Whether your smoker is stationary or portable, like a smoker trailer, there is no difference in the temperature that you use to smoke a whole pig. The time-honored key to smoked pig is "low and slow." This means you should aim for a temperature between 200 and 250 degrees. At that temperature, it will take anywhere from eight to 16 hours to cook the pig to an internal temperature of 170 degrees depending on its size. Add this to my Recipe Box.
The Smoker and Its Parts
The traditional smoker trailer has a firebox located off the side of the cooking chamber and a smokestack on the other side. This design draws cold air into the firebox, generates smoke and heat, which course over the pig and then out the smokestack. Depending on the materials that your trailer was constructed out of and how tight the smoker is sealed, there can be a significant difference in temperature between the two sides of the smoker. The end closest to the firebox can be up to 50 degrees hotter than the far end on some smokers. Because of this difference in temperature, hog aficionados often have thermometers installed at both ends of the smoker in order to monitor the cooking process.
Maintaining Heat
Smoking a pig is an all-day (or all-night) affair and will require you to replenish your firebox and make constant adjustments to your airflow to control the temperature. Restricting airflow by using the dampers on the firebox and smokestack will reduce the temperature, and, conversely, opening those up will raise the temperature. A hog should be initially placed in a "hot" smoker at about 250 degrees. It will over the course of an hour or two drift slowly down to about 200 degrees. At 200 degrees you should be ready to replenish the wood in the firebox. In doing so, the temperature may spike up to 250 degrees and beyond. Be prepared to limit the airflow to the box and smokestack to keep the temperature below 250 degrees.
Positioning and Cooking
When cooking a whole pig, you want the tail end of the hog to be toward the firebox end of the smoker, as the hams will take longer to cook and will benefit from the higher temperatures. One of the challenges of smoking a pig, especially over such a long period or time, is the urge to check on the pig. Every time that you open the doors on your cooking chamber, you add about 15 minutes to your cooking time and subject the meat to variances in temperature that are not desired. Unless you are mopping the pig with a sauce or wet mop, the doors should remain closed. This much is agreed upon, but, beyond that, barbecue enthusiasts have notorious disagreements as to attend to, season, rotate, cut and baste their hogs.
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