The Best way to Balance a Lamb on a Spit Roaster
Ensure that the load is balanced is the most crucial part of cooking on a spit. Balancing is simple if you’re cooking chicken or boneless meat where it’s simple to slide the spit roast skewer through the centre of the flesh. Yet, it might be challenging to balance the flesh properly when cooking a piece of meat with a bone in it, like a leg of lamb or an entire animal.
Why a balanced load is important
The meat will turn unevenly on the skewer if it is not properly balanced. This picture illustrates what happens when you don’t balance your meat and don’t use a black brace. Due to the unequal burden, the lamb was unable to turn and eventually caught fire. The rotisserie motor will sometimes look to struggle during the upswing, experience a brief shock at the top, and then drop during the downswing. Every rotation will take place. Why should you care, then?
1. Your meat will cook unevenly as a result of the frequent changes in speed.
2. Your meat could get loose and fall off due to the jolting and swaying.
3. If the force and unequal loads are too large, you will be overworking your motor and finally strip the gearbox.
The picture below illustrates what happens when you don’t balance your meat and don’t use a black brace. The lamb was unable to turn as a result of the unequal load, and it later caught fire. When a butcher actually skewered this lamb, it’s vital to understand how to balance a lamb for spit roasting.
So how do you know whether the load is balanced?
Skewer and prong your meat and test it is balanced BEFORE you put it over the fire!
You can check to see if the load is balanced once your meat is attached to the skewer and pronged in one of two ways.
The simplest method, if you’re by yourself, is to place the skewer into the spit roaster (without the motor) and see whether you can gradually spin the skewer by hand. You should be able to let off the skewer when turning it by hand, and it shouldn’t move. If the load naturally leans to one side, this indicates that the load is unbalanced.
If you’ve already started the fire in your spit roaster and are unable to use the balancing technique described above, another option is to enlist another person’s assistance and have both of you hold the skewer’s ends in the palms of your hands. The burden shouldn’t shift to a heavy side as you slowly turn the skewer by hand.
How to fix an unbalanced load on a spit roast?
There are two options to balance an unbalanced load.
- Give it another go without the skewer and prongs. You might be able to get the meat more evenly balanced by moving the position of the skewer and prongs inside the flesh.
- Make use of a counterbalancing weight.
What is a counterweight used for on a spit?
A counterbalance has four components.
- The piece that slides over your rotisserie skewer is called the collar.
- Weight is the component that balances the meat’s unbalanced.
- The component known as a lever allows you to move the weight closer or farther away.
- The component that connects the weight to the leaver is a locking nut.
Counter balance weights – an insurance policy for your rotisserie motor
The lighter side of your meat gains weight from a counterbalance weight.
Once the counterbalance weight is put together, you slide the collar over the skewer at the sharp end, as shown in the video below. You slide the weight along the lever to add more or less weight depending on how unbalanced your load is. Less weight is supplied the nearer the weight is to the skewer. Physics intervenes and adds weight when you move the counterweight along the lever and the weight recedes from your skewer.
How to balance meat on a Spit
For your rotisserie, do you require a balance weight or not?
Customers frequently enquire about my recommendation for purchasing a counterbalance weight along with their spit purchase. My response is, in general, Definitely if you are roasting an entire animal, but maybe not if you are only boiling individual parts of meat without the bone. Consider it an insurance policy for your rotisserie motor, then. $35–$45 is a small sum to pay to make sure everything functions smoothly if you’re spending a few hundred dollars on a new spit motor or complete rotisserie set-up.
Read our previous blog post to learn the appropriate way to put an entire animal on a spit roaster.
Searching for a recipe for delicious whole lamb? we’ve prepared a fantastic recipe.
