Lovely Jubbly BBQ

This weeks blog post is all about the whole hog cook that I did over Labor Day weekend. Whole hog cooking is considered to be one of the most difficult cooks in BBQ, but is perfect when cooked properly.

I have been BBQing for a few years now and I have cooked and smoked many many things and a whole hog cook was a goal, but I figured it wouldn’t happen for a little while longer. A couple of months ago I was asked by a friend to do a pig roast for their wedding that is happening Fall 2025, but the catch was that I needed to practice, which is fair enough. In talking with my wife about how to pull that off, she suggested I do one for her birthday, which this year was also Labor Day.

I spent a long time looking at different ways to cook the pig, including commercial pig roasters and smokers, and even the classic cinder block pit. I also spent a lot of time looking at different recipes online for how to do it just to get an idea of what needs to be done and the best way to get good results. I think we all know how this can be explained, but all of a sudden I started getting smokers and pig roasters showing up on my Facebook Marketplace and I came across a listing that caught my eye. It was a rotisserie hog roaster that was custom built onto a trailer about 12 years ago. The price was right and I set off to Crystal Lake, Illinois to go look at it. The roaster (pictured below) had not been moved in quite a while but I was assured it would make it, thankfully I found out that it did as I drove home with it that same day.

After bring the pit home, I had to do a lot of research in how to cook on a rotisserie, because doing it before buying the pit would’ve been too easy. As the days counted down, I picked up the pig from Wilsons Farm Meats in Elkhorn, WI the Saturday before the cook. I had bought an injection mix from Butcher BBQ, in order to put maximum flavor and increase moisture within the pig. Naturally, while injecting the hams, the injector I was using developed an issue and would not work, so I intended to put a gallon of injection into the pig but did not get anywhere close to it. After this I added 2 layers of rub to the entire inside of the body cavity, starting with a salt, pepper, and garlic rub (The Everything) as a base layer, and then followed through with a heavy layer of my primary rub (The And Then Some) for maximum flavor and color, then back into the cooler overnight to dry marinade.

The next morning at O’ Dark Thirty, came the time to fire up the burn barrel to prepare coals, put the rotisserie spit through the pig, sew up the stomach cavity and get the pit fired up. Because this was a 2 person job, my awesome wife had to wake up early to help me, she was not a fan of the mouth, or the tail… Once we got the pig onto the pit, I fired up the rotisserie and got the coals lit.

The pig cooked for about 11 hours and I burned through about 200 pounds of charcoal along with about another 40 pounds in hickory and cherry wood as well over that 11 hours. I used my Thermospike temp probes by Thermoworks to monitor the temp on the pig. These probes are wireless, which obviously is best for a rotisserie setup, but these probes also read the ambient temperature as well, which helped me know when to add more coals. The probes were placed in the Shoulder and the Ham specifically, and it really helped me know where to lay charcoal. After the 11 hours, the pig was taken off the pit and slid into the cooler to rest. The temps were above 180 in both probes and after a rest, pulled absolutely perfectly.

What would I change? I would make sure that I have a better injector to get that injection all throughout. I was very pleased with how juicy it was when I pulled it, and it had a very strong pork flavor, but I was hoping that it would have more flavor in general. That is really the biggest thing that I was concerned with, but it was great meat and definitely fed the party. All of these adjustments are easy enough to make and I think the next pig will be a winner.

I have attached some photos of the pig roast here, and I here to answer any questions you have, and want to connect and converse about it on the Facebook post.

Drive in to learn about the start of my journey of LJBBQ!

I am Mitch, and I am the head Pitmaster here at Lovely Jubbly BBQ. I want to use this opportunity to welcome you and introduce myself a little bit. I also want to take the opportunity to tell you the purpose behind my blog and my goals for it as well.

I have always loved grilling and during the ever popular Covid era I asked my awesome wife, Dani, if I could by my first smoker for my birthday. I found the Pit Boss Classic while shopping online and having very little experience with smokers at the time, I based my decision off the online reviews I saw and bought it that day.

My first weekend I had it all set up I cooked every day and did my first every pork butt, brisket flat and some chicken. The pork butt turned out fantastic, and the brisket flat did not, but from that moment on, I was hooked.

I was then asked to cook for my step dad’s birthday in Monticello, MN on the first weekend in May and naturally, if you are looking to cook for many people, a small cooker isn’t going to get the job done. This lead me to buying the Pit Boss Sportsman 1100, which was more than twice the size of the Classic and able to feed the masses. I ordered it to be sent right to their home so I would only have to travel with it once, but it never showed. I ended up doing the entire party on a gas grill; pulled pork and all. Amazingly the pulled pork turned out well enough to be eaten, but the brisket flat was burnt to a crisp.

2 weeks late(r) the new one arrived and my horizons opened up even more with 2 cookers. Since then, I have acquired a Masterbuilt 1050 Vertical Charcoal Smoker, 2 Weber 22″ Kettles, an Oklahoma Joes Bronco Drum Smoker and a custom built (by the previous owner) Rotisserie pig roaster trailer. In this seemingly long 4 years, I have spent a lot of time and effort creating my own line of BBQ rubs and sauces (on sale soon), multiple BBQ competitions with many more to come, and a lot of fun trying to come up with my own recipes that I will be sharing with you over time.

With this blog, I plan on sharing a new recipe every week and offering my insights on the recipe itself and I hope to encourage you to make it yourself for your own friends and family. In addition, to the recipe of the week, I also want to do a wing recipe of the month because I love wings, especially during football season. Every blog post will be cross-posted to my Lovely Jubbly BBQ Facebook page and I hope that it will generate some conversation as well. My goal is that if you have any questions, comment on the link for the post and I am always happy to answer anything that comes up, and I would hope that if you know the answer, that you would respectfully jump in and help! I know how social media can be, and bullying and rude comments will not be tolerated.

Given that this week is the introductory post, I will not be sharing a recipe, but you can look forward to my whole hog follow-up from this past weekend.

As always, Keep cookin’, and Lovely Jubbly!