THE recent CB Pan Chicken Championship eastern regional finals in Portmore, St Catherine, could not have been a more conspicuous outing for Copperwood Pork brand new mobile smoker dubbed the ‘The Road Hog’.

“We can’t enter, because we only cook pork on it,” Matthew Lyn, director CB Foods, laughed as he spoke to Auto.

Showing up to a pan chicken contest with a ‘pork only’ machine may have seem counter intuitive, but this was one ‘road hog’ no-one wanted to avoid as foodies gobbled up the luscious pork as quickly as it could be cooked in its 15-foot frame.

“American style barbeque is similar to our method of jerking, so we felt that creating something of this nature would help promote our product,” Lyn explained.

The mobile smoker was a 100 per cent local design and built to completion in six months. Road Hog is completely self-contained and uses known cooking theories to maximise its efficiency.

“It’s what they call in the business a double pass smoker,” Lyn said.

Totally wood powered, it has three compartments all of which can be used separately to cook pork or combined for an approximate 300lb of meat. The fire is kept going at one end, using a small vent to control its intensity, as the heat and smoke are forced to the other end and back out one of the multiple exhaust stacks. It also has a generator to power a small refrigerator for drinks or meat storage. A small sink provides a place to keep things clean. It also has storage cover that doubles as a table when necessary.

“Everyone who sees it is amazed. We’ve been approached to build several,” he said.

The Road Hog was launched on August 8 and made its debut the following day. The Pan Chicken regional finals is the third and most public event the vehicle participated in after being towed to JoJoâs Pork Pit for an impromptu cook-off challenge.

The Road Hog is schedule for Copperwood Pork’s Up In Smoke Tour that runs through across the island until the November 23 finale of the Pan Chicken Championship in downtown Kingston.