Well it had been almost two years since I had cooked a hog and the rust showed! That is the longest by far and away I've gone without cooking at least one since I started this craft in 1990. Last year my time was consumed with opening the Joint that we did not have a BBQ back home in Mississippi and this spring and fall were the same. At any rate I freed up some time to go down with Dave Story to cook one. It felt really, really good to get back around the pit all night.....much like some wack-job artist I needed to get back to the basics of it all, and in the world of BBQ there is nothing more basic than this. It was pretty cold that night (low 30's) with a really good wind all day & all night. That has a huge effect on cooking because it becomes a fight to keep your coals/pit temp consistent. When you cook a hog you cook in the 185* - 200* range because you dont want your middlin' & loin to over cook waiting on your hams & shoulders. My pit is built really, really well. Cinder block filled with mason sand and brick lining the outside of the block. We never could get the dadgum temp consistently below 200 all night. Oh I guess we could have if we sat there for 3-4 hours removing coals here and adding them back there....but we were doing this for fun so we didnt fret over it too much. I'd say we cooked at about 225* on average for 27 hours and sure enough it was a little overcooked! I was pissed for about 2 minutes till I asked myself, "self - what did you expect....you let it roll all night @225* thinking it would back off but it didnt....so its your own dumb-ass fault". It still tasted really good but it wasnt perfect. I'll probably start cooking one every 3-4 months now just to stay on my toes.
