BOMBED a suckling pig on my offset - Help?

[Cellys Belly]

Ok, here is where every man/woman/child/griller/smoker/BBQer never wants to admit they are wrong but in May I had a 16 kilo whole suckling in my smoker. All was well in BBQ land. Until hour 28 came and it started smelling like I left it in the sun.
I am going to come right out and say I tried to do the "offset smoker" only using pans and foil (I am 99% sure that it cut off the heat source and clogged it up(BUT thats because I used foil and didnt make a proper baffle plate))

It all started like every Q'ers wet dream - I have a whole suckling pig freshly killed 2 nights before for 100 Euro! hot damn! its birthday time. 36 pound pig for 135 dollars!
I started off brining her the wee early hours of the night before in a large cooler, injected as well in every part where that darn injector went.

After a nice nice bath and a serious pat down, dry rub in the cavity it was time to throw her on the smoker, I was using those weber apple chips and show these frenchies how its done! Full of white smoke, thats what I was
4 am fired up the smoker and let it get up to 280F and put her in like sleeping beauty. Around 8am I decided to take a peak and boy did she look good! - but damn I should not have done that.
As the guests came, the more my pit man and myself got really excited - and drinking (its france, I am convinced they dont have livers, they have canteens) any way, the smoker was opened pretty often for facebook pictures of a frenchie infront of a smoker or "#hashbrown BBQ" and let the heat out

Still I thought no problem,
At this point it was still looking pretty good, nice apple wood smoke in the air, thick bacon on the thighs cooking, a few rounds done and future Army talk - Nothing better -

It wasnt until around 10-11 hours in when my pit man was out, drunk, done and the father in law wouldn't stop opening the smoker to check on it when I started realizing, son of a blues player, im screwed!

Maybe the smoker was way too small, maybe the hail and snow didnt help, maybe many factors played against it.
Something that I wonder is, can a pig be OVER injected?
The fact that heat rises, were the makeshift baffle plates a no no? redirecting the heat before it even had a chance to reach the meat?   


The 4 first pictures are of Fatima raw and unbrined, rubbed, seasoned n injected.
The 5th is when them hash tags started..
6th is about 10-11 hours in
7th - Is when my heart broke. The back was way too over cooked, the front - colder than my fridge.


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[sliding_billy]

Looks a bit cramped in there.  I wonder if the temps weren't running really uneven from side to side because of airflow issues.

[Hub]

Looks a bit cramped in there.  I wonder if the temps weren't running really uneven from side to side because of airflow issues.

I think sliding_billy has hit the heart of it.  Too much pig and too little cooker.  You have to have very good convection all over for such a large piece of meat.  Other problems may have existed, also.  I'm concerned about the length of the cook.  Twenty-eight hours is far too long, resulting in drying at best and perhaps too long "in the zone" for some of the meat that didn't get cooked fast enough.

Sorry about your bad experience, but thanks for sharing it with us.  Don't let it stop you from learning from it and trying again.

Hub

[Rummm]

Looks a bit cramped in there.  I wonder if the temps weren't running really uneven from side to side because of airflow issues.

I agree with the airflow.

I do suckling pigs on my Primo Oval XL and have airflow all the way around with no blockage. Here is a 35 lb one after 8 hours with a constant 250° temp.

[smokeasaurus]

Yup, too much pig and not enough pit........

[Cellys Belly]

thats what I thought. I need to pick up a trailer smoker!

[teesquare]

I am going to offer a couple of other more "touchy feel" things...

( - I agree that the ratio of meat to grill area was a big challenge. )

1.  Keep the lid closed on anything you cook in. The recovery time for lost BTU's - and the lost BTUS's themselves extend the cook time. Potentially by 15-30 minutes everytime you open the lid. Remember" If youare lookin' - you ain't cookin' "

2. Get yourself a digital remote probe thermometer. The Maverick 732 is a solid recommendation based on how many of them you see in use It has 2 channels and 2 probes. One to measure the oven temp. and one to measure the meat temp. You can imagine the significance of knowing both. The iGrill will be something of interest to you too.....

3. tell us what kinds of cooker are available to you. Anyone here with experience can - and will offer you their ideas and advice to help you shorten the curve.

[sliding_billy]

I am going to offer a couple of other more "touchy feel" things...

( - I agree that the ratio of meat to grill area was a big challenge. )

1.  Keep the lid closed on anything you cook in. The recovery time for lost BTU's - and the lost BTUS's themselves extend the cook time. Potentially by 15-30 minutes everytime you open the lid. Remember" If youare lookin' - you ain't cookin' "

2. Get yourself a digital remote probe thermometer. The Maverick 732 is a solid recommendation based on how many of them you see in use It has 2 channels and 2 probes. One to measure the oven temp. and one to measure the meat temp. You can imagine the significance of knowing both. The iGrill will be something of interest to you too.....

3. tell us what kinds of cooker are available to you. Anyone here with experience can - and will offer you their ideas and advice to help you shorten the curve.

+1 to all of this.  I would even go so far as to recommend double probing the pig to get multiple readings while probing the pit separately.