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Mr. Peet

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Last time I checked - Pigs' legs are much shorter - therefore, much closer to all that gunk!

It's funny, I had never had shredded pork bbq (let's leave out ribs for now) until a couple of years after moving here. Who that is now my wife is from West TN and all she had growing up was shredded pork and fried catfish, so our first date was to a fried catfish place and was surprised to find fried whole fish brought to my table - never had that before. The next date was to a bbq joint (and I mean joint - it wasn't a restaurant by any means - sort of a dive bar with a smoker). Since they had no idea about brisket, I had to settle for a shredded pork sandwich. It has a thin spicy vinegar sauce with just a hint of tomato in it. I said not bad! Was our go-to place after that. It was somewhat of an eyeopener because of what I had heard about TN bbq, didn't leave me with a high expectation. It closed down a couple of years later, and ever since it is sweet, thick, sweet, ketchupy, sweet, tomato pasty, sweet stuff on the pulled pork around here. Not a fan, but will eat when I am starving to keep from dying. Used to go to "pig-pick'ns" - a big masonry contractor would do them in his yard a couple of times a year. The first pit-master he had used a vinegar/onion/beer mop and it wasn't bad. When he retired, the next pit-master used some sweet tomatoey based baste and sauce - and I quit going. One lesson, I've taken from the whole-pig cooks I've been to, is to be sure the pit-master knows how to cook it. And you better get to the pig early to get the good parts. I've had some way overcooked and dry, and some way undercooked in areas.
Do you prefer the above ground BB&Q pig roast of the below ground?
 

Mike Hill

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Not the biggest fan of either - there is too much disparity in the thickness of meat. I can smoke a rack of spareribs in 4-6 hours - baby backs are sometimes tender naturally, and can be grilled for a much shorter period of time. However, many around here contain a bunch of the loin and I usually opt to low-n-slow anyways. Now a butt, depending on the size of the cut and the smoker I'm using - usually 8 to 12 hours. A shoulder is longer, as well as a green ham. The whole hog is a whole hog with all the above muscles included. So I have to wonder, if it takes 12 hours to get the butt done, why would I subject the ribs to 12 hours when they might be done in 5? Or the loin, or the tenderloin. In my opinion a lot of overcooked bbq on many whole hogs - but there is a lot of very good meat though.

Now back to which I prefer above or below ground. I prefer a properly tuned offset rotisserie for whole hogs - so above ground. Properly tuned, more heat would be concentrated on the shoulders and hams and less at the middle of the carcass. However, that is theoretical, and often works better, but not near perfect. The best one I've seen was a big round one that had a firebox the entire length on the back toward the bottom. That way, you didn't have to fool around with tuning plates and just make the fire hotter on either end and little or none in the middle. This was more of a direct smoker, so it had to be big to get enough separation between the fire and meat.
 
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