Cooking Small Pig Kalua-style in Austin - Questions for anyone who has done this in Texas before

[vlad]

Maybe this is waaaaay off topic for the Hackerspace, but with the eclectic collection of foodies and foodhackers here, I thought I would ask.

I am cooking a suckling pig (22 pounds) - "Kalua style" for a "Redneck Luau" . Having never done this before myself, I had turned to the interwebs and found a bunch of conflicting advice. I am hoping there is at least one other Hackerpace Redneck on the list that has actually done this in the Austin area before.  I have found advice for suckling pig and advice for Kalua pig, but nothing combining both.

Current plan in a nutshell-- mesquite and charcoal covered in river rock in a pit, set fire -- after rocks are hot and fuel set to coals -- lay down banana leaves and drop the pig package (rubbed, wrapping in leaves, wrapped in wet burlap, wrapped in chicken wire) into pit.  Cover pit with leaves then cover with airtight tarp -- cook for ?? hours, test temp - pull out - eat Zombie apocalypse style.

I've dug a pit in my backyard using a pickaxe (yard is mostly limestone), have the banana leaves -- the whole nine yards.

.  Questions I have:

Timing - Traditionally, Kalua Pig is an overnight cook, but traditionally Kalua Pig is a full size 100+ pound pig.I am guessing 3 - 4 hours should be plenty for 20 ponds.   Of course I will be using a meat thermometer to check.  There are timetables for other styles of cooking - smoker, bbq, etc -- not sure how to estimate timing at all.  Not sure if you can "overcook" Kalua Pig -- but I certainly don't want it undercooked. Also don't want it "done" 3 hours before dinner.

Chicken Wire -- will be using Chicken Wire to hold the "package" together.  Have not been able to find non-galvanized.  Have read that the zinc will burn off and be toxic, and also read that the zinc only burns off at temps > 1000 degrees.  Having used chicken wire in this way for cooking in the past, I think people are being waaaay overcautious --- if anyone has a background and know one way or the other -- please weigh in, right now plan is to risk it.

Rocks -- I will be using river rock as the "heat holders".  Have read some stuff on the interwebs that river rock will explode, and especially not to use limestone because it will EXPLODE.  -- probably a bunch of internet garbage-- but again I do not know for sure.  Does anyone know will local river rock explode if heated to about 500F? Will Limestone?  (after the cook, I plan to use the pit as a smelter for just such experiments).

It might be awesome...it might also suck.  (i have frozen pizza as a backup plan)
-Vlad

[Mandie Kramer]

Um,

Clearly, the answer here is to experiment. And we should all come over to help.  :D

-Vlad

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[Matt Printz]

Limestones and other sedimentary rocks certainly can/will shatter violently when heated, so be careful.

Not sure where to buy "safe" rocks around here, but I'd be careful with the river-rock mix from a landscape/garden shop as those rocks could come from anywhere and be of any type.

Matt

[R J]

I believe the reason you need to be careful with the rocks, is due to moisture that can be trapped inside over time.  You may never find the fissure but the moisture can.  When heated, you basically create a pressure cooker that wants to rupture into pieces,  very dangerous and potentially deadly peices.

Please be careful.

[David Mitchell]

Closest thing I've ever done is smoke a full size brisket.. Rule of thumb for that is 1 hr per lb..

Good luck, too many explosions lately.

[Jessica Ross]

Hey Vlad,

However you end up doing this, please document it! This would make a great blog no matter how it comes out.

--Jess

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 7:21 AM, vlad <vlad...@vgarner.com> wrote:

-Vlad

[Doug Swarin]

I've actually worked with suckling pig once before, but it was quite a few years ago. The most important thing I remember is that it ended up taking a lot longer than we had planned (I believe total cook time was about 6 hours, and we had also planned for 3-4). We did not do it Kalua style, however.

One way to help with the rock safety by the way would be to preheat them in a 200F oven for several hours before you put them in the pit, to drive off moisture. It wouldn't guarantee anything, but it might give you more peace of mind.

