Progress Reports
AFTER ONE HOUR
Check your fire and add charcoal if necessary and check the progress of the pig. Add only 2-3 pounds of charcoal at a time to each side.
By this point, the skin should be getting brown, and the grease may be starting to drip into the drip pan. The grease may produce flame ups in the charcoal.
Have a bucket of water available to douse the flames with a cup or two of water.
AFTER TWO HOURS
There will be significant progress at this point. The skin will be darker and the drippings should be flowing more steadily.
Natural juices from the pig and juices from whatever stuffing may have been used, may be seeping out of the cavity and coating the outside of the pig.
Add some more charcoal if need be. If the size of the pig has decreased enough, tighten the hand knobs on each end of the spit basket.
AFTER THREE HOURS
The color will be getting increasingly darker. Check the fire and shrinkage.
AFTER FOUR HOURS
This is the time you can add your pre-soaked wood chips to the fire to add a deep, smoky flavor to the meat.
We recommend soaking the woodchips in water overnight to increase the intensity of the flavor, however if you haven?t done so
already, soaking them for one hour will produce a similar effect.
Drain the water from the chips. If you are using a charcoal PORTA-GRILL®, place them directly on the coals.
If you are using a gas PORTA-GRILL®, put wood chips in an aluminum pan or pouch. Do not put the chips directly on the lava rock.
Also, be aware that the amount of smoke rising from the grill will increase.
Check the meat temperature by inserting a meat thermometer in the shoulder and the ham of the pig as shown with
the red stars below. The thermometer can either be left in the pig during roasting or inserted at the time of temperature reading.
Be sure to keep the thermometer away from the bone. The meat should reach 170? before you take it off the PORTA-GRILL®. To
accurately judge temperature, leave the thermometer in the meat until the temperature stops increasing. When the meat reaches 170?
F., push the thermometer in deeper. If the temperature drops, continue cooking. If the temperature stays consistent, your roast is
done! You can also use appearance and color to judge whether or not the pig is done.
You may want to baste the roast toward the end of the cooking period with a fruit or barbeque sauce, although
unbasted roast is quite flavorful. Sauce applied to the outside of the roast too early during cooking has a tendency to burn off
rather than permeate the skin to flavor the meat.
Remember that repeated opening of the roaster lid will cause a loss of heat. An alternative might be to roast the
pig without basting and offer two or three sauces to use as dips. Serving the sauces piping hot will help if the roast cools while
carving and serving.
AFTER FIVE HOURS
Cooking times may vary, but a good rule of thumb is 1 hour for every 15-20 pounds of meat. Our 100 pound pig was
completely roasted after five hours using a PG-2460-M Super PORTA-GRILL®. The skin was browned and splitting open and the
temperature had reached 170?.
