"We should roast a pig"
Famous last words
This entire tale is the result of that very utterance. An utterance that was uttered by my good friend Kyle at Kyle's house, the location of which I thought would host the hog roast. Kyle had other ideas and by the time I realized his intention was to cook the pig at my house I had already agreed and put out some feelers to out-of-town friends on preferred dates.
I had done this once before in college with my roommate Michael "Uncle Troj" Trojahn, however he was the chairman of that whole operation and I was mostly in a support role. Plus it had been over 10 years since we did it so I wasn't exactly an expert. But then again if a bunch of drunk college kids can do it then it can't be that hard. Right?
The main impetus for Kyle's suggestion to cook an entire pig was a recently released cookbook from legendary South Carolina BBQ pitmaster Rodney Scott. He grew up roasting whole hogs and has mastered the art. His book describes in detail all the steps involved and will serve as our guide for the weekend.
Now, you ain't gotta be Rodney Scott to figure out that the first step in roasting a hog is procuring a hog. We decided that I would be in charge of sourcing the hog & Kyle would take care of the pit. I should take a minute to give Kyle a special shout out, this weekend wouldn't have been possible without him. In addition to his duties as Director of Pit Operations, he also served admirably as the Vice President of Event Planning, Manager of Supply Chain Logistics, and most importantly my Chief Deputy. Thanks for all your time and sweat Kyle, I hope the sore back was worth it.
Now back to the hog. I have been a fan of Prairie Creek Farms ever since a friend told me about their operation in Kellyville so I gave them a call and got a hold of Farmer Nate. I asked if they could source me a whole hog and he told me they do it from time to time and it shouldn't be a problem. Excellent. I was thinking a 75-100 lb pig would get the job done but he advised me to do 120 lbs for the number of people we expected. Since I didn't know any better I said ok and he got it on the books. One last thing - I made sure to ask if they could split the spine for me. This method of cooking a pig is similar to spatchcocking a bird - splaying it out flat - and to do that you need to split the spine. You could either do that yourself with a hatchet and or have the butcher do it for you. I'm solidly in favor of the latter. No problem Nate said & we were all set.
So now that the pig is presumably taken care of and Kyle has the pit under control, the last significant hurdle is sourcing the wood. And we're gonna need a lot of it. The week before the feast I found a website for the Tulsa Firewood King, but unfortunately he was be out of town and won't be able to help me out. So I take to Craigslist and find a posting for oak and pecan in midtown Tulsa. Fuckin A. I send the guy a note asking if he still has wood and he replies "Yeah I keep a ton. Pickup or delivery?" Good enough for me.
I tell him a Friday delivery would be best and he lets me know that he's pretty slammed on Friday but should be able to squeeze me in. Excellent, seems like we have everything in order. Smooth sailing right?
The Day Before
I worked half a day from the house on Friday before starting to prep for the big feast. First up was cleaning up a bunch of crap at the house - I have no idea how my childhood domicile has accumulated so much worthless junk but we spent a few hours gathering it up to get rid of it. It hurts my head to think about how much useless shit we have in that house. Maybe a few more pig roasts and we can get it all cleared out. Maybe.
Anyways the next step is to pick up the pig. Remember how I said we talked about a 120 lb pig? Well I get a text from Nate that casually says the hog is ready at the farm & it weighed in at 170 lbs. 170 lbs!!?? What the hell Nate? We agreed on 120 lbs. How much longer will this beast take to cook? I was planning on 12 hours but who knows with this monster. And seeing as we're dealing in a \$/lb business here I'm going to have to outlay a good amount more cash than I had expected. Not a great start to the festivities.
Kyle & I hop in my mom's SUV and make the 30 minute drive to the farm. We get there and ask around for Nate and he's in the forklift loading some packages into a truck. Kyle & I occupy the time hanging out with Porch, the farm goat. Once Nate is done doing his forkliftin he tells us to pull around and we'll get the hog loaded in the car.
