i've done sucklig pigs, but never whole hogs. Dont know which you need to do. But heres a rundown on doing a pig.. if your doing a whole hog, use the cheese cloth from the beginning.
Wash the piglet real well. Dry it inside & out. Rub the inside of the pig kosher salt and turbinado sugar, and softened butter(or oil)..
***even bacon fat works well in placed of butter, but changes the flavor of the inside meat a bit. *That may be risky for competition.***
I added a load of chopped apples, garlic, thyme leaves etc to the cavity and sewed it up. I'm not sure if you can do that at your event, so if you have to cook it open with nothing in the cavity, then just skewer the legs into position, pull the forelegs foreword and the hindlegs backward and skewer them with a bamboo skewer. Front legs should be outside the ears.
Put a block of wood or rolled up foil ball in the pig's mouth to hold it open.
Rub the outside of the pig with soft butter mixed about 25% olive oil to raise the smoke point, and then whatever rub your using.
Cover the pig's ears with pieces of greased paper, or cheese cloth and tie very lightly with butcher twine. take this off in the last 45 minutes.
if your using an offset, put the reear end near the firebox.
if your cooking over coals, put the coalbeds under the rump and the shoulders and only a few coals under the cavity.
i cooked at about 300+. In order to make the skin crispy baste the piglet every 30 minutes with oil or melted butter with some applejuice. To make more crispyness, add some flour to the butter when you brush it on too, but beware judges may not like the texture if they get the skin.. It will be similar to fried chickn. (a la sawdustguy).
at any point, you can cover the pig with cheese cloth, especially if its getting to brown. Every half hour, remove the cheese cloth and dunk it in applejuice/butter micture and put it back on. Again, if yur doig whole hog, put the cheese cloth on at the beginning, and then remove it during the last 60-90 minutes.
