Smoked Whole Hog Recipes

SMOKED WHOLE PIG

Steps:

• Prepare your pig for smoking by cutting through the backbone, cutting the ribs away from the backbone, and removing any excess silver skin from the ribs and interior cavity. Use a sharp knife to trim away some of the skin away from the hams and shoulders.
• Preheat your smoker to 275 degrees F for indirect cooking. Use a mild hard wood like apple or hickory.
• Combine all of the injection ingredients in a large bowl. Using a syringe injector, inject the liquid into all areas of the pig.
• Place the pig on your smoker and close the lid. Smoke for 1 hour before opening the lid.
• Make the mop sauce by combining all of the ingredients. Mop the sauce on the pig once very hour until the internal temperature of the hams reach 165 degrees F.
• Use heavy duty foil the tightly wrap the pig and tuck the ends of the foil around the edges of your pig.
• Close the lid of your smoker and continue cooking until the internal temperatures of your shoulders read at least 195 degrees F and your hams are about 185 degrees F if you want some sliced/chopped pork. If you want to be able to shred your whole pig, cook until your temperatures in the shoulder read at least 200 degrees F and your hams read 195 degrees F.
• Turn off your smoker and allow your pig to rest for at least an hour (still wrapped in the foil) before slicing, pulling, and serving.

WHOLE SMOKED PIG (THE GUY)

Steps:

• Use a mortar and pestle to pound cilantro stems and roots, ginger, garlic, and shallots, to a paste, pounding each ingredient thoroughly before adding the next. Then add the fish sauce to create a thin paste. You'll probably need to work in batches. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the coconut milk. Grind the dried chilies and peppercorns together in a spice grinder. Add the lime zest and kaffir leaf pieces, and grind them all together until the mixture is fine and slightly moist. Stir the spice mixture into the coconut milk mixture. Rub the pig down and up (put it in a giant garbage bag or large plastic bin), inside and out with the kosher salt. Then rub the coconut mixture all over the salted pig, inside and out. Put the pig, belly up, in a large heavy-duty trash bag and pour any remaining marinade inside the cavity. Squeeze out as much air as possible from the bag and tie it. Let sit for 2 to 3 days in a large refrigerator.
• Get a large smoker up to 200 degrees F. Remove the pig from the bag, saving as much of the marinade as possible. Put the pig in the smoker, belly up, and pour the marinade into the belly cavity. While it's cooking, focus on stoking your fire, maintaining the temperature, and drinking. The piggy is ready when the internal temperature of the thickest part of the shoulder is at 170 degrees F. Any pig over 140 pounds or so will take the full 24 hours. If you're working with 50-pounders, though, it'll take closer to 12 hours.
• Remove the pig from the smoker and transfer it to a large table covered with a plastic tablecloth or tarp. Let it rest for about 20 minutes, but pork-mad people will undoubtedly start ripping into the fatty flesh before you can get it to the table. I know because I'm one of them. Use a heavy-duty, sharp knife to remove the primals, peel the skin, and chop the meat. Be sure to have a catch basin for the juice and fat that will be spilling out from the smoky carcass. Toss the reserved cilantro leaves over the chopped meat.