New from upstate SC.

Welcome! I'm sure one of the whole hog guys will be around to answer your questions. I want to try it too.

I try not to get too crazy when I smoke a pig, just a simple heavy coating of Salt, Pepper, Granulated Onion, and Granulated Garlic on the inside.

Welcome!! This site is the beat one for answers on the web!! Great people too

Welcome to the Brethren from the Midlands! Should be some hog cookers commenting soon.

Welcome to the site. I'm from the same area as you (Wellford) now living in Northern VA. You will find all the info you need here.

Welcome to the site. It's a great resource to find just about everything.

I grew up right next to you in Duncan and still have family there. Man I miss SC.

Welcome from Greenville! Just let me know what time I should show up!

Me too!

Cooking a whole pig is a blast. Don't get carried away with the rub. Just s&p, a little red pepper, a little garlic, anything else and you are not learning to cook a whole pig. I start with the skin up. Flip it about half way. Baste with a ENC vinegar sauce now and then. When it's done give it another squirt of sauce and dig in. Ribs first.

Welcome brother! Since it's not for a contest or anything, I would suggest the KISS method. Me personally I've always just used course ground salt LIBERALLY over all the meat and cut a few slits in the hams and shoulders to let it get in there real good. I do this like the night before I fire him up. Go skin up with coals banked under the hams and shoulders so that the ribs and loins don't over cook or get burn up. I don't really have a set time to flip, just was told to watch the grease drip and when it stops dripping flip over and bone test it.( grab a leg bone and see if it's free). If the leg bone spins or comes loose with no tug, then I pull the ribs off to the side and start hashing up the meat and getting out the cartilage and pesky pieces of fat that maybe didn't render all the way. After that I sauce it and let it sit in the skin about 45 min. to a hour before one last saucing and telling people to come and get it. A true whole hawg is served best right on the pit with just lite bread!

Greeetings! My own SC ties are through being stationed at Ft Jackson, near Columbia, back in 1998.

For some other ideas for cooking a whole pig, check out Jeanie's (a.k.a. Cowgirl) outdoor cooking blog. She photodocuments everthing and provides plenty of step-by-step instruction. http://cowgirlscountry.blogspot.com/

I'm in the KISS camp. Salt, pepper, onion, garlic.