What I learned from an 88-pound hog

The first thing I ever smoked was an 88-pound pig. The hog went into the smoker at 10 p.m. last Friday. Just a hair under 12 hours later, it was on the carving table.

Other than tending to the firebox on the smoker in the wee hours of the morning, I will say that going whole hog is not as daunting as it first appeared when the raw pig, wrapped in white trash bags, was placed in the back of my pickup truck in the parking lot of Steve’s Meat Market.