help with a whole hog, differences from a butt?

[India]

Hey, my family has a big whole hog cookout every year on labor day, and this year i`ve been put in charge of it as the new Q`er, as they have heard about my success with my pulled pork on my WSM. We basically dig a pit in the ground, put a grate on it, burn wood in an offset fire area and shovel coals. We put a giant aluminum rectangular cover over the top....mking basically a giant oven.
Need a little help, i cook my butts to 190-195 on my WSM, keeping temperature around 225-250deg F., should i do the same for a whole hog? Should i cook it till the shoulders and hams measure 190? I want it to pull like my pork, not need to be chopped. I`ll be spraying it with apple juice or cider vinegar/water....havnt decided.
Would it be best to have the hog butterflied or quartered? Should i start it skin down or skin up? thanks for the help! Trying to make this the best event in 25 years we`ve been having it! jason

[DracMonster]

(-`

[counterpt]

In article , " BOB"

that the shoulders and hams have more heat and the ribs and loin has less. After that, yer on yer own. If you quarter your critter, it gives you more mobility on the grate to avoid over cooking. monroe(that`s my 1cent`s worth)

[Kapacitor]

jason molinari said something like this:

questions I had about hog cooking. The entire reply can be read here - http://tinyurl.com/ibtm
It`s the "classic" Bob in Ga definition of BBQ, better check it out!

[royslist]

That`s a busted link for me. I`d sure like to read what Bob in Ga had to say about this. Any chance you could repost a working URL?
TFM3 (not TFM - obviously)
Note: Spam-resistant e-mail address

[Kapacitor]

Thomas Mooney said something like this:

and click on "Bobs whole hawg cookin.html "
The entire URL looks like this; 7MqWiLdENmdsll4XSh4U8ZUbhNwtANYNh/Whole%20Hog/Bobs%20whole%20hawg%20cookin. h tml

[royslist]

Followed your instructions. Got the following response:
"You are not authorized to view this page"
Thank goodness it`s Monday or I`d be feeling some sort of persecution complex. But I realize it just another bad start to what will probably be a worse week. <g>
Just please don`t tell me I have to get a Yahoo signin to read Bob in Ga`s exposition on cooking an entire pig. I don`t think I could take that.
TFM3 (not The Fat Man)
Note: Spam-resistant e-mail address

[Kapacitor]