This is the point where it really sets in that lugging 170 lbs of frozen dead weight around is really going to be a pain in the ass. We're able to get it pulled off the truck with 4 guys and put it in the back of the car. Nate tells me he'll knock some money off the price of the hog since it came in bigger than he had told me and is surprised that I already paid the invoice. You emailed it to me Nate, what did you expect me to do? So he goes in and grabs a bag of assorted meats to make it up to me. I'm still a little salty about this enormous swine in the back of the car but not much we can do about it now.
We make our way back to the house and have a hell of a time getting the suid into the house. It takes four of us again to get it out of the car and into the tub in the downstairs bathroom. We load it up with 120 lbs of ice and we're on to the pit.
The Pit
Kyle has the list of supplies we'll need to pick up from Lowe's and we get the keys to our friend Pete's truck and head out. The store is super busy, which is not ideal because we're going to need some help getting everything we need into the truck. After grabbing what we can carry by hand we wait for about 10 minutes till we get an employee to help us out. He considers our situation and decides the best method to get us on our way is to load a whole pallet of cinder blocks into the truck. The pallets come with 90 blocks and we only need 62 so we go out to a pallet and unload 28 and a guy on a forklift wheels around and scoops up our pallet. He goes to drop it in the truck and the bed droops a disconcerting amount with all that weight. We're gonna give this Ford suspension everything she's got. We finish loading up the rest of the supplies and we're on our way back to the house.
As we're pulling out of the parking lot I text my wood guy and tell him that we have a truck now and can come pick up the wood if needed. He says that would be great because he's swamped at the moment, just give him a call before we head over. I tell him we should be there in about an hour and he says that's just fine.
We get back to the house and start unloading cinder blocks out to the backyard under the magnolia. Kyle and I consult Rodney's book for blueprints and after a couple fits and starts we get the pit built. Rodney's plans call for using an angle grinder to carve out a few notches in the top row of cinder blocks, which seems like it's going to be a royal pain in the ass, not to mention we have the wrong blade for the angle grinder. Pete's dad Marty lays out a few pieces of rebar and puts the last row of blocks on top and asks if that will work. We take a look and it seems like we might have a winner. Much less work and it'll get the job done. Just to be sure Marty crawls in the pit & lays across the rebar to test its structural integrity. Such a dad move. Love it.
About That Wood
So we've got the pit set up, hog on ice, all we need now is wood. I call the wood guy & no answer. Setting up the pit took a little longer than anticipated - I told him we'd be there in an hour it's actually been about two and a half. Whoops.
Kyle & I head out in the truck to the address he texted me earlier and we find ourselves in a church parking lot. I call him again to no avail and send a text to let him know we're here. Still nothing. It's at this point that we remember that Boone's car is probably close to where we're at, we should go take a look. The reason for the interest in Boone's 2002 Ford Explorer is that it caught fire today. And when I say it caught fire it reeeeeealy caught fire. Holy smokes. Luckily nobody was hurt but that'll surely put a damper on your weekend.
After checking the wreckage we head back to our post in the church parking lot. Still no answer from the wood guy and I'm starting to get antsy about this whole wood situation. It's after 9 PM and a lot of places are closed. I know Lowe's is open until 10 and they have charcoal and maybe some BBQ wood so we decide to run down there to pick up a bunch of charcoal that will get us through the morning, after which we can hopefully get a hold of the wood guy or find another source of lignocellulosic biomass.
We get to Lowe's and pick up a bunch of charcoal and a few small bags of hickory chunks. It's a worryingly small amount of fuel but we'll have to figure out how to make it work.
Luckily for us, however, we don't have to worry about it. Just as we're pulling out of the parking lot wood guy finally gets back to me. He says he's there and we can swing by. Hallelujah! We head back to the address and don't see anyone in the lot. I call him again to say I'm here and he says I must be at the wrong place because he doesn't see me. He says he's at the corner of 16th & Harvard, which is most certainly not the address he sent me. He sent me 1692 S. Harvard but I think he meant to send me 1602 S. Harvard. Kind of a pain in the ass but we're finally at the right place and by god he does have a ton of wood. It's racked up in a yard right off Harvard, I have driven past it a hundred times and I've never noticed it. Pro tip: if anybody needs wood for BBQ or smoking this is the place to get it.
