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How To Cook Whole Hogs Pt 1

Category: Main Course

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(4.0) by 2 users

Ingredients:

SEE DIRECTIONS

Instructions:

1.Have the slaughter-house clean the hawg but have them leave on the
head, all feet, and tail (a cap goes on the tail.) Also tell them
not to damage the ears (some slaughter-houses think they have to
suspend the hawg by grabbing them with some sort of hanging device
around the base of the ears, but we have found that they can do this
without harming the ears.) Also, if you can remember, have them prop
the mouth open with a stick because an apple must go in the mouth,
and most humans are not strong enough to open the mouth for this
purpose. 2.Hawgs in the weight range of 8O-12O pounds dressed (where
dressed means a hawg that has been cleaned but has the head, feet,
and tail attached.) usually cook best. We've cooked hawgs as large as
396 pounds dressed, but we don't recommend it. The amount of meat per
person will depend on the group. An all-men group will consume a
good bit more than a mixed group, particularly if the people in the
mixed group have never attended one of these. If they have attended
one previously and found that the hawg didn't kill 'em, then they
will eat more. We suggest one pound of dressed hawg per person. 3.We
do not dig a pit in Mississippi due to the clay. Build a pit of
concrete blocks two blocks high, five blocks long, and three blocks
wide (for one hawg) on flat ground or slightly sloping ground which
will help drain the grease away. This takes a total of 32 blocks. If
you are short a few blocks, you can get by with 28 blocks by making
the pit four blocks long. 4.Line the bottom of the pit with freezer
foil, not regular aluminum foil as it is too thin. 5.Spread out a few
bricks (five or six) in the bottom of the pit. 6.Place a fine steel
grate (or fine wire mesh) on the bricks in the bottom of the pit.
This will prevent large grease fires if you pay attention and
immediately put out the small fires which start when grease drops
down on the hot coals. (Doss likes to use a water (squirt) bottle
for this. I think that's cheatin' and should be done by using the
small coal shovel to spread the coals away from the small fires.)
7.Place the rods across the top of the blocks with another piece of
fine steel grate on top of the rods. The hawg will go on top of this
grate. (Actually we now use a steel grate that has long lengths of
small sized angle-iron down each side that reaches across the pit and
the hawg goes directly on this grate.) 8.When the hawg arrives, start
four or five pounds of charcoal in the charcoal cooker. (This cooker
is used only to get the coals ready to place under the hawg.) 9.To
prepare the hawg do the following: Rip-out the kidneys and any extra
tubes, etc. (like the aorta) that the hawg will no longer need. Take
the single bladed ax and hammer and start splitting the backbone so
the hawg will lay flat on the grate. (This method of cookin' is
called butterfly cookin', so you want to open him up so he will
lay-out (like a flyin' squirrel).)DO NOT CUT THROUGH THE SKIN or you
will have BIG-TIME problems later on. In fact, don't cut the skin in
any way, or poke any holes in the skin. After you get the hawg
laid-out, the apple is next. Have your stoutest guy or gal pull the
mouth open and stick an apple in it. I have seen this done once. If
you have no Paul Bunyan around, use item 11 in the equipment list.
The apple is necessary because he will bite the apple when he is
done. 10.After the hawg is prepared, lay him belly down on the grate.
Place a nice hat on his head between his ears, shades on his eyes,
and an Ole Miss baseball cap on his rear end. The hawg won't cook
without these items. 11.Now take pictures with the bosses up front
and the real workers in the rear, or better yet with the real workers
not even in the picture. The reason for the pictures is that all
night long you will swear you are getting nowhere in cookin' this
hawg, but 24 hours later you can prove you started with a raw hawg.
The reason for the bosses being up front is because they will be
there anyway. besides, this may encourage them to pay for everything,
and they are of no use for anything else anyway. 12.You are ready to
start cookin` now. Use the small coal shovel to place 2 to 3 coals
under each ham and each shoulder. (NO MORE COALS THAN THIS!) 13.You
will now start getting verbal abuse about how the hawg won't cook, it
will be raw, any fool would know better, etc, etc. Tell them fine,
they don't have to eat any of it tomorrow. Then replenish the
charcoals you took out of the charcoal cooker and head for the beer
cooler. (You only have to start the charcoal once. After the first
time, simply spread the hot charcoal out so that when the charcoal
gets hot, it is about time to put more coals under the hawg. I would
guess this works out to be about every 3O to 4O minutes. More on this
in instruction number 16 below.) 14.Say you want to eat the hawg(s)
at 5 P.M. on a Saturday. (All that follows relative to time will be
based on this assumed eating time. For any other eating time apply a
suitable forward or backward shift operator.) We usually pick the
hawg up and get him to the site by at least 4 P.M. on Friday. You
should be able to get him stated cookin' by 4:3O or 5:OO P.M. on
Friday. The hawg is to be turned over only once. He will probably
need to be turned over on his back between 8 A.M. and 1O A.M. on
Saturday at that "moment-of-perfection," and I don't know how to
describe to you what that continued in part 2