 Traditional whole hog cooking. It is a simple but rare thing. South Carolina's Rodney Scott, he has mastered how to cook a traditional whole hog. Keep listening. Later in this video, he will reveal the key. Where does it go from here? Right here. We'll take it, we'll add a little bit more seasoning to this, and we'll take this, pull it, portion it up, and serve. How to cook a traditional whole hog, the Scott's Barbecue Way. Hey there, it is Bill West with BBQTricks.com. I made a little short journey to Hemingway, South Carolina. Had a chance to talk to Rodney Scott for a chapter of my book, The Barbecue Blueprint. And I tried to learn exactly how to cook a traditional whole hog, the Scott's Barbecue Way. And although Scott is the opposite of flashy, still I was amazed at the Willy Wonka spaceship style factory that he has created to smoke his hogs. Although he wasn't revealing actual secret ingredients the day I met him, he was surprisingly open about all his methods and his operation. I grew up in the business. My dad started in 1972, and growing up working with my dad, cutting wood, farming, that kind of thing. And I saw that cooking the hogs was a little bit easier than farming. I started to pay real close attention. And here we are, back on it. I mean, it's like, once I found out that food was in supply and demand, I said, wow, we can introduce this to anybody. And your favorite part about this whole thing? My favorite part about it is meeting new people every week, friends through food, satisfying the appetite of the visitor. What's in this mopsauce? Mopsauce is black pepper, red pepper, vinegar, and a whole lot of love. I see some lemons. Little citrus flavor in there. The mop sauce, we go through, wow, about 8 to 10 gallons a day with extra sauces and mopping the hogs, about 8 to 10 gallons of sauce a day. Is that sauce or is that mop? Some people call mop sauce, we call the mops sauce. This is what we will call sauce. Here at Scott's Barbecue, this is sauce. This is the same thing you're getting at the table? Same extra sauce that you would get, that's what this is. Some people call it mop sauce, some people call it mop. According to where you're from, I guess. Give me your descriptions of the different sauces, the different sauce categories. Wow, different sauce categories I've heard of. Vinegar base, pepper, tomato, I've heard molasses. And of course mustard. And the main thing that we've only known in this area is vinegar and pepper base. Is that sometimes considered, is that called Eastern Carolina? Eastern Carolina. From Columbia, which is Midlands West, everybody is considered to use mostly mustard base sauces. And obviously you like this the best. I like the vinegar the best. I notice it's a little sweet, right? Just a little bit, just a little bit. Enough to know that there's a little sweetness there, but not too much to where you have to visit your local dentist when you're done. So you're actually breaking things up a little bit? I like to break it up to make sure all the whole hog is covered with sauce. All the sauce and the juices get through. So while you're baking the skins, all the flavor is still trapped right in and everything is getting seasoned. So when you pull it, you have everything you need. What's your typical day for you running Scott's Barbecue? Typical day, I wake up, get dressed, go get some breakfast. Come to work and I'll flip my hogs over because they're roasted all night. I have a couple guys here all night and I start seasoning the first two hogs to come off around opening time 9.30. And then I'll have some more coming off around noon. And the last batch will probably come off around 3 so that we'll have whole hogs hot all day. So we stage them out to make sure the meat stays hot and moist all day long. Where does it go from here? Right here we'll take it, we'll add a little bit more seasoning to this and we'll take this and pull it, put it in pans, portion it up and serve it. And you're pulling it all by hand? All is pulled by hand. That's why we like to keep it tender, moist and juicy so you can just grab it with no problem. Now you've done this forever, what are you looking for at the very end? Is there something with the texture or is it the skin? There's a little texture on top with the meat that we watch for. As far as seasonings, we want this part right here. We want that to have seasonings on it's sauce. We want it to be covered, flavored so it'll look like such. And on the bottom, the skins, they crisp up and once we get those nice and crispy, we break that off and we'll sell that as well. So if someone says they want ribs, they're getting ribs. They're getting ribs right out of the whole animal, everything's right in there. What's going on in the middle of the night here? In the middle of the night, a lot of storytelling. But the hogs are cooking? The hogs are cooking slow. They go on evening time, early evening, around five, four to five o'clock. We get a delivery, we put them on and we start slow roasting them from then on until the next day. So then the fire has to be built before that, so I guess this process never stops? Never stops. We light the fire on Tuesday nights for Wednesday service and the fire burns from Tuesday until Saturday night. Look at that burn barrel. The wood is definitely something that keeps the operation at Scott's Bar with you fueled. But there is one big thing that fuels Rodney Scott's spirits. What keeps you going every day? Music. Music, motivation, that new person that shows up and want to taste what we got and see how they like it. Hopefully satisfied. Which on your playlist? My play list is everything from Chitlin Circuit to R&B to Country, Little Jazz. Most of the time I'm playing a lot of R&B, old school hip hop, you know, upbeat music. Favorites, favorite tracks? Man, favorite tracks are Best of Me by Anthony Hamilton. It's one of my favorites. Don't Make Me Big by Tucker. OPP, Naughty by Nature. If it goes, it goes all over. In general, what's the key to making this incredible? The key to making barbecue incredible? My opinion is love. You put a lot of love in it, a lot of time and effort. And you're pretty much sure to get the same response back. It's not easy, but that's the main ingredient as far as I'm concerned is the hard work, the effort, the love for the whole thing. Hemingway, South Carolina, the epicenter of the barbecue world, and now Scott has taken his operation a little further to the coast to open a new place on Charleston's historic King Street with the addition of live music too. It's sure to fuel another tradition of whole hog barbecue success. You can find out more about Rodney. We did an extended podcast interview with him. Also there at the website, the free sauces and sides book that we have. And finally, a full chapter dedicated more to that interview is in the book, The Barbecue Blueprint on Amazon. Or just check it all out at www.barbecutricks.com.