Hot Rock Pork Chop & Stone Tools Hand Drill Set

Primitive fire and fatty pork sizzling on a hot stone….

The no-knife hand drill fire has been a goal of mine for a while and the recent hot and dry weather in the Pacific Northwest seemed like a good opportunity to give it a shot.

The beauty of the hand drill is its simplicity and making the set itself is much easier than trying to construct a working bow drill set and cordage using on sharp rocks. I chose soft materials (red elderberry, and western red cedar) for the set and both felt dry enough to get the job done.

Unfortunately, the elderberry stalk I chose was more decayed than I thought and I ran into some trouble and had to adjust my plans.

I considered going back up into the woods for a new spindle, but I knew I had a pork chop sitting in the sun, so I opted for a more expedient solution. My big take-away from this was that the next time I invest the time in a stone tool set; I will gather multiple hearth and spindle options in advance so that I can easily correct course if it turns out that I chose poor materials.

Cooking meat on hot rocks is a lot of fun. What seems to work best for me is finding a rock that is thick enough to hold its heat long enough to sear both sides and cook the interior as it cools down.

If you are new to this, you may want to put several rocks into the fire as there is a good chance that they will crack when heated up; especially if you are using rocks from a riverbed that may have been recently submerged. I have gotten pretty good at picking out rocks that don’t explode, so I only heated one this time; but I made sure to get well away from the fire as it heated up. Sometimes they can explode with quite a bit of force, and send shrapnel at high speed, so you don’t want to have your face nearby if that happens.

The time you need to heat the rock will vary depending on the size of both the stone and your fire. I left this one in for about twenty minutes and let it sit to cool for a couple more before dropping the pork onto it.

With a fatty piece of meat, you can often skip putting oil on the stone, as a rock hot enough to sear both sides will likely burn it off anyway. I usually expect a little bit of sticking, but if things go correctly the stone will release the meat when it is ready to flip.
Keeping the stone out of the fire but still next to it lets you handle the cooking process without putting your hands directly into the fire, and the residual heat helps to cook the sides. I still like to render the fatty edges by standing the meat up on its side; but I do that regardless of what method I’m using to cook pork, steak, or lamb.

This method works very well for fish too, but you may want to let the rock cool down a bit first and add oil if it is available, though it will stick cook through even if it sticks.

Stone Tools Bow Drill Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKmjog4e7FY

Rotten Materials Hand Drill Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKP074qeO_Q

Materials Used

Spindle: Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa)
Hearth: Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata)
Tinder Bundle: Black Cottonwood Bark (Populus trichocarpa)

Pork Knife: Marttinni Timberjack

Music: Fredji – Endless Nights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePN7-dF_lw

Luca Stricagnoli – The Last of the Mohicans (Guitar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kbv1OpIpaA