I've only spun one pig, so I'm not exactly an expert. I did learn a few things though:
It's good to have room to move coals around so if it gets too hot you have somewhere to park them. I was using this therm - one in the shoulders, one in the hams, to guage cooking temp and IT:
It was very helpful to me. They are available on the Spitjack site. I was looking for 250 cooking temp and around 180 or so IT - if you cook it all the way to pulliing temps, it'll fall off the spit and into the fire, and most likely put on quite a show. :shocked: You will have a little bit that won't pull, it'll be sliced, and I doubt anybody's gonna complain. I'm hoping to cook without any therms before too long - I like to rely on as few things as possible.
As previously stated, you want your pig well secured to the spit.
The pig we did was around 70#, and I gotta admit I don't remember how long it took. I think I allowed 10 hours (that's what I do in an offset) and we may have been ready a little early or late, but not a significant amount IIRC.
There are lots of recipes for mops out there. I used the one from the Chris Lily book, which was good, but I'd probably cut back on the sugar a little 'cause there was a little burning - not too bad, but it was something we had to watch out for.
I would have liked more smoke flavor, so if I do charcoal next time, I'll throw some wood chunks in, but what I'll really probably do is build a burn barrel and burn down oak to coals.
Save the bones and make stock - you'll be glad you did!.
Fark.. Now I wanna cook a pig and hang out with my bros....