0 Thanksgiving At Amaral Farms

Wild Pig

The second Thanksgiving at Amaral Farms was one to remember. Since we moved in we had been speaking about having a pig roast but just never worked out having an event. This year my friend Jimmy and I on a whim decided to change that and took action to ensure that we didn't miss this opportunity. Jimmy had sent me a few wild pig ads to look over and on the weekend before Thanksgiving we decide that we were going to make this happen. The next day Jimmy had found someone selling a 125-150 lb wild pig. After a quick call and a discussion, we made a plan to pick up the pig on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The people selling it were great outdoors country folk who seemed to be very honest. They claimed that they found the pig in there neighborhood and had been raising it for a few months on feed. They actually had another wild pig they captured as a baby, they has some really cute pictures they shared with us, they kept that one as a pet.

We loaded the pig up an off to Going Green Family Farm we went. We kept it at Jimmy's for the night since his neighbor was going to help us slaughter it. This was a first for both Jimmy and I, so we need the butchering experience. The plan was to both be there in the late afternoon to assist his neighbor do the butchering but he ended up needing to do it earlier. So unfortunately I wasn't able to make it and Jimmy had to do it himself. I still wish I got the opportunity to get the experience in, since this is something I really want to do myself on Amaral Farm at some point. 

Butchering a Pig

I imagine Jimmy will at some point make a post on the "how to" aspects but since I wasn't there I can't share that aspect of the experience. But he iced it and put it in a cooler for a few days before the day. 

Since again we had never done before as previously mentioned, we needed to set up a location to roast the pig. Again his very kind neighbor helped us by letting us use his grate to roast it on. We decide to dig a hole and build a fire pit into the ground and surround it with cinder blocks creating about 30" structure around the pit to keep in heat. We used simple charcoal to cook the pig, about 3 bags worth over about 8 hours.

Fire Pit

Pig Roast

One think we did that we would definitely is that we cooked it too fast. We should have used a half a bog or so at a time rather than two bags to start. The first couple of hours we were battling fire from the fat burning off the pig. After we had that situated it went a lot better. In the end is was the best tasting pig I have ever eaten in my life an a great experience. We had about 50 pounds of meat or so from the wild pig and ate probably 10 pounds that day between all the people there. I even used some of the leg bones for soup the next day and it was great. Looking forward to another one real soon. This time we have plans to possibly trap our own pig.