Roasting a hog in a pit allows you to cook the entire animal at the same time.
Barbecuing a hog in an outside pit is a good idea if you are cooking for a large number of people and need all of the meat prepared at the same time. Roasting a hog is labor-intensive and time-consuming because the animal is left whole. The chef does not have the ease of tending for individual pieces of meat. However, once the pig is cooked, everyone can eat at the same time. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Instructions
1. Put the dressed hog on ice or in a walk-in freezer until you are ready to barbecue it. Tie the limbs and head in the position in which you want the animal served. Tie the forelimbs in front of the animal and tie the back legs behind the hog. This will allow you to set it on its stomach to carve and serve it after it has finished cooking.
2. Dig a barbecue pit 2 to 3 feet deep. Make it 1 foot wider and longer than the hog. Line the pit with rocks about the size of a potato. Put a layer of charcoal over the rocks. Light the charcoal and add more as needed until it is at least 1 to 1 1/2 feet deep. Allow the charcoals to redden.
3. Remove the hog from the freezer or the ice and massage it with barbecue rub. Stuff the fowl into the cavity. Close the hog's chest cavity by pushing turkey skewers from one side of the rib cage through the other. Rub the hog with vegetable oil.
4. Wrap the hog's entire body in tinfoil. Pay special attention to carefully covering the snout, ears and haunches so they do not burn. Cover the tinfoil with burlap sacks and tie them with your butcher's twine. Put the hog in the pit. Turn the hog over every 3 hours. Roast the hog for 12 to 18 hours.
Tags: same time, feet deep