My First Whole-Hog BBQ: The Order of the Smoke Ring

Over the weekend, the Young Lawyers Division of the South Carolina Bar defeated the Student Bar Association of the USC Law School in a whole-hog BBQ cook off. The YLD team was led by renowned BBQ master (and feared litigator) Robert Goings.

Michael Wright, Charles Appleby, and yours truly rounded rounded out the remainder of the team. We were carefully chosen for our ability to follow Robert's instructions and our ability to drink beer, which is a very important part of competition BBQ.

I have done "small time" BBQ myself, for a few years, consisting of mostly ribs, butts, and chicken. However, this was my first time experiencing the world of whole-hog cooking. Having now participated in cooking a whole-hog, I can say that the difference between cooking a rack of ribs on the grill for several hours and cooking a 110 lb. hog is about the same difference between intramural flag football and SEC football. Another similarity between the two is that both SEC football and whole-hog cooking are taken very seriously, and both require lots of equipment.

The BBQ was scheduled to be served at approximately 6:00PM on Friday. Naturally, this meant that we started on Thursday. At approximately 7:30PM on Thursday, we set up BBQ headquarters (kind of a campsite/tailgate/kitchen) and began the preparations. Robert arrived with the pig in a giant cooler of ice, a pull-behind cooker, and had what amounted to a small kitchen in the back of his truck. Michael and I arrived with a few other odd and ends, including, but not limited to, a box of surgical gloves, assorted cutlery, tables and chairs. Appleby was deployed on "special assignment" to the UF/USC baseball game that night, so we were a man down.

In what proved to be an instant sign of good team chemistry, we had all (individually) brought enough beer for the group. After getting the headquarters established, the actual pig preparation began. If you've ever cooked ribs, you know that pulling the membrane off the ribs is both important and difficult. A 110 lb. hog has that same step on the hams and shoulders, but times four. While Michael were on membrane-removal detail, Robert separated the ribs and did other more complicated butchering.

That took us about an hour, but it went by quickly, as morale was high. The cleaned pig was looking good, but it was now time to get serious about the flavor.

The first step in adding flavor (and moisture) involved injecting the pig with a concoction of what I am told consisted primarily of cider vinegar and apple juice. According to Robert, the process was to "Inject it like crazy."

After approximately an hour or two of that, the pig looked like this:

Next, we liberally coated the entire surface of the pig with mustard. Robert explained that this wasn't really for taste; it was to provide a sticky surface for the rub to cling to. We applied the rub to the (now membrane free) to all surfaces. The surgical gloves were invaluable at this stage. As a piece of advice, you really cannot have too many disposable gloves. Also, if you can get the hospital-quality ones, do that.

Michael Wright laying the foundation for some winning Q.

We were cooking for a very large group, so we had some additional meat to cook. In addition to the pig, we prepared six butts, using the same process of injection and then getting a nice layer of dry rub on them. The butts were then put into a cooler to rest. After all that work we needed a little rest ourselves.

We knew that we wanted to be done with the cooking at about 5:00PM the next day, so we calculated 3:30AM as the time we should get the meat onto the cooker.

Here is what the final conglomeration of butts and pig looked like before any heat or smoke were applied.

Just about 150 lbs. of meat waiting for the magic of heat and smoke the night before.

Mike took the tough assignment of the night shift, and I got off fairly easy by pulling the daylight shift for the next day. With the prep work done, I departed, leaving the night-shift in place. I can't say exactly what happened that night, but I am told that it involved an ancient blessing of the pig conducted in Latin. In any event, when I returned, it was clear that we were on our way to some serious BBQ.

The cooker was running approximately 250 degrees, and after 13 hours it looked like this:

The butts had cooked faster than the whole-pig, so they were wrapped in foil to keep them from drying out. Finally, about 3:00PM, the entire team began the process of pulling/shredding all of the pork into serving containers for the crowd that was soon to appear. Our team leader was in charge of finding the best pieces of BBQ and setting them aside for the judges. After about two hours of painstaking, finger-burnin' work, we had turned all 150 lbs. of meat into the most delicious pulled pork I have ever tasted.

Goings, Appleby, and Wright: Doing the hard work of shredding the BBQ into bite-sized morsels of love.

The Finished Product: Only 16 hours of work, and this too can be yours.

After slightly under 24 hours (start to finish), the BBQ judges rendered an 8-0 decision that we had vanquished our competition. For all you lawgeeks out there, that would be a per curiam decision. I had more fun doing this than I had expected, and I was honored to be inducted into the Order of the Smoke Ring. Our competition worked valiantly, but they were no match for Team Bobby-Q. If you have ever wanted to try your hand a cooking a whole pig, I highly recommend it. Just be sure to budget enough time, and find some friends who don't mind getting their hands a little messy.

The YLD captures the inaugural "Golden Pig" Award

Legendary BBQ was made. Lives were changed.