Building a pig roaster trailer

Is the fuel tank round or oval?

i've cooked several hogs on reverse flows with the offset firebox.... all came out el perfecto!!!!

The answer to this question depends solely on the outcome you are looking for. Both cooking methods will deliver totally different results...flavor wise & appearance wise.

andy802 said:

It's oval.

I've only ever cooked on direct flame, so I'm clueless as to indirect and the flavor difference. Does flavor depend on the amount of moonshine I've consumed during the process?

Click to expand...

No...smoking a hog gives it a nasty dark color, and a flavor that is...well...smoked. It won't be a heavy smoke because of the limited area of meat that is actually exposed, but it will taste smoked nonetheless.

A hog cooked in the traditional manner, over coals, isn't "smoked" in the sense that most folks here would think. You don't add smoking wood, and simply rely on the drippings & coals to interact in a way that only kisses the exposed meat with a different kind of smoke. This is how it's done in traditional whole hog areas like Eastern North Carolina, north eastern South Carolina, and southern Virginia. This is how a hog was made to be cooked.

Now if you want to cook like you see the competition guys on TV, then build an offset...be prepared for dark, inedible skin that generally needs to be wrapped in enough aluminum foil to make Alcoa's stock go up 10% (if you do it like the "As Seen on TV" guys do it).