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.

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.

Our Grilling/Roasting Equipment

Martin's Roast A Pig is proud to introduce one of our Cook On Site Chefs, Michael Moran. Michael started working for us late summer 2020 and he has been instrumental in assisting the customers by roasting and carving pigs at their parties.