Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

Looks like a good easy way to roast a (middlin'-sized) whole pig. I'm studying pretty hard about trying one of these.

http://www.lacajachina.com/

I know a guy that has several of these. I think The 300 Silver....I remember they were Diamond Plate on them. He has a Catering Business and uses these all the time. I've had Pork that he has cooked and can say they do a great job .

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The only real alternative for a whole hog is a smoker.......and that's an entirely different cooking method & flavor profile.

You could old school it & make one with cinder blocks & expanded metal grates, seen that done a few times but it requires more effort.

The real attraction to me is the 4 hour cook time. I'm familiar with and have participated in cookings that use the other methods you mentioned, but they are more work and take a lot more time. I'm getting too old to stay up all night splitting wood and drinking adult beverages.

I recently bought a Big Green Egg and started smoking meats again. Doing ribs today. The BGEs are not that much works as far as smokers go. Set it up at the temperature you want and pretty much let it do it's thing. You can literally leave it alone for hours once it is set.

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cwfunrider wrote:I recently bought a Big Green Egg and started smoking meats again. Doing ribs today. The BGEs are not that much works as far as smokers go. Set it up at the temperature you want and pretty much let it do it's thing. You can literally leave it alone for hours once it is set.

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I'm seriously considering pulling the trigger on a Humphreys "Down East Beast". They use charcoal, to which you can add your smoking wood. That and the fact that they are very well insulated means you can mount a BBQ GURU draft controller on it and you can get it up to temp and go to bed for the night. But you can't do a whole pig on one.

dorminWS wrote:The real attraction to me is the 4 hour cook time. I'm familiar with and have participated in cookings that use the other methods you mentioned, but they are more work and take a lot more time. I'm getting too old to stay up all night splitting wood and drinking adult beverages.

Lol - I can relate to that, well past that age. Yep, roasting is nice - faster & a nice flavor profile. You can get smokers that run on pellets = you set a temp & it keeps the temp much like an oven (used a lot on BBQ circuit).............but.......it would cost a pretty penny for one big enough to do a whole hog. The La Caja China looks like a nice roaster @ a nice price (at least the cheaper models).

Years ago I helped a neighbor cook a whole pig ..Took forever and was a lot of work. We cook butts and shoulders a couple of times a year and is much easier . We use charcoal most of the time in the summer. When it's cooler we burn oak in a barrel and use the coals .We have a steel grate that sits on cinder blocks with a bottomless barrel on it . As the coals fall out they just have to be shoveled into the cooker. Works great and is cheaper than charcoal .

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cwfunrider wrote:I recently bought a Big Green Egg and started smoking meats again. Doing ribs today. The BGEs are not that much works as far as smokers go. Set it up at the temperature you want and pretty much let it do it's thing. You can literally leave it alone for hours once it is set.

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To quote my own post...

Ribs were outstanding. I did a shoulder on the 4th of July and it was also perfect. I have done wings and a ton of other stuff either smoked or direct heat grilled on the egg and it is all just unmatched. The design and function of the egg are really meant for a low and slow cook. The ceramic really holds the heat and uses very little charcoal which after you are done cooking you can smother the coals and use the coals over and over again.

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Roasted a pork picnic Saturday. Used a picnic because unlike a butt, it has skin on it. It was good eatin'. The meat reminded me of the stuff they roast in the ground using hot rocks down in Hawaii.
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But that skin browned until it bubbled was nothing short of piggy candy!
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After it came out of the roasting box we pulled the skin off and also toasted the inside of the skin over the coals. if you do it just right it gets about halfway between good chewy bacon and store-boughten pork skins on the mouthfeel, but the taste is just beyond any comparison. Can't wait to do a whole pig just because it will be a lot more skin to roast.