Gyros

Yield: 20 servings

Ingredients

• 2 picnic pork shoulders, about 8.25 lbs. each
• 120g (1.5 packages) gyros seasoning
• 2/3 cup lemon juice
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• Pita bread
• Toppings
• Sliced lettuce
• Sliced tomatoes
• Tzatziki sauce
• Feta cheese
• Sliced red onion

Directions

1. Trim the skin off the pork shoulders and cut out the bone.  With the remaining meat, cut into 1/2" slices.
• I had about 10.5 lbs. of meat remaining.
2. Use a meat tenderizer to pound the meat down to 1/4" thickness.
3. Sprinkle seasoning onto both sides of each piece of pork.  Pat it onto the pork, and then place all the meat into an airtight container.  Refrigerate overnight.
4. To put the meat on the spit, setup one of the forks and then one-by-one place each piece of pork onto the spit.  Pack them in tight.  It's ok if some of them are lopsided a bit.
5. Once all of the meat is on the spit, add the second fork.  Put a fair amount of force onto it to pack the meat in tightly.
6. Combine the lemon juice and olive oil to make a baste.
7. Attach the counterweight and place the spit onto the rotisserie.  Cook over indirect, low heat (285-300 °F) for about 2.5 hours, basting every 15 minutes.
• I use a Napoleon 500 grill with four propane burners.  Putting the outside two burners a little above minimum heat kept the temperature at the right spot.  Your grill may be different.
8. When the meat reaches an internal temperature of 130°F, turn off the indirect heat and turn on the infrared burner.  You should see the outside meat start to brown.
9. As the meat finishes cooking, shave it off and catch in a pan on the grill.  This will expose the next "layer" of meat to cook with infrared heat.  Continue cooking with infrared heat and shaving as it cooks.
• I ended up shaving off the meat in 4-5 batches over about 2 hours.  You can speed it up or slow it down by controlling the heat.
10. Serve the meat in pita pockets, topped with tzatziki, vegetables, and feta cheese.

Adapted from Pit Master X and BBQ Spit Rotisseries.