Wood guy shows us the different sections, most of it is oak with a good amount of pecan and a bit of hickory. He charges me \$50 and tells us about how much we should take but doesn't seem too worried about it. He runs to make another delivery so Kyle and I are left to pile wood into the truck. My nerves adequately settled we make our way back to the house where we unload the wood and my brothers help cover it with a tarp and I am ready to call it a night. It's a few hours later than I hoped to get to bed but shit happens when you take on a project of this magnitude.
I am absolutely exhausted and I flop into bed around 11:15 with my alarm set for 4 AM. Big day tomorrow.
Let's Roast a Damn Hog Already
My alarm squawks right at 04:00 and I roll my weary ass out of bed. I get a pot of jitter juice brewing and head out to get the fire going. I get two chimneys of charcoal started and head back in for some coffee. After the coals are ready I dump em out and get some wood going on the coals. The thing that I realized from this whole experience is that it takes a while to get the fire built up to where you need it. I thought it would take about 20-30 minutes but it took closer to an hour, hour-and-a-half. Not a problem because we still need to transport the hog out to the pit.
Kyle shows up around 5 and we start devising a plan on how the hell we're going to transport this animal out to the backyard. Another thing I realized is that you probably shouldn't store a frozen solid pig on ice overnight. It's going to be tough to get this bad boy splayed out flat when it's a solid block. Oh well, let's get it out there and we can figure it out as we go along.
I grab a towel and put it on the ground and we finagle the beast out of the tub and onto the towel to drag out to the door. The dogs come to investigate and volunteer to clean up the juices that leak out onto the floor. We get the suid to the back door and now we need to figure out how to get it out to the pit. I ponder for a minute and grab a wheelbarrow from the shed. Now this hog is fucking heavy, unwieldly, and quite slippery so we've got our work cut out for us. Somehow by the grace of god we're able to awkwardly dump it into the wheelbarrow, straining every single muscle in our bodies.
We wheel the ol girl out to the pit and manage to lift it up on the grate. It's at this point I realize that the farm bamboozled us again. Remember how I asked them to split the spine for us? Well they didn't.
Sonofabitch
Like I mentioned, the damn hog is frozen solid so we're going to need to thaw it out a bit anyway to flatten it out so we'll deal with the spine later. We plan to warm it up for an hour or so then break out the hatchet. It wasn't pretty but we got the hog on right around 6AM. Now we just gotta keep the fire roaring and wait.
Rodney prefers to keep the pit temperature around 250°F but I'm going to shoot for 275-300°F because of the size of the hog & our need to get it thawed out. I get everything cleaned up and put on another pot of joe.
A couple more friends arrive in about an hour and we discuss the plan for splitting the spine. We lift it out to the edge of the pit and I grab a hatchet and a hammer. Kyle & Boone help keep the cavity open while I start hacking away. I work for about 10 minutes before handing the tools off to Boone to relieve me. We keep at it and about 15 minutes later with some help from Will we finally get it flattened out. It was all hands on deck and a huge pain in the ass but we got it done. Big props to the fellas for helping out, we're gonna get this hog cooked come hell or high water.
The rest of the morning consists of tending to the fire and checking my temperatures. We drag a TV out to the back deck for the Euro soccer matches and enjoy the games until Christian Eriksen takes a heart attack on the pitch. It really brings down the vibe but we later learn that he's been stabilized at the hospital and the doctors on the field brought him back to life. Heroic work from the lads. Doctors are pretty kickass no matter what your crazy uncle on Facebook says.
Dump Run
By this point we are on cruise control. My coal bed is rip-roarin, my pit temps are lined out, and we have a steady supply of wood to keep it going. People are starting to show up for some afternoon revelry so I figure it's high time to take that load of junk we collected yesterday to the dump. Because what's a hog roast without a trip to the dump? I check the hours for the Tulsa Indoor Dump - "Tulsa's Only Licensed In-City Dump for Household & Commercial Non-Hazardous Waste"™ and realize I may have blundered. They close at 1 PM and it's already 12:15, we're gonna need to hustle.
I deputize everyone out on the deck watching soccer to help load shit into Pete's truck and we roll out with a truckbed full of crap. Before I leave I have a conference with Timmy about keeping the coal bed going and when to load fresh wood to the pit. He seems to have it under control and my good buddy Frank heads out to the truck with me to help unload, mostly because he's the only one nice enough to fall for my guilt trip. We arrive to the dump at 12:55 and get everything unloaded easy peasy.
I'm not exactly sure how, but everything is coming together.
I could really use a beer about now.
On the way back to the house we pass right by American Solera and Frank is amenable to stopping for some suds. We order a couple beers and Frank refuses my attempt to pay for his beer to thank him for helping me at the dump. Real straight shooter that Frank.
We guzzle down our bowls of loudmouth soup and buy a few 4 packs to take back to the house. I get back and see that Timmy has been slacking at his post. He's kept the fire going but my coal bed is petering out. Not a complete dereliction of duty but I wouldn't consider it trusting the process. If he reads this he's going to be mad at me.
The Homestretch
The rest of the afternoon goes by smoothly - occasionally checking on the hog, playing yard games, dipping my feet in the inflatable pool Pete brought over. Slugging beers.
The sun is starting to get low in the sky and our temps right where we want em. I'd reckon it's time to flip this big bastard. It's a pretty big effort to flip an animal that large on a wire frame and our congregating by the pit has seemed to attract a crowd. We discuss strategy for getting this ol gal flipped and after agreeing to a plan we give the 1-2-3 and heave-ho the whole contraption to a gaggle of videos, photos, and gasps. We didn't lose any meat and nobody got hurt. I'd call that a success.
It's only about an hour until we're ready to take the pig off and I realize I haven't even started on the sides. People have brought an excellent assortment of sides but I really want to get Rodney's mac & cheese and cornbread out there. Easley has been asking what he can do to help and I finally call him on his offer. I set him up in the kitchen with the recipes and he gets to work. I know I used the word "hero" to describe the doctors who saved Christian Eriksen's life, but Easley's work on those sides that Saturday evening in Tulsa was nothing short of heroic. People even started calling it Easley's mac & cheese by the end of the night - take that recipe back to Boston big guy & blow those chowderheads' minds.
Can We Eat Already??
One of my dad's tenets of bbq-ing was telling your guests you'll eat at a certain hour then serving the food an hour.. or two.. or three hours later. He said then everybody will be really hungry and won't care how the food tastes. I Think he just enjoyed hanging out drinking beers and bbq-ing with his friends. Either way, I was planning to have the hog ready around 6 but don't pull it off until 8. It actually worked out better that way because it gave the sun some time to dip down & we were able to congregate in the shade instead of the sweltering direct sunlight.
We get the hog pulled off the pit and get all the sides set up for folks to shuffle through and load up their plates. I start hacking away at the great beast, taking samples here and there as I go. Kyle Trinidad (Kyle #2) follows behind me with a box of Kosher salt, giving the perfect dusting to the meat. It is a shitload of meat and by god is it tasty. I carve up one side of the pig and everyone goes through getting their fill. I think the funniest part was the dogs lapping up the hog grease rolling off the table, not giving a shit that the grease was dripping right on their heads. Good thing we still have that inflatable pool set up to warsh them dogs off.
As I carved up the midsection of the hog I remarked at how incredible this part tastes and Kyle #2 gave me a dry "uh yeah, that's pork belly." Touché, Kyle, touché. I reckon pork belly is gonna taste pretty damn good.
Everybody seems to have gotten a plate and I'm finally able to relax. What a weekend. I take a load off and immerse myself in the gastronomic delights I have in front of me. Good food, good company, good music, and cold beer - I can't really think of much more a man could need.
I honestly still can't believe it all worked out. I'm super grateful to everyone who brought sides, tables, chairs, and helped out in any way they could. It was a hell of a lot of work but it was definitely worth it.
This may sound crazy but I can't wait to do it again.