Thomas Mooney said something like this:
TFM?
The following bunch of mumbo-jumbo comprise my thoughts and opinions on classic pork bbq and try to address some of what you are planning to do. While Garry Howard believed that the best way to learn bbq was to encourage passers-by at a shopping center contest to buy a tin smoker, I`m a believer that BBQ (or any food) should be learned "Classic first". At least this is the way that chef`s are taught and from there they have the background knowlege to stray off and create. His point that classic bbq was out of most peoples reach was, however, somewhat valid. This will probably end up making you say "Geeezus, sorry I asked" lol
While the methodology is similar and both have been around for a long time, I don`t consdider Lexington style barbecue to be THE classic. In my mind, the classic is East North Carolina Whole Hog barbecue.
You are right in that it MUST start with a whole hog. This is one of the three main things that doesn`t allow Lexington style to measure up in these, most stringent of terms.
Shoulders make excellent bbq, but in a purist sense, there`s no way the two can be even judged against one another. It would be like having a Champagne contest and allowing California Sparkling wine as a contestant. Or allowing blue cheese to be judged to Rougefort. Just one of them thangs`...
Classic is classic, and that`s want you asked for.
In the old days, small hogs were used. In fact, Pete Jones (the elder statesman of pork bbq) says that his uncle never cooked pigs over 40 pounds. I suspect this was approximately the size used by most 100 years ago. But in more recent times the size has moved up close to 100 pounds with Pete Jones cooking hogs in the 140-160 pound range.
The methodology used to cook this classic bbq, in my opinion, was not meant for huge thick cuts such as the shoulder-butts from #1 hogs that are sold at grocery stores. Reason being that I don`t subscribe to the newfangled idea that the process was ever intended to be "low and slow" ala internet hobbyist bbq. But I`ll get to more on that later.
Back then, hogs were raised much fatter, thus allowing them to be more "violently" cooked, if you will, without drying out. So try to get a hog with as much fat as possible.
The feral-type of hogs that I raise seem to have old genes and put on fat much easier than meat. They grow slower and the older, more excercised the hog is, the more flavor it will have. Of course, mine aren`t suited for commercial production because it is too ineffecient to allow a profit on what is already a pretty tough business. I don`t know what type of meat you have access to, but that`s my general opinion and understanding and experience has backed it up.
It`s nice that you have someone who will scald the hog for you. My neighbor and I do this also. The one bothersome thing that you said was that you intended to cook it immediately.
There was a very informative discussion between Kit and Dan Gill (that never got completed) a while back on rigor mortis.
The general consensus seemed to be NOT to cook a hog until it had come out of rigor, which if I remember correctly, was approximately 8 hours. I can not provide any real-life experience on this. But on two seperate occasions, I have cooked a hog about 24 hours after butchering and did not like the texture of the meat. I normally cook 2 days after killing and have never had any problems. Now that I`ve thrown this monkeywrench into your plan, the first thing you`ll ask is "where the hell do I keep the thing for 8+ hours."
Ideally it is hung to stretch. Your butcher may have a walk-in cooler. Unfortunately I do not have one and use a dedicated refrigerator. This is especially a problem during this time of the year because during the colder months you can let one hang for a while without much risk. I encourage the input of others on all of this, but it is something you may want to keep in mind.
A few last few thoughts on the hog and how to have it butchered. I have to assume that classicaly, hogs are cooked with the head on. But I don`t know this for sure.
At the Skylight Inn, Pete Jones cooks his hogs butterflied with the head on. However, they take an axe and bust the head in half before cooking so that the halves lay flat on the pit. I know this is a little different than what is done in the "beauty contests", but I highly recommend it.
The head is extremely bloody and this allows it to drain thoroughly. It also has a tendency to take longer to cook than the meat if left intact. This could possibly leave you a choice of overcooking your meat or trying to seperate bloody head-meat from the rest of your bbq. Soaking the head in a bucket of water will also assist greatly in draining a head.
Wilber`s, on the other hand, doesn`t cook their hogs head-on, at least when I have been there. Heads simply take up a lot of room. They also do not cook them butterflied. They are sawed in half down the backbone, which makes them much easier to handle. Most times, this is what I do also as the head has very little meat as a percentage to make it worth messing with. You do lose a little more grease by having it sawed down the back, but my experience says it isn`t significant.
The Jones`s traditionally caught all of the grease that they used in their cornbread, but are able to catch only a small percentage nowadays as a result of the move toward leaner hogs.
Assuming that you do not choose to cook the hog immediately after killing it, here are some thoughts on meat temperature. It seems that I remember a post from you in the past stating your opposition to leaving meat out to come to room temperature. (which is technically 67 F, I believe) I`m a firm believer in bringing meat to room temperature. In fact, the popular formula for shoulder butts for internet bbq, in my opinion, would be erroneous if it weren`t assumed that meat was taken directly out of the refrigerator and put on a pit. I normally leave thoroughly thawed meat sitting at room temperature for 6-7 hours before putting it on. I`ve never seen a cold hog on the pits at Wilber`s or Pete Jones`s, either, for what that`s worth.
I`ve only had trouble once and I`ll tell you the story because there may be some parts to keep in mind when you get it butchered, but I`m sure the butcher is also well-versed on these things.
Late last July we attempted to kill a rather large sow in my wooded pen of a couple of acres. I missed her on the first shot, only wounding her. She took off in the woods.
Becoming quite skittish at this point, I couldn`t get a decent shot and only wounded her a second time. This time I couldn`t catch her and we had other hogs dead and awaiting scalding on a day that was about 100 degrees. Another guy came up and volunteered to track her a kill her. He finally dropped her at the edge of a small pond. When I got down there, she was still alive but in the process of drowning. I stuck and bled her and drug her up a steep hill with my lawnmower. It had been about 1 hour since the first shot. Nothing seemed unusual to me as I`ve had similar, though not as bad, experiences killing hogs in large areas.
We cleaned her and I took a #35 pound shoulder and put in the refrigerator to cool. I was to repay my neighbor for his help with bbq the next evening. the meat inside was spoiled and extremely foul smelling.
Now I can`t tell you exactly what happend, but here are my thoughts. The meat was extremely thick and I believe this may have lead to the outside cooling while the inside was still quite warm. It was only in the refrigerator for about 12 hours. But the outside being colder also slowed down the cooking time (which was quite long due to the size) allowing more time for the inside to spoil.
Theory 2...After this, my wife read up on something call "dark cutting". This happens when an animal is exposed to tremendous stress during the killing process.
According to the article she read, it can lead to much faster deteriation of the meat, to make a long story short.
In commercial operations, hogs are stunned before killing, which supposedly causes less adrennaline, which can cause flaws in the meat.
Good chance both things were at play here, but making a clean kill and quickly sticking is the best way to avoid any troubles as far as I understand. But I haven`t come across any problems in simply leaving meat to sit out. To me, it cooks more evenly.
All of this makes me want to make a comment on Kit`s interesting "Bacon on a stick" invention as it applies to butts/picnics. It is an interesting concept. But I would be somewhat careful as to not allow the outside to be too much cooler than the inside, especially if one is going the "low and slow" smoker route with a cut that is extremely thick. But my situation in the above was not comparable to what he recommends doing for the most part. And he knows much more about this type of thing than I do so I`m sure he has taken this into consideration, if it even warrants it.
Here`s some thought on how to build a pit for this "Classic BBQ"...
This is a very difficult subject to be able to describe in print. At least to me So I`m not going to try too hard.
The biggest mistake I see people make is in the actual surface they lay the hog on. This, I believe, is a crucial part of making this type of bbq. In my opinion, the surface you must have is STEEL BARS. Not a hamburger or some all purpose cooking surface. To give you a reason why, I`m going to have to sort of jump way ahead for a second.
After you have finished cooking the hog (skin up) and deem it properly cooked, you will be turning to blister the skin.
Upon turning, all of the grease will ..

[India]

Thanks for the link. I`ll read it and follow up here with any questions jason

[royslist]

TFM3 (not you-know-who)
Note: Spam-resistant e-mail address