by 2:00AM, alarm for 8:00AM.

Onto the fire

Got up around 8am along with Luke.  Dad Cheng helped me extract my pig from the cooler and onto the racks.  We manipulated the S-hooks to get the pig all secured and set it into the box.  I arranged all the Stoker probes.  I fired up the coals in the chimney starter -- 14 lbs in all.  In no time the coals were all aglow.  And in no time, the pit probe was reading well above 350 and on its way to 400.

And now the waiting

So by 1p, the temp in the shoulder and ham was still at 145, so not even into the stall.  I knew this did not bode well for an ontime delivery.  What I did not anticipate was how much longer still it would take.  So to make a long story short, almost 4 hours later - 7.5 hours from start time - and 65 lbs of coal later, the pig reached 170 in the shoulder and ham.  And not without some drama - at one point, my meat probe read 637 degrees fahrenheit.  Not good - it had actually caught on fire.  I was miserable - I thought I'd wrecked the pig.

Anyway...

But miracles of miracles, when I cut in the skin, it was crispy and TASTY.  And when I brought the bear claws to bear on the meat underneath...oh so tender and pullable.  So not a bad affair!  I was so relieved.  And butchering the whole pig took the better part of an hour but was really fun.  It was great to see all the parts of the pig.  The long strands of the tenderloin.  The crazy fat in the cheeks and jowls.  The surprising amount of fat in the ear drum. The white meat in the ham.  Of course the fat in the shoulder.   What a great day!

Lessons

• Get the damn pig to room temperature.  It takes forever to cook otherwise and the outside will get charred in the process
• Don't be afraid to let the temp get in the 400's
• Make more injection, probably a gallon to be safe
• Make sure to move the coals around when crisping the skin to avoid fires and char
• Prepare a whole table covered in foil on which to cut the pig
• A young pig has more milk fat, so it hasn't taken on as strong a "pig" flavor