Carolina Whole Hog Barbecue

Ingredients

• 1 dressed whole hog, 90 to 110 pounds, split down the backbone
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup coarse black pepper
• 2 quarts cider vinegar
• 1 cup crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup hot sauce
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons salt, for the sauce
• 40 pounds hardwood charcoal or 1 cord of hickory and oak splits

Before you cook

• Order the hog from a processor a week ahead and ask for it split through the backbone but not through the skin.
• Chill the hog on ice in a clean cooler until you are ready to load the pit.
• Lay the hog skin side up on the pit rack and check that it fits with a few inches to spare all around.
• Whisk the vinegar, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, brown sugar and two tablespoons salt in a large jug and let it sit overnight.
• Burn down a separate wood fire in a burn barrel so you have a steady supply of coals.
• Set up a work table with heavy gloves, two shovels, long tongs and a clean cutting surface.

Steps

1. Shovel a bed of hot coals into the pit, concentrating them under the shoulders and hams and going light under the loin.
2. Lay the hog on the pit skin side up and close the lid.
3. Hold the pit at 225 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit by adding a shovel of fresh coals about every 45 minutes.
4. Cook the hog this way for roughly 12 hours, checking the fire more than the meat.
5. Push a thermometer into the deepest part of a ham and look for 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Recruit three people and flip the whole hog so the skin now faces down.
7. Ladle the vinegar sauce over the exposed meat and cook 1 more hour to crisp the skin against the coals.
8. Pull the hog off onto a clean table and let it rest 30 minutes until you can handle it.
9. Pick every part of the meat off the bones, keeping the hams, shoulders, ribs and belly separate.
10. Chop the meat together with two cleavers, adding sauce a cup at a time and tasting as you go, then chop in shards of crisp skin and serve with slaw and hushpuppies.