2007 World Pork Expo Whole Hog

[Plowboy]

Thought you guys might enjoy seeing a few pics of our whole hog in progress. These pics were from the prep today. Randy injected at about 10:30a. Pulled the hog out of the ice at 6 to prep for the cooker. The zip saw is to cut the rips into spares and baby backs. The main reason is so that the bones have some flex in them so the meat has room to move as it cooks. Overkill? Maybe, but I get to use my zip saw on MEAT!!!! Its about the only use I've found for a zip saw anyway.

This year we are using a Duroc hog. Every other year we've used the garden variety "pink pig". We'll see if the Duroc hype is worth it. Our hog was donated by Stein and Stewart Genetics, a producer of Duroc breeding stock. Stewart won Grand Champion Gilt and Boar at the World Pork Expo here this week.

[The_Kapn]

Interesting!

Good luck.

TIM

[Roo-B-Q'N]

How big is that thing? What temp do you cook at and for how long?

[Jeff_in_KC]

Cool pics, Todd. Thanks! Good luck!

[Rub]

Nice. How do you like cooking it as 2 halves, as opposed to just butterflying?

[Puppyboy]

That's cool. Go Plowboy Go!!!!!!

[Pork Chop]

Todd, clear some space on your pm board, it's full.
Jim

[Plowboy]

Originally Posted by Rub

Nice. How do you like cooking it as 2 halves, as opposed to just butterflying?

We've always done them that way. Easy to handle. We cook skin down the entire cook, so no biggie.

After pics coming soon. I just walked in the door from driving 3+ hours straight from Des Moines.

Our streak of calls in Whole Hog ended this year. 67 teams turned in hog and we were 23rd. However, we had all 9's in presentation. Our box was pretty good, if I say so myself.

We cooked for about 14 hours. This was a 60-65 lb hog as you see it in the pics. It was about 95 when it was walking around the farm last Tuesday. <dead pig mod>

[ModelMaker]

What a thrill it was to watch a grown man giggle while Rotoziping a dead pig!!! Maybe I'll just have you work on my chest...
ModelMaker
P.S. After doing my first whole hog judging I must say I was pretty surprized at the lack of inginuity on presentation. Of the five turn ins presented to our table only one team chose to seperate the three areas of the pig to be tasted. the bottom of the box was preped and two rows of parsely from top to bottom created three distinct areas for the samples.
The rest were pretty much just piles of pig meat, except on entry had manly sized chunks with some skin. 9 app-9taste-8 t&t (dry).
And where was that crispy skin? I would have loved to have some crispy skin to taste (bark mod)..

[Plowboy]

Originally Posted by ModelMaker

What a thrill it was to watch a grown man giggle while Rotoziping a dead pig!!! Maybe I'll just have you work on my chest...
ModelMaker
P.S. After doing my first whole hog judging I must say I was pretty surprized at the lack of inginuity on presentation. Of the five turn ins presented to our table only one team chose to seperate the three areas of the pig to be tasted. the bottom of the box was preped and two rows of parsely from top to bottom created three distinct areas for the samples.
The rest were pretty much just piles of pig meat, except on entry had manly sized chunks with some skin. 9 app-9taste-8 t&t (dry).
And where was that crispy skin? I would have loved to have some crispy skin to taste (bark mod)..

You didn't judge our box, then. We had all 9's in appearance. Probably our best looking hog box yet. Frankly, I thought all of our presentations were good yesterday. We had good presentation scores all around.

[Plowboy]

Here's a Pork box WITHOUT Randy's hands in the way.

[Jeff_in_KC]

Holy cow, Todd! That whole hog box looks fan-farking-tastic! I was wondering how turn-ins were done for whole hog.

On that note, I GOTTA quit reading your threads! You're killin' me here with those awesome photos! I think we have some deli turkey in the fridge.

[Plowboy]

Originally Posted by Jeff_in_KC

Holy cow, Todd! That whole hog box looks fan-farking-tastic! I was wondering how turn-ins were done for whole hog.

On that note, I GOTTA quit reading your threads! You're killin' me here with those awesome photos! I think we have some deli turkey in the fridge.

The requirement from the organizer is that you turn in something from the ham, shoulder, and loin. Anything else is extra. KCBS just cares that there are 6 identifiable pieces.

The process starts with the "Pig Police" that come out to your area 30 minutes prior to turn in. They temp your pig to make sure that it is 145+ in the shoulder and ham. Then they make sure you enter meats from the hog and not from some pork butts you've got hidden away in a cooler. Once the box is closed, they seal it with a Pig Police sticker and walk with you to the turn in. The Pig Police are volunteers. We always send our volunteer home with a big bag of pork to thank them.

The whole time I had the Cheap Trick song "Dream Police" going through my head, but inserting the word "Pig" for "Dream". Randy was sure I was nuts.

[BBQPrincess]

Thx for sharing the pics; process of the whole pig were most interesting. Now, those presentation boxes and the Q in them look absolutely, tremendously beautiful and delic!!! Oh, the shine on the ribs...Gee, now I am B-a-d H-u-n-g-r-y!LOL I know it was all very, very tasty; just had to be.

[chinesebob]

Wow that looked absolutely fantastic. What did you cook that pig in? Did you roast only or roast and smoke? I've never seen a hog turn in.