The Homemade Pig Roaster

I mentioned our pig roaster in my last post.  At DS2's open house, a few people were interested in how it was made, so I thought perhaps readers might want to know too.

It began life as a fuel oil tank.  I'm not sure how many gallons, it's the 'normal' size from my experience of having oil heat at a few student rentals back in DH's college days.  When it was ready for a career change, DH picked it up for free from a place he happened to drive by one day.  I believe from time to time you can also find them listed on Craigslist or Freecycle. . .

DH brought it home, and cut it in approximately half, as this picture shows:

If you were wondering which 'half' I meant for cutting, the feet of the tank (where it used to stand on the ground when it held fuel oil) are now on the front of the roaster.  I don't remember for sure if he used the sawzall with a metal blade or his angle grinder to cut it apart, but it was one of those two.

He welded on a handle (seen in picture above), and on the rear half, hinges as shown here:

He cut air vents in near the bottom of the left and right sides (I think he used an angle grinder for that) as shown below:

So, now he had a bottom half, a top half (aka hinged lid with a handle) and air vents to supply oxygen to the fire.  Then he welded some scrap angle iron to the front and back of the inside of the bottom half.  That made supports for some old t-posts we had laying around from when we removed an old fence between our field and our woods.  The t-posts are not welded in, they just sit on the support loose so they can be adjusted from side to side to hold the grate where the pig lies during the roasting process.

Speaking of the grate, here it is:

DH had it made to his specifications at the local farm repair shop (have I mentioned before how I love the local farm repair shop?  They can weld anything you dream up!)  In the picture above, it is standing up, ready to be cleaned with a stiff wire brush and a hose.  Behind it is the sawhorse/old store shelf "table" used to support the cutting board we set the pig on when it was done roasting and we were separating the meat from the bones before serving.

As you can see, this is not a rotisserie roaster.  The pig must be split down the backbone and laid out flat (skin side down) for roasting.  The fuel (charcoal and/or wood) goes in the bottom half of the roaster, and there is room between the sides of the grate and the left and right sides of the roaster for adding more fuel during the roasting process (about 12 hrs for the 200# pigs we've done in it so far).

This year, DH added an improvement: he drilled a small hole through the top half near the handle and installed a thermometer so he can monitor the temperature inside the roaster and know when it's starting to cool off, indicating more fuel needs to be added.  You can see the thermometer a little better in this picture:

  He also put it up on some cement blocks just so he didn't have to bend down so far to lift the pig out when done roasting.  His back isn't what it used to be ;0)

So, with a little time, a free fuel oil tank, some scrap metal, and about $50 in parts and custom welding from the farm repair shop, we have a pig roaster than has so far lasted four years and will foreseeably last for many more.  At DS2's open house last weekend, we had someone ask if we would be willing to roast a pig for their daughter's wedding in 2013.