re: Best temp and time to smoke small hogs

Some of this advice may not translate but the techniques should. I have a custom hog cooker so set up and temp control are much easier. But we started this routine on an offset Lang smoker 25 years ago and it still works. We smoke a 100-120 lb pig at 275 for 18 or so hours, a wild pig 50-75 lbs at 250 for 12-16 hours.

I inject every ham, shoulder, and loin A LOT, usually I can get a 2.5 gallons of injection in it every time. I think it makes a world of difference and will make a ton of difference on a wild pig, especially if you have a high fat injection.

I protect the loins with frozen racks of pork spare ribs and pork belly and then a rotation of ice packs every hour. I wrap the hog as tightly as I can in foil once the shoulders get to 160. I leave the spare ribs and pork bellies on the loin while it cooks in foil and place foil wrapped ice packs on the outside of the whole foil wrap.

The hams will pull nicely if you get them to proper temp. There’s a long muscle that wraps from front to back that is my favorite part of a hog. Like the money muscle of the shoulder but on the ham. Shoulders end up ideally the same as if they were separately cooked. Loins will be pink all the way through, even at 145-150. My goal is to have the loins hovering around 110 until the last 45 minutes. As soon as I get the hams 5-10 degrees from done, I pull the loin protection and let them finish.

Whole hog cooking is difficult, messy, and your ideal result is to cook the meat to a level that is much easier to do separately. But I enjoy the challenge and before every competition we always find up a local mission or group to take 20-30 lbs or so of pulled meat from us after the competition.