Doug

[Matt Printz]

With sedimentary rock, moisture is not the only concern. As the matter can be made up of different materials that expand differently at under heat and may have internal pressures, even a completely dry rock can shatter when heated.

You'll want to use stone made of a relatively uniform makeup.

The safest option, if you can find it, will probably be that black, porous lava rock.

Matt

[L0j1k]

Aloha. I guess I'll use this post to introduce myself. My name is Curtis. I am currently living in Honolulu and moving to Austin for work (programming) sometime during this summer.

I've lived in Hawaii for about six years and been involved in many parties with an "imu" pit. There's several things you need to know, but your preliminary information and estimations are pretty good. Fewer pounds means fewer hours, though I have never seen a pig go in the ground for less than about 5-6 hours. That being said, I have never seen a pig smaller than probably 50 pounds go into the ground. You need to consider also that using a thermometer will be difficult if not impossible, if only because the pig is wrapped in leaves and then covered by rocks and even more leaves. If you manage to find some sort of "long thermometer" or something of the sort, minimize the amount of times you stick it in your pig.

Now, I can see confusion about the rocks. DO NOT USE REGULAR ROCKS. As explained by a couple of people (and guessed by yourself), anecdote is correct here: They will explode like grenades if you pick the wrong kind of rock. Here in the islands, we use a special kind of rock. It has a traditional Hawaiian name, but I have only ever heard them referred to as "imu rocks". They are indeed "river" rocks, and at least one person in this thread has mentioned using porous lava rock. This information is correct. The thing about traditional imu rocks is that they are very smooth (from erosion in the rivers) and highly prized. I'm not kidding when I say that you have to know somebody to get a hold of good imu rocks on Oahu. A few years ago some guys were arrested for stealing imu rocks from Maui and bringing them by boat to sell on Oahu. I'm just a regular white guy from the mainland, but as far as I can tell, imu rocks are just smooth lava rocks about the size of a grapefruit (up to a soccer ball, though the bigger ones are harder to get a hold of). There's nothing really super-special about them apart from being "smooth, largish lava rocks".

I've done a little link-hunting for you, and I'd like to offer the following information from a person that seems to know what they're doing: http://www.primitiveways.com/Imu1.html

That's all from me for now. Aloha all and see you in a few months!

-L0j1k

[L0j1k]

Sorry, I forgot about the chicken wire question. I think I've only ever seen one imu pit that didn't use chicken wire, and that was a very nice, very old pit that was quite stable without any wire, and the guy was a total pro and wrapped everything up perfectly in leaves and tied up with grass. If I were you, though, I would use a nice thick layer of leaves before wrapping the "package" up in chicken wire. Not too thick, of course, but probably best not to have a potential source of toxic substances touching the pig directly. On that note, the chicken wire wrapping I have seen has never directly touched the pig but instead been used strictly as outer support for the inner "package" of thickly-layered leaves.

Aloha and good luck!

-L0j1k

[Matt C.M.]

Additionally, when you're setting up the pit, if there's any exposed rock in the hole, cover it well, it will also explode if heated enough.  I have seen it happen on more than one occasion, its no fun getting showered by tiny bits of extremely hot rock.  Limestone breaks down into CO2 at high temperatures  and can explode even if dry.

[Danny Miller]

You dug a pit in Austin's caliche?  You're braver than I thought!

You could get a wired, electronic thermometer and bury it with the thermometer in it.  But you can only take temp at one point, and getting even heat sounds tricky in this untested scenario notably different than the traditional Kalua-style.  Still much better than nothing.

Getting rocks that work with this may be a problem, as it seems like a large mass is needed.  There's landscaping places that sell stone, but this is gonna be costly.

Danny

[David Mitchell]

Could you use the landscaping lava rock they sell at Home Depot? $4 for a 0.5 cubic foot bag

[rc3105]

there's usually somebody on craigslist giving away lava rock and/or granite scraps