Do It Yourself (DIY)

John Stoltzfus

Do you love to BBQ/Grill and be the “Hero of the Show”?.. now’s your chance.

If you are a Grill Master or a Grill Master wannabe, then you have all the basic knowledge that you need, to do a superb job in roasting a pig, large or small. I am sure that the first time there will be a lot of apprehension, before you get started, but do not worry we are here to assist you from start to finish, if you have any questions, feel free to call.


Obviously, you need a pig, we are happy to provide you with a good clean pig that was processed/dressed under State Inspection, so you will see a round blue stamp on the outer portion of the skin. Not only are the pigs slaughtered in an Inspected Slaughterhouse, but our pigs are also placed in a machine to remove all the hair from the main body of the pig. This assists you in enhancing your presentation, plus it makes the skin perfect to eat, which has an amazing irresistible flavor.

Pig Roasting

Equipment selection is the next part of the process, and our recommendation will always be to use our Rotisserie Grills, however there is a size restriction, 175lb live wt. pig is our recommended maximum, you can go bigger, if the head of the pig is removed. Our Grated grills are only recommended for large pigs or if you are pushed for time and want a “Set it and Let It” process, then the grated grill is an option for you, however the skin is almost inedible at the end of the cook process, only because of the bitter smoke flavor that is absorbed into the skin. (See our equipment selection blog

Are you adventurous?   Try your own process ideas, such as applying a Rub, or filling up the belly cavity with Sauerkraut, another meat, Apples/other fruit, or whatever else you can think of. Or you can ask us to provide you with one of our (6) Rub Options. If you want to marinate with either a rub or another liquid, then we would recommend following our process. We lay the pig on its back and apply oil and sprinkle the rub on the skin and the entire body cavity, then we liquefy the rub by adding water 1:1 ratio and then we use our commercial injector and inject the liquid at multiple locations in the hams, shoulders and neck portion. We flip the pig and basically do the same thing and then we place the pig in a large plastic bag and apply vacuum to force the rub flavor into the meat. Any pig over 120lbs live wt. is too close to the bag size and makes it almost impossible to apply a vacuum, so the bigger pigs are just placed in the bag, without vacuum, which is still ok, if the rub is applied at least 24 plus hours prior to the start cook time.

So now you have the pig and the grill, what about the charcoal? We try to have Kingsford 20lb bags on hand for the convenience of our customers, one stop shop. You can use any wood/pellets or charcoal for fuel, our preference is to start off with the Kingsford Briquettes. For our Rotisserie Grills you will need one 20lb bag to start, fill up both trays, 10lbs per tray etc. We slide the charcoal trays against the end of the inside of the grill so we can add either Chunks of Wood or Wood Pellets. We prefer to use one small section of the charcoal trays for pellets, the wood pellets smoke really well, which can enhance the flavor. 

Cooking Time

The eating time establishes your cook start or the start time to have the pig under heat, example:

  • Figure 15 to 20 minutes to get the Charcoal ready to cook.
  • Look at the cook time chart (70lbs live wt. pig = 5 hours)
  • If you look at our cook time chart, we add about 1/2 hour time to our smaller pigs and up to 1 1/2 hours to our large pigs, displayed on chart.
  • You will need to pull the meat from the bones, we figure about 1/2 hour for the smaller pigs and up to over an hour for the large pigs.
  • Eating 5pm - For a 70lb live wt. pig - 20min. (charcoal start) + 30min. added + 5hr Cook Time + 30min. pull time = 6 hours & 20 minutes from the time you light the charcoal till you are done.

Use lighter fluid to start the charcoal and let it soak for a few minutes prior to lighting. Allow all the Lighter Fluid fumes to burn off before you place the trays back in the Rotisserie. Initially the temperature is going to spike up to 300 plus and after a ½ hour or so the pig will start to absorb the heat and the grill temperature will go down.


Temperature adjustment is all based on how much charcoal you keep in the Charcoal Trays, weather and air density play a big factor in the overall cook time. The mean temperature that we like to see is 225 degrees, if the temp drops to 200 then add charcoal if you add too much charcoal and the temperature goes over 300 open the door to release the heat. Low and slowly makes the best Roasted Pork.

How to Serve

The only thing left is: how do you or the host want it presented or served, whole pig or pulled? 


If the choice is Pulled, then the final process is to pull the meat, this is an important part of the signature “Pig Roast” – Lay the pig on its back and pull the pins, take off the end plate and slide the pig off the spit. Then peel back the skin and start pulling, the trick is to alternate where you’re pulling from, let’s say you start at the hams, pull a few chunks from the ham, and progress to the head and then go back to the ham.  This ensures that the different cuts of meat, (which have different textures and taste), enhances and properly blends the different cuts.   

That’s it – Send the equipment back and leave the cleanup process to us, the only thing we ask is; “Don’t put the Motor Assembly in the Rotisserie”

Remember – the meal isn’t ready till the Roasted Pork is ready, figure out enough of time to cook at a lower temperature, you’ll be glad you did.

Let us know how we can help you be the Grill Master!

CALL TODAY!

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Get to Know Martin's Roast A Pig

By John Stoltzfus 19 Jul, 2021
Looking back to May of 2020 which seems like just a few days ago, a lot has happened in making 2020 one of the most memorable years in modern history, due to Covid 19. Our first order was May 20th, 2021, and those orders consisted of 2 grill rentals and 1 gallon of sauce and then it slowly got off the ground and we ended up with an extremely busy October, by the same date in 2021 we had over 20 orders. The July 4th, 2020, weekend was our biggest to date with 16 orders, we rented 14 grills and sold 2 additional pigs. Late July in 2020 we connected with Gosset’s Homemade Foods, a local company that makes all our sides, there products are awesome and consistent. Well worth the connection and it made it more convenient for our clients as well. Their Mac & Cheese is the best I have ever tasted and is a big hit with everyone that buys it. I always say, “If there are two big guys and a little bit left over, someone is going to get hurt.” 2021 is totally different, our first order for 2021 was three 250lb pigs in early February wedding. March was pretty busy, and then May it have seemed everything broke loose, at the time of this writing June 11th is our second busiest weekend since July 4th 2020. Our process starts after we confirm our orders with the client, which made us change our order policy, the orders will only be processed and in our books with a 25% Non-Refundable Deposit, otherwise we could not make any plans for the weekend till the order confirmation, now it is easier to make our schedule, serious customers have no problem making a 25% deposit. Throughout the week our phone is ringing almost non-stop, especially just before a Holiday weekend with answering calls, teaching the DIY’ers and setting up our schedule’s weeks in advance, which makes scheduling a huge challenge, different size pigs, different pick-up times, different cook on site with different options., sometimes it seems that it would be easier to juggle 4 running chain saws!! Tuesday afternoon our order is placed with the Pig Farmer, and he weighs the pigs and hauls them to a State Inspected Slaughterhouse on early Wednesday morning to be processed. We pick up the pigs late Wednesday evening and put them in a temperature-controlled refrigeration unit, then if we have orders for our Dry Rubs, we oil the outside and apply the Rub on the outside and then we liquefy the Rub to inject at various spots in the Ham, Shoulder and Loins and place the pig in a bag and then we apply vacuum which helps to drive the flavor throughout the meat. I like to see the marinate process being at least 48 hours, I feel the optimizes the flavor of our Dry Rub. Now around 60% of all our orders get the Dry Rub Option and we are thrilled with great feedback. My personal favorite swings from the “Smokey to the Fruity”, depends on the mood, I guess. We hit our goal with the rubs, we wanted something to enhance the Roasted Pork flavor by adding a good rub, this rub needed to be mild but powerfully favorable. We coat the outside with our Dry Rub as well as the belly cavity and then we liquefy the rub and inject it into the thick meat. Our cooking usually starts on a Saturday and sometimes Fridays, so that means to get up early on Saturday morning or stay up on Friday nights to put the on the spit and on the fire, that may mean getting up at 1:00am to start the cook process and most times we are not done till late Saturday evening, so far, we survived on less sleep. Then on Monday the cleanup process starts, grills and equipment come back either Monday or Tuesday. It takes a lot of work making sure everything is cleaned properly for the next weekend, this is usually not all completed till Wednesday evening and then it starts all over again